Expanding toleration of what we don’t like – a key mindfulness skill

One of the points I emphasise in my book Acceptance is the value of being able to accept that the world is not going to act in accordance with our wishes all the time. Other people are not always going to have opinions that we agree with.

I think that’s important because I feel that we’re living in a world in which we’re becoming less tolerant of  different opinions, for instance, or of behaving in different ways.

Expanding toleration

I make a point in the book, drawing on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, that expanding the range of experiences we can tolerate is an important life skill.

In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, acceptance is defined as “expansion.”

What this means is that we can learn to tolerate a wider range of experiences, through mindful acceptance. We learn to expand our world, so to speak, to allow more experiences into it, instead of pushing them away.

Making life harder

I think that the less we are able to accept the reality of this strange and often frustrating world that we live in, the harder we are going to find life.

This doesn’t mean that we have to lie down under everything that happens to us. But what it does mean is wisely choosing your battles. And also asking, well, is this thing that I’m getting worked up about something I could just accept and not get worked up about? Could I save my energy for something that’s worth it?

In this very strange, often ramshackle world, acceptance of what we don’t like can often be a virtue.

Mindfulness emphasises the importance of Acceptance – take a look at my  Easy Mindfulness  online course which has 15 lessons you can do whenever you like.