Meditators have a warped view of acceptance

I sat against the wall feeling overwhelmed.

”Is there a part of your body that feels ok right now?” asked Susan, holding gentle eye contact.

I struggled through the fear and sadness in my chest to find somewhere safe.

“My hips”, I said.

“Ok, let your awareness sink into your hips”, she replied.

“I feel better, but it’s still painful up here,” I said, gesturing to my chest.

“Just hold the awareness down there a little longer”, she said.

I was once again spun out after another TRE session. This time, it was during a long training weekend in London.

Since then, I’ve facilitated many TRE sessions with people, like me, who have long-term meditation practices.

Introducing them to the idea of grounding during difficult experiences often creates a similar response: I want to accept what’s happening, not distract myself from it.

From this perspective, grounding feels like a failure to see clearly. You believe you should be able to sit eye-to-eye with whatever is going on. “It’s just fear! If I can white-knuckle my way through it, release will follow. The bigger the fear, the bigger the release.”

I believed this for many years and this attitude is often encouraged in meditation and other modalities like breathwork. It carries an air of neutrality, when it’s anything but.

Here’s how I describe it to people: imagine your partner walks into the room. They seem distraught. You want to understand what’s going on, so you march right up, grab them by the shoulders and stare into their eyes. “Reveal yourself to me!” you demand.

You glare intensely at them whilst gripping onto their shoulders, waiting on their every word. In the meantime, they try to figure out 1) what is wrong with you and 2) how to get out of the room.

This is often how we treat ourselves in the name of “acceptance.”

It’s equivalent to shining a bright light in someone’s eyes—clinical and interrogative. It substitutes relation for relentlessness.

Sadly, many meditators believe this kind of attention is necessary to wake up. I believed it, too. It coloured my view of life in many profound and sad ways.

With my back against the wall and my awareness in my hips, Susan asked again how I was feeling. I felt better. Remarkably so. But I felt guilty.

“I feel like I’m turning away”, I said.

It was then that this warped caricature of acceptance dawned on me.

I felt the pain that I was inflicting on myself.

Rather than a noble standard I was failing to meet, I saw this demand for acceptance as a primary cause of my suffering.

It was the beginning of a new journey home to myself.

Not through heroic confrontation, but through humble contact.

Not by staring fear down, but by creating the holding space through which I’d be able to meet it.