Unlocking Acceptance

In this talk and guided practice with Ron, it's discussed how we hear a lot about acceptance and letting things go. We hear a lot less about HOW to actually do it effectively, and our efforts often leave us feeling like we're banging our heads against a wall. Instead of freeing us, "acceptance" and "letting go" end up on that big pile of things we figure we'll sort out ... some day. My entire relationship -- and skill! -- with these concepts changed suddenly and dramatically several years ago. The surprising insights that led to this transformation are the focus of this talk and guided meditation. I've received wonderful feedback when presenting this topic at events in person; with love and gratitude, I now share this with the Insight Timer community so my fellow practitioners around the world might experience a deep inner shift as well.

Transcript

Hi,

This is Ron Levine from Mindfulness in Blue Jeans,

And this talk in Guided Meditation is called Unlocking Acceptance.

I want you to imagine for a moment that there's somebody nearby who's extremely angry,

And they are acting out that anger,

And I'd like you to picture what you think might happen if you went up to them and told them to calm down.

I'm guessing that whatever you're picturing isn't ending well.

Let's come back to that in a moment.

There's a Buddhist sutra that's very appropriate for this topic and some of the things that I've learned about it over the years.

I'd like to share that.

It says,

No mother nor father nor any other kin can do greater good for oneself than a mind directed well.

And this really resonates with me and aligns with some significant insights that I had about acceptance a number of years ago.

I had experienced a very sudden and profound betrayal,

Which resulted in a large material loss in addition to the psychological and emotional pain.

After the initial shock,

I found myself trying to accept this situation.

I spent several weeks trying to achieve a state of acceptance,

And I found myself running in circles.

I kept trying to accept what had happened.

I was trying all sorts of techniques,

Some of which are probably very familiar,

Things like rationalization,

And even falling into the trap of trying to use my meditation practice as a way of accelerating the process of getting to a state of acceptance.

Over the course of my practice,

The time finally came when I was able to see more clearly what it was that I was doing and how it was not working.

And I stepped back a bit and thought to myself,

What am I actually trying to do here?

Maybe I need to step outside of this a bit.

And I thought to myself,

Here I am trying to achieve this state.

But have I even thought about what it is?

What is it that I'm trying to do?

What is acceptance?

And the more I thought about it,

The more I realized there was really only one way I could define acceptance.

Acceptance was nothing more than the lack of resistance.

Acceptance isn't a state that you achieve.

Acceptance is the default.

Acceptance is what's left when there's no resistance.

And then things started to shift.

I realized I'd been focusing on the wrong area.

It just didn't make any sense to focus on acceptance.

Acceptance is always there and it will always be there.

What made sense was to focus on the resistance.

Attempting to achieve acceptance by bypassing resistance is resisting resistance.

How can you possibly accept this thing that you're trying to accept if you can't even accept your resistance to it?

Resistance plus resistance can't possibly equal acceptance.

A mind directed well is focused on the resistance.

Forget acceptance.

We don't have a choice about when acceptance happens.

We can only set the conditions for it.

How do we do that?

Resistance comes from a place of fear.

We're interpreting this situation that we're having trouble accepting as being a threat.

It triggers thoughts like,

Am I okay?

Will I be okay?

This is putting me in danger.

I am threatened because of this.

If we dig deeply enough into the resistance,

Almost invariably,

We're going to find some flavor of that.

And this is universal.

We as humans inherited this from our ancestors.

The ones who are most concerned about the proverbial saber-toothed tiger are the ones who survived.

And we have inherited this trait of being hypersensitive to potential threats.

This allowed us to survive over millennia,

But sometimes goes a little bit overboard in today's society where most of us are not threatened by a saber-toothed tiger around the corner.

But the origin and the intent are the same.

These internal feelings and messages are trying to help.

They're trying to keep us safe.

Our natural inclination is to try to shut that voice out.

It can be painful,

It can be scary,

It can be downright uncomfortable.

So of course we want to achieve acceptance as fast as possible.

On top of that,

We get all these messages from society on a regular basis about letting things go,

The virtue of acceptance,

Some more passive-aggressive variations of the same idea like,

Get over it.

So internally and externally,

We're receiving these messages and have these motivations to try to go straight to acceptance when what we really need to do is stay with the resistance and listen to what it's trying to tell us.

When we don't listen to it,

It just gets louder.

Think back to the very angry person I talked about at the beginning,

And instead of going up to them and saying calm down,

We said,

Wow,

If you are this angry there must be something significant happening.

Can you tell me what's going on?

And if we give them the space to express their experience and we listen,

The anger can only dissipate.

It cannot sustain itself.

Now before we practice,

I want to mention one other significant aspect of this process.

We're not just focusing on the wrong area when we focus on acceptance instead of resistance.

We're also focusing on the wrong direction.

When we push against something or someone,

They push back.

Going up to the angry person and telling them to calm down,

Even if it's well intentioned,

Is pushing against them.

And you can imagine the pushback that you'd receive.

And the harder you push,

The harder the pushback.

The way that I like to picture the acceptance process is of a sphere filled with acceptance.

And within that sphere,

There is a smaller sphere in the middle of it,

Which is filled with resistance.

And in the center of the resistance sphere is us.

So we have us.

We're inside of a sphere of resistance.

And that is inside of a sphere of acceptance.

What we typically do is try to get through the resistance as quickly as possible so that we can get to the acceptance.

And we start pushing and banging against the walls of the resistance sphere.

But that pushing and banging causes pushback.

They start solidifying in response to our aggression against them.

The harder we bang against them,

The stronger they become.

But the fact of the matter is we don't have to go anywhere.

If we simply sit there with the resistance as it is instead of trying to change it or break it or get through it.

Just like the angry person who had been listened to,

The resistance is not self-sustaining.

Once we stop solidifying it with our resistance to that resistance,

Then the gaps and the cracks appear and the acceptance that is everywhere around it can finally begin to make its way through to us.

Acceptance is not a place that we go to.

Acceptance will find us when we are ready to receive it.

And we will be ready to receive it once we have listened to everything our resistance has to say.

What I have found is that the very best way to reach acceptance is to simply forget about acceptance.

One thing I do want to make sure to make clear is that what we're discussing here is unskillful resistance.

The kind of resistance that makes us feel like we are in a fight with ourselves.

There are absolutely times when forms of resistance are appropriate.

If there are situations in which someone is being harmed,

Then the practice is to see that clearly and make appropriate changes.

The practice of acceptance is not passively accepting any situation to the point where we find ourselves trying to rationalize an abusive situation.

There is a world of difference between accepting something as being okay and accepting that something simply is.

So if we truly want to practice acceptance,

We need to really sit and listen to the resistance in the mind and the body.

So let's start there.

As always,

This is best practiced in a quiet area where you won't be disturbed,

But mindfulness meditation is an active practice.

It's meant to be used off the cushion in our daily lives.

So if you find yourself listening to this on a train,

Waiting in line somewhere,

That's fine too.

If you are seated,

Make sure your hips are elevated higher than your knees,

And you might imagine that you are being suspended from the ceiling by a string attached to the top of your head.

Our back is straight,

Shoulders not hunched,

And any part of our body that isn't holding us up can relax.

If those areas aren't relaxing,

That's fine too,

We just notice that.

You may be feeling resistance in your body already just trying to sit comfortably.

And it's very common to resist that resistance and attempt to relax.

We can't force relaxation any more than we can force acceptance.

So if you're feeling resistance already,

We've got a lot to work with,

Which is great.

Take notice if there's any tension in your shoulders or your jaw,

Your stomach.

Let's do a quick scan and see where there are any pockets of tension in the body without trying to change them.

Let's take a moment and see what's there.

Come on.

You you you find one part of the body where you are either feeling the most tension or any other area where you're feeling your attention being drawn to for whatever reason take a moment and focus on that area look at it exactly as it is nothing needs to be changed if you have a feeling like you want to change it it's not right it's not comfortable as long as it's not causing actual pain just observe that what is it like how does it feel what does it do and how does it change if we're not trying to interfere with it or resist it in any way you you you you now still without trying to make any changes let's shift our focus to the breath you may notice as soon as you start focusing on the breath that you begin to try to change it that's extremely common and in fact it's very very difficult to observe the breath without interfering with it breath meditation is a fantastic way to observe our resistance notice the quality of the breathing it might be long short deep shallow calm agitated it might feel good it might not maybe you're thinking oh if I was using a real meditative breath it should be this way whatever breath we have if we're watching it that's our meditative breath let's watch the breathing for the next couple of minutes see how it feels watch our reactions to how it feels and if we find ourselves not even just judging the breathing but then judging ourselves for judging the breathing we just watch that that is all part of the process observing that process is our practice you you you you you now you may be noticing a lot of thoughts coming up you may have lost the breath a few times it's very common for us to think that in our meditation session our mind should be clear we shouldn't have any thoughts thinking is what our mind does we can't turn that off that kind of thinking gives rise to a lot of resistance and trying to resist our own mind is simply another thought about trying to resist other thoughts when thoughts come up notice that they've come up notice if you've judged yourself for them coming up and come back to the breath it will happen over and over again that doesn't mean that you're not doing the practice properly that is the practice you you you you you now I invite you to take notice of this space that you're in a place where we can allow our resistance to express itself and simply say what it has to say it's allowed to have a seat at the table we don't always have to do exactly what it says it's not always being rational but we can absolutely always listen to what it has to say and as we continue our practice we can more quickly and easily access this place and more easily discern skillful resistance from unskillful resistance and then base our responses instead of our reactions on that clear seeing you you as we conclude I'd like to make one last distinction and that's about this concept of being nice versus being kind it sounds very nice to say I've accepted this I've reached acceptance this is okay I'm fine with this but what's nice isn't always what's kind nice isn't always appropriate nice in this case is really trying to bypass resistance what is kind is to give space to the pain the fear to listen so the true acceptance can find us I invite you to be kind to yourself this is Ron from mindfulness in blue jeans and thank you for sitting with me

Reviews

I'd like to thank you for acknowledging how challenging it can be to observe the breath without trying to control it. I feel like most guided meditations include this and I thought I was too anxious, or there was something wrong with me, for not being able to simply observe it. Instead I observe sounds or body sensations which I really can't control. You've made me feel seen and inspired me to try observing the breath again sometime, and being ok with it being difficult

I'll be coming back to this one many times
Thank you

This was very helpful, thank you.
The metaphor of the circles, us, resistance, acceptance and us pushing against resistance was kind of an eye opener. Thanks a lot 🙏

This gave me such a good insight into acceptance. Accepting the resistance was a real light bulb moment. I'll be doing this practice again. Thank you.

Totally get it. Practice acceptance for what is. The path of least resistance requires less effort.

Highly illuminating! This left me with lots of new curiosities and wisdom. I will definitely be returning to this highly beneficial material ✨🌻🪷 Thank you so much!

Thanks for this. Sitting with discomfort in order to move past it and reach acceptance is something I’ve been paying attention to this last few years. I’ve finally found the approach that fits for me. Much appreciated 🙏🕊️

Great words of deeper understanding! Thank you Ron!

Awesome! I think it even helps me with my guilt when my meditation practice does not come up as expected. Thank you very much. Namaste 🙏🏽

Thank you for ur kindness 🤸🏿‍♂️🤸🏿‍♂️🤸🏿‍♂️🌻🙏🏾

I found the intro and exit music to be distracting, but the overall message was really valuable.

It was really one of the most significant meditation I did! Thank you for your guidance 🙏🏻

Fantastic meditation Ron! It went into so many things that I see in myself when I do my own practice and in daily life. Thanks again 🙏

Thank you for this! It’s an incredibly helpful way to shift perspective from something nebulous like “acceptance” to something palpable like “resistance.”

Wow Ron, how fantastic! 🙌🏼💚

Thank you for both the talk and the practice.
Extremely helpful and easy to digest.
Looking forward to more.

Thank you 🙏🏽 for the guidance.
It takes sitting and observation to see clearly.

Excellent talk and meditation. I was looking for a meditation on acceptance. The current political climate has been difficult. This talk and meditation put it in a whole new light with the emphasis on my own resistance. Thank you so much.

Thanks so much again Ron!

This talk came into my life in the right moment. Thank you for sharing this words. 🙏