Creating a Better Life

Acceptance - The Answer to All of our Problems?

And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing or situation - some fact of my life - unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing happens in God’s world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life’s terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and my attitudes. — Alcoholics Anonymous; Fourth Edition; pg. 417

The above passage is one that is often brought up in AA meetings. While I think that it contains some real truth, I don’t agree that it’s the answer to all of our problems.

But it’s always where the answer begins.

According to Wikipedia:

A problem is an obstacle which makes it difficult to achieve a desired goal, objective or purpose. It refers to a situation, condition, or issue that is yet unresolved. In a broad sense, a problem exists when an individual becomes aware of a significant difference between what actually is and what is desired. [source]

“A problem exists when an individual becomes aware of a significant difference between what actually is and what is actually desired.”

Acceptance is the first step to solving our problems. Without acceptance, we have denial… and we never become aware of our problems, or fool ourselves into believing they don’t exist.

The first step in personal development is looking at your life. If you aren’t honest about what you see (if you don’t accept it as it is), you won’t be able to do anything about it.

For me, acceptance is the beginning of solving my problems, but not the final answer. There is much more to it than that.

EFT, The Law of Attraction, and Alcoholics Anonymous

“This isn’t about denial. This is about choosing your focus.” - Your Vibration Always Comes First by Carol Look

I love it when various aspects of personal development that I’ve studied come together into a cohesive whole. Much like the little discussion that we had going on in the We Are All One Elephant article, various disciplines usually have more in common than it seems on the surface.

One of the reasons that it jazzes me so much when I see these connections is because I spent so long trying to figure out just who was “right”. When I considered myself a Christian, everything those Muslims said just had to be wrong. If I’m a member of A.A., then don’t even talk to me about SMART Recovery. If I’ve got on my atheist hat, don’t you DARE even try mentioning God to me. (If you care, I still consider myself a “Spiritual Atheist.”)

Living that way, while safe and comfortable in the little box that I’d made for myself, really did some damage to my own personal growth. It wasn’t necessarily that I thought I was right and everyone else was wrong - it was usually the result of my listening to some guru that I decided was smarter and more connected that I was.

I wasn’t following my own inner guidance.

One of the connections I’ve been making lately is just how many traditions and disciplines talk about the necessity of taking care of ourselves first.

I especially think of Alcoholics Anonymous when it comes to helping ourselves before we can help others.

The main theory behind the behavoir of an alcoholic that is proposed by the “Big Book” is that alcoholics are extremely selfish people. Not a stretch, I know…

“Selfishness - self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. …

“So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. They arise out of ourselves, and the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he usually doesn’t think so.”

Alcoholics Anonymous, Fourth Edition, pg. 62

Law of Attraction, anyone? It may not be Radical Responsibility, but it’s a strong statement of recognition that I am the #1 cause what happens in my life.

But how does that relate to taking care of ourselves first?

Let’s look at another book published by A.A.:

“But in A.A. we slowly learned that something had to be done about our vengeful resentments, self-pity, and unwarranted pride… We learned that if we were seriously disturbed, our first need was to quiet that disturbance, regardless of who or what we thought caused it.” — Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, pg. 47.

Our first need is to quiet the disturbance, regardless of who or what we thought caused it.

Not hide it, plastering a smile on our face and repeating affirmations that all is well.

Not act out on it, throwing temper tantrums and causing distress to those around us.

Quiet the disturbance, regardless of who or what we thought caused it.

That’s where EFT comes in. With it, we don’t deny the problem… we actually focus on it, with the intent to quiet the the disturbance within ourselves - we aren’t trying to change or control anyone else.

In the article that I quoted earlier, Carol Look uses the word “vibration” to describe our emotional state. That may be a little new-agey or woo-woo for some people. I’d encourage you to try it anyway, and call it whatever you want. The words do not matter - it’s the concepts behind them that hold all the weight.

EFT doesn’t ask that you believe anything. It just asks that you try it consistently, and judge the results for yourself.

Whether you “believe in” the Law of Attraction or not really doesn’t matter either. Believers say that you’re always experiencing it anyway. Non-believers will always find another reason, even if that reason is “stuff happens.” I happen to fall in with the believers camp - but I really don’t care if you do or not.

Just accept responsiblity for your own life, to whatever degree you feel you can. You don’t have to start with Radical Responsibility, but you can begin to watch your own thoughts and your own life, and see how the two are connected.

Because they are.

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Is this a dirty word to you?

If you are a regular reader of this site, you know that over the past few months I’ve become a big fan of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.

While I’m not so sure about the channeling (I figure it’s possible) and I often have a hard time referring to a human female (Esther Hicks) as “Abraham” (but I’ll call her what she/he/they/it wants to be called), I can’t deny the good that comes out of her mouth.

Combine this with the kindness and lack of dogmatic thinking of the people I’ve met who also follow the Abraham teachings (especially Vickie of Contemplate This and Pamm of My Secret Spiritual Dance), and it looks to me like the majority of the fruit that is being produced by this particular tree is good.

I’m subscribed to the Abraham-Hicks daily quote, and sometimes I get something that really challenges my thinking, like the following that came in yesterday (Sunday, July 8, 2007):

“You’ve trained yourself to face reality. You’ve trained yourself to tell the truth. You’ve trained yourself to tell it like it is. So in the beginning, these fantasies feel a little inappropriate, because it’s like you’re fooling yourself. Sometimes people will say, “Well, isn’t this just denial?” And we say, we hope so! We hope that you are denying the absence that you do not want [emphasis mine]. And we hope that you are embracing the presence of what you do. But somehow the idea of denial has become a dirty word to you; like it is virtuous to face the reality of the horror of your own lives. And we would be ignoring anything that did not please us. We would get our eyes on what feels good.”

Excerpted from the workshop in San Rafael, CA on Friday, March 9th, 2001

Denial has become a dirty word for me. Since my beginnings in personal development centered around 12 Step programs - mainly Alcoholics Anonymous (some of which I still use, some I’ve left behind) - I immediately associate denial with a person saying “I don’t have a problem” when they obviously do - in other words, not being able to (or not wanting to) see what is really going on around them. So when I read things like “We hope you are denying the absence that you do not want”, red flags fly up all over the place.

But wait… read that again.

“We hope that you are denying the absence that you do not want.”

It’s not about denying the presence of something we don’t want (poor health, financial scarcity, a destructive addiction), it’s about denying the absence of what we do not want.

There’s an important distinction there (and some wacky use of the English language). I think that is why I’ve taken to them (him, her, it?) so well. They don’t encourage us to yell “Did Not!” or “Nu-Uh!” to what we’ve created up to this point, but rather to stop focusing on it, and to shift our focus to what we do want.

Now that’s something I can accept. “OK, it’s there. Now what do I want?”

One of my favorite Abraham quotes is still “We don’t encourage you to see that your gas gauge is on empty and to stick a smiley face over it.”

I appreciate hearing your own thoughts on this. Thanks!

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[This article was included in two blog carnivals - The Personal Development Carnival - July 15th, 2007 and Live the Power Unlimited Volume 2]