Accepting gifts, either goods or services, kind words or even lessons is about taking them and making them our own. To accept in this way, we may say words of thanks or demonstrate our gratitude. Here, acceptance is appropriation.
When we accept change, we are not necessarily making it our own, we are simply allowing it to no longer affect us negatively. We may accept that things are different by conforming to the new paradigm or reality, or we might compensate by in turn changing something within ourselves or our environment. In this case it is about going with the flow.
Accepting our mistakes is a tough one. We may demonstrate our learning by behaving differently or owning up to them to others. We may simply label mistakes as "mistakes" and move on, or sometimes we are called to apologize to others or seek forgiveness from the Divine. To accept our mistakes, we sometimes need to take a reality check, put aside our biases and influences and get the facts. In this case, acceptance is about seeing something for what it is and moving forward.
To accept our trauma is an entirely different form again. We may come to terms with it in different ways. Accepting trauma does not mean that what happened is "okay", or that we should be "okay with it". It is not about forgiving or forgetting. Accepting the hard knocks that are inflicted by others or situations life throws at us is a struggle for many because there is so much confusion about what "acceptance" means. To accept hurtful memories or painful thoughts and emotions brought on by our trauma, we might meditate, practice mindfulness, become engaged in diversions that bring us pleasure, or other immersive experiences that draw us out of our gloom. This kind of acceptance can be about growing in a new direction, harnessing the power of finding strength in vulnerability, and learning to protect oneself, to self-parent, to care and respect and be responsible for oneself and to find support. Acceptance is the end of a grieving process in this case. It's a journey through denial, anger, and many other phases that brings us to a place where we can overcome the harm that has been done. It's about finding independence and taking control when it is needed. Acceptance here is a commitment to live life to the fullest despite the hardships we face. It is letting go of the past, finding courage for the future and living in the present.
Accepting differences of opinion is embracing diversity. It is about celebration. It is about being confident in one's own truth and humbly allowing others to find comfort in their own. To accept difference, we may seek to learn about it, we may quietly go about our business and leave others in peace with their own, or we may take other paths to living in harmony with others. We accept others when we accept ourselves for who we are, knowing ourselves inside and out, and not being afraid to think and to question our identity concepts. Accepting diversity is often called pride, and with good reason. If we are proud of who we are and what we stand for, we know that no differences that others may bring forward can threaten our integrity. This kind of acceptance is about living ethically, making educated choices and informed decisions. It is no longer about right and wrong or true and false, but rather a matter of finding comfort in agreeing to disagree.
So what does this mean for the spiritual being? Appropriation, going with the flow, getting the facts and moving forward, staying in the present, and living in harmony all have something in common. The thread that runs through them all is resilience. The ability to bounce back from the emotions we experience, whether positive or negative and to stay integrated with the world around us.
Appropriating something in spiritual discourse can often mean taking something that is not originally one's own and fitting it into a personal belief system or practice. If we think of all gifts this way, what comes of it? For me, it means that by accepting a compliment, I take it into my self image, which is a belief system. By accepting jewelry, flowers or chocolates, I take them into my experience, and I honour the gifts (by wearing, displaying or consuming them), which is a form of practice. If I were to accept a lesson, I would accept it into my consciousness and let it settle into my belief system, not necessarily as a belief, but as a way of strengthening and challenging my concepts of the world I live in. I might also pass on the lesson, adding to the practice of storytelling or the oral tradition amongst my peers. In this way, all gifts can take on a spiritual dimension. This makes us resilient when we need the strength to carry on, because we have taken in and carry with us the blessings of others.
Going with the flow is reminiscent of Taoism, for me. The Tao is difficult to describe because of it's surreality as a numinous essence of being. In plain language, it is the uncanny, unexplainable basic stuff that is everything. To flow with the Tao is to move gracefully through life, dancing around obstacles like water down a rocky river bed. It has been said by psychologist Carl Jung that what we resist, persists; although that is not true in all cases, we can definitely leave things behind by working with the natural progression of change. With patience and stillness, we can find our way through difficulty more easily than by force. This makes us resilient, not because we become passive to life but on the contrary, because we have the wisdom to see that nothing is permanent but the highest level of reality, in which we all dwell. Once we see that all things begin end end in cycles, we can navigate through hardship with vision.
Doing your research in order to make progress is a scientific and academic position, traditionally. But it does have a spiritual dimension. It's about being immersed in experience and evidence, reveling in creation and possibility unfolding. Unverified Personal Gnosis is a term used to describe the spiritual insights that people have about the divine. It is not only for mystics on mountains. Ordinary people also have spiritual experiences that are not shared by their tradition or faith group. These often get discounted as inaccurate or false, however, when we check the facts and move forward with our conclusions, sometimes we learn new things about ourselves and our universe. Reality checks give us the strength to come to our own conclusions and to seek out others who have discovered the same. It makes us more resilient because we no longer rely on the intense emotions and false intuitions that we are conditioned to experience. Instead, we can recover more quickly from stumbling blocks because we have knowledge and with knowledge, power to act on it. We are no longer stuck in a rut when we are informed.
Being fully present follows this stream of thought. When we are sitting with and celebrating what can be observed and experienced and being mindful of each and every sensation and observation instead of taking them for granted, we are also doing spiritual work. It speaks to resilience because in order to come away from an intense experience, we may want to focus on the now. New Age thinker Eckhart Tolle speaks about the power of Now in several publications. We are not often awake and aware with the world around us in my culture. When we can be, just Be, we can access a depth of resilience greater than we thought possible, because no matter what is going on, not only do we exist but we exist in an environment that we participate in through that existence. To make it clearer, we are more resilient when fully present because of the power everything else in time and space has nothing on our power to persist.
Finally, to live in harmony gives us the great gift of resilience by treating us to the kindness, respect, honesty and peace that many yearn for. We are invited to create ourselves in the image of our highest ideals or our darkest folly. Because of this free will, or perhaps because of this divine plan for us, (depending on your differing beliefs, which I accept!) I feel that we may come to a certain knowledge of freedom that gives us permission to recover, uncover, and discover our true path and true meaning for our lives. And with this treasure, we are blessed to be able to both accept and pass on these gifts to others. Like love, acceptance is a commodity that grows with the giving. When we create a culture of tolerance for others, we create a culture of tolerance for ourselves, a place where we can make mistakes and be forgiven, a place where we can succeed beyond our wildest fantasies and be celebrated, no matter where we come from or where we intend to go. In this way, harmony gives us resilience because we have the comfort of knowing that it is not in vain to try again.
Acceptance, although it means many things in many contexts, is a simple tool to gaining the resilience we need to live healthy, satisfying, engaged lives, regardless of our beliefs and practices or lack thereof. If we can all practice a little more acceptance in our daily lives, the stress, worry, boredom and uncertainty of day to day living become an excitement for the future, an honouring of the past and a celebration of the present.