Repeat After Me: I Accept Reality

Accept Reality?

You’re stressed. I know without you even saying it. How? Because that is everyone’s answer to, “How are you?” All day long. And, frankly, I’m tired of hearing about it. Stress has become a badge of honor. We LOVE to be stressed. It makes us feel vital, alive and needed. Right up until it sucks.

You didn’t backspace to another article. You may be ready to finally shake those old scripts your parents and your teachers put into place and start to think for yourself. It’s about time too.

Maybe you find my tone refreshing…or maybe you are insulted and continuing to read so that you can prove my advice to you as incorrect, and therefore, make me wrong. Either way, you are judging the situation.

In the first scenario, you’ve decided you like me. In the second, you don’t. But these are words on a page. They are objective pieces of black and white text put in a certain order and are as various and changeable as the number of people who read them. Someone in a good mood will get one impression from this article; someone having a bad day will get a completely different impression.

And that’s true for every single thing you observe. You (and I) make decisions about objective data that constantly put us in the state of acceptance or the state of resistance. That latter state—that’s the one that is the problem. That’s the state of stress.

Ask yourself these questions about your own take on reality:

• Is it true that you aren’t really trying or helping if you aren’t stressed?
• Can you be of use if you give just a little and remain calm?
• Do you believe we will judge you if you aren’t trying hard?
• Are you judging ME for suggesting you give without hurting yourself in the process?

You will forever be stressed unless you do one thing, constantly, every day: accept reality. Are you now thinking something like: “But if I accept my boss just like he/she is, then they will run over me”; “The oil spill! I can’t accept such a tragedy…that’s irresponsible!” ; My children…I must tell them how to live, how to act, how to be in this world!”?

In the famous words of Dr. Phil: How’s that workin’ for ya?

When I tell you to accept EVERYTHING that is happening to you, that’s exactly what I mean. Not the little things; not the stuff you like; but ALL of it. And this is never the same thing as giving up or being apathetic. That’s just something you say to yourself to keep you from moving to a more effective and worthwhile place mentally. You are resisting your resistance. Kind of funny, when it’s put that way, isn’t it?

Your Options: Accept Reality or Experience Stress

Reality or Life or Nature or the Universe…God. It’s all the same thing. And It’s in charge. You are not. The sooner you get your stressed-out mind around THAT, the sooner you will know a calm that will rival any Zen Master.

To resist what is happening is not only ineffective, it’s pure arrogance. Who are YOU to resist what is happening? A traffic jam ahead? Your boss didn’t say thank you? Is it too hot/cold? How many thoughts a day do you have like this? Hundreds? And have you found that your resistance to a thing, a traffic jam for instance, has changed that thing? Has the traffic started moving because you raged and pounded on your steering wheel? How many more times will you try that technique before you try another way?

It’s actually none of my business. It’s not my world to try and control and steer to my preference. I can’t bend reality to my desire. I can only act when I feel motivated to do so, with no expectation of how it SHOULD turn out. And I am rarely stressed.

In fact, I am stressed about 10-20% of the time. You may be thinking, “Well, shouldn’t the owner of a stress management website NEVER experience stress?” I supposed that’s about as reasonable as asking a doctor how come he/she gets sick.

But if 10-20% sounds good to you, then simply hear what I do to make that true and you can take it or leave it: I accept what is happening. I accept it all. The good, the “bad”, the traffic jam. I notice that whether I agree with what is happening—or whether I rage against it—what is…is. And I don’t get a say in it. All I get is my acceptance or my resistance.

Why not try it? Your way isn’t working anyway. How do I know? Because I lived that way for years. Once in a while something DID shift, and it seemed like maybe I had a hand in it, but I think you are sensing the truth of what I am saying here. I think you’ve read this far into this article, because you are tired of fighting the world in hopes of a small, occasional shift that may or may not have been your doing.

Try to not resist for an hour. Then try it for a day. When you find you start to resist the world again, don’t judge yourself, don’t be angered by the natural tendency that was taught to you for many, many years. Just notice it, and gently put yourself back into accepting whatever is happening.

Act only when you feel absolutely wonderful. Act when you are feeling peaceful and contented. Let everyone and everything unfold otherwise. Get out of the way and see how the day turns out pretty much the same way it does every day. With or without your approval.

There really is no other sane option.

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