Mindfulness  ·  Video

Getting to acceptance – silent acknowledgment

01/07/2021

We know acceptance is good for our mental health, for our general emotional well-being and for our long-term relationships. But how do you get to acceptance?

Stages of acceptance

Acceptance can include stages such as:

  • Acknowledging something has happened while complaining internally in your mind about it. This reaction is natural and possibly even helpful at first but after a time it can keep much of the stress of the event alive.

  • Acknowledging that something has happened but silently, without getting into a dialogue or speechifying about it in your head. This allows the memory of the event to fade its own time. But it does so without you prolonging your stress.

Physical/Emotional memory

The emotional memory of an event, even when accepted, may still hurt or make you sad.

We often feel emotions physically (in the stomach area for instance or around the heart, chest or throat). Neurons in the stomach and heart communicate with, among other places, the emotional centre of the brain.

What you can do is to acknowledge and feel the physical feeling just on its own while not talking to yourself about it. After a time, the feeling fades.

Acceptance is often an act of self compassion and you can learn more in the True Friend online course in Self compassion which is a donation event in which you pay a price you set yourself. More information

Image by Scott Kelly, Unsplash

More: Moving forward with acceptance


Padraig O'Morain

I have practised mindfulness since the late 1980s, have taught mindfulness throughout Ireland and in London, have demonstrated mindfulness on ITV, RTE and TV3 and have had books on mindfulness published in several countries and languages. I provide public and corporate courses. My latest book is "Daily Calm - 100 daily reminders to help you build the mindfulness habit." My aim is to make mindfulness easily accessible to people in their everyday lives.