honestly, acceptance has to be one of the most challenging things to master in life. i can say this because i have consciously been working with it over the past year. and unconsciously - and totally floundering with it - my whole life.
acceptance doesn't mean that we sit still and let others walk all over us. or that we resign ourselves to our problems and troubles. it simply means allowing ourselves to experience settling into a place of comfort, while we are hurt or struggling or feeling threatened. accept that we are here. accept the pain. sometimes the mere recognition is enough to banish the pain, the suffering, the threat. it's only then that we come to realise - through experience, not intellect - that pain is all in our mind, anyway.
in today's world we develop solutions to to immediately alter reality at the first hint of pain. those that accept are often regarded as being weak. they may very well be the strongest of us all.
take a look at this 108-year-old woman who survived a nazi concentration camp. she learned to accept her circumstances and lives her life much more happily than most people on the planet.
