Lately, I’ve been focusing a lot an acceptance. Accepting the current situation and the feelings that are associated with the situation. Accepting that, in most cases, the situation is temporary (which does not mean that you will feel any better about the situation, but it is important knowledge) and if it is not temporary, working to accept the situation as a part of your life. Yes, I’ve been focusing on acceptance with patients, but I’ve also been focusing on Acceptance in my own life. This technique has resulted in very positive patient reaction, and I have found it helpful personally as well.

Acceptance goes hand-in-hand with the Mindfulness I am so fond of and have written about in the past(1). The underlying message of Acceptance is that by accepting, you are getting in touch with the present moment (i.e. your current feelings, your current experiences, and out of fantasy/denial). This is not to say that you can’t have a fantasy life, which we can all agree can be a very welcomed escape from the strains of every day life at times, it just means that the fantasy life doesn’t dominate the reality. That lack of contact with the present moment can lead to over-identification with how life "should be" and decreases the ability to handle life as it is.

There is an important point about Acceptance that must be made at this point. Acceptance IS NOT approval. When I first got into this work, I made that mistake over and over again, and, as a result, did not spend a lot of time focusing on Acceptance. But, Acceptance does not mean that you can not dislike something, or disapprove of it. (For those of you who just read this and said, "wait, isn’t that a judgment? Call the Mindful Police," there is a retort. Marsha Linehan, Mindfulness Guru and founder of Dialectical Behavior Therapy, used the example that she hates watermelon. Doesn’t like the flavor, the texture, anything about it. No one would accuse her of judging watermelon, she is discussing her personal feeling towards the food. There’s a fine line between judgment and feelings.) Acceptance just means that you are accepting the thoughts, situation, feeling as present, without labeling it.

So, how do you bring this into your practice? I have been using a personal example of acceptance with my patients. I explain to my patients that I wish I was taller. I’m probably at the low end of the Average range of height, but taller would be better. However, there’s really nothing I can do about it. I have yelled at my parents, I’ve hung upside down by my ankles, but nothing has helped. I really had two options: 1) continue to be upset about my height; hate nature, my parents, genetics, and my very tall friends; and be miserable whenever I look in the mirror or 2) accept that this is my height, that I don’t like it very much, and allow my life to move on. I had tried option 1, it didn’t make me feel any better, so I tried option 2, which awarded me freedom from my frustration. Patients have really seemed to gravitate to this example as one they can relate to (who doesn’t have something they blame their parents for, after all).