“Never underestimate your power to change yourself; never overestimate your power to change others.”
-H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
The skill of Mindful Acceptance can best be described as the Art of Letting Go. Once you have done everything in your power to solve a problem, you have done all you can, so at that point worry and stress is counterproductive.
Note that letting go of the stress and anxiety doesn’t necessarily mean letting go of the problem itself. For example, suppose you have a car payment coming up, and you don’t have the money to pay it. This would naturally cause you anxiety. If, after brainstorming for solutions, you find that you still don’t have the money to pay the car payment, then at that point you’ve done all you can do.
At that point, you let go of the anxiety associated with the problem. That doesn’t mean that you let go of car payments. You’ll make the payment when you can. In this case, letting go just means that you won’t worry about not making the payment. The energy you might have used worrying about the situation could be put to better use in trying to come up with solutions.
Let’s try another example, this one a bit tougher. Imagine you’re in a relationship. You feel that your partner doesn’t spend enough time with you. You offer suggestions on activities you can do together, only to be met with a blank stare or excuses about why your partner doesn’t have the time to participate in an activity with you. Once you’ve done everything you can do to persuade your partner to spend more time with you, if you still aren’t getting the results you want, it’s time to practice letting go.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that you ‘let go’ of your partner. It just means that you let go of the anxiety associated with the problem. Once you let go of that anxiety, you may find that your partner will actually want to spend more time with you, because you are less stressed-out. But even if this is not the case, you’ve let go of the stress associated with an unresponsive partner.
Mindful Acceptance is observing and describing the thoughts and feelings that cause you anxiety, worry, or stress in the present moment. As you examine these thoughts and feelings by focusing on them one at a time, ask yourself which of these thoughts and feelings concern things you have the power to change. Make a conscious decision to focus your energy only on those things in your life that you have the power to change. If you focus on those things that you cannot change, you are not using your energy to change the things that you can.
Decide right now that you will not feed your negative thoughts and feelings by giving in to them. If you give in to those automatic thought and feeling processes by lending mental energy to them, you are engaging in a ruminating cycle. Realize that it is natural to have negative thoughts and feelings, but having them does not mean that they have to control your life. Learn trust your own inner wisdom. While negative ruminating cycles may come, you do not have to let them rule your life.
Another key to Mindful Acceptance is in understanding that anxiety has a useful purpose. It is nature’s way of letting us know that there is something wrong. Your anxiety protects you from harm, but sometimes it may do its job too well. Ask your anxiety if it is trying to protect you from something that you cannot change. Picture yourself thanking your anxiety for protecting you, and say to your anxiety, “I am now using my own inner wisdom to make positive choices in my life.”
Mindful Acceptance teaches us that each mistake is an opportunity for growth. Each mistake contains a lesson. If you never made a mistake, you would never have an opportunity to learn and grow. In Mindful Acceptance, you learn to accept your mistakes as signs that you are becoming a stronger and wiser individual.