If anyone’s struggling with the concept of acceptance

Don’t post here a lot but I stumbled across this exert from Alan Watts and had a bit of a lightbulb moment:



As someone who’s been struggling with the concept of “not fighting” my anxiety/TMS for a long while now, something about the way he phrased things here really hit home for me. A major mistake I’ve been making is thinking that I had to make myself less resistant in some way. If I was suffering inside while telling myself I was accepting the pain, I was doing something wrong, when actual fact it’s the unwillingness to feel this way inside while experiencing the symptoms which continues to fuel the fire.

True acceptance means allowing yourself to feel any reaction to these symptoms while continuing your life as normal as possible.

If you feel terrified, you feel terrified.
If you feel annoyed, you feel annoyed.
If you feel like your mind is running a million miles a hour in panic mode. Its running a million miles a hour in panic mode.

These internal reactions are overwhelming at times but mostly out of our control. Trying to change them in any way will only worsen things.

Your nervous system needs time to desensitise and it’ll only get there if you continue to live your life regardless of the pain and the internal reactions that come along with it.

Oh and whatever you do, don’t turn acceptance into a technique. It’ll only become yet another obsession. Just bring whatever you feel along for the ride and soon you’ll be free.

 

I found this really up lifting. A strong affirmation of what those of us here know to be true. It was a little long and pedantic, but I enjoyed it.