Lots of people I support each week struggle, in one way or another, with difficult thoughts.
They don’t often describe the problem that way. They call it perfectionism, self-judgement, spiralling anxiety or imposter syndrome.
But each of those is built on a particular set of thoughts, a narrative around what should or shouldn’t be happening.
We fuel these thoughts in two ways1:
We obey. When we obey, we are fused and identified with the thought, taking it as truth.
Acceptance is often mistaken for resignation.
As if by dropping our resistance, we’ve agreed to stay exactly where we are—frozen & passive.
But this misses the point entirely. To accept something is not to endorse it. It’s to see it clearly. To stop, just for a moment, the exhausting war against things as they are—whether through denial, protest, or pretending.
The truth is, we can’t move wisely until we’ve come to terms with what is—not how we wish it were, not how it used to be, but how it is right now. Whether irritating, liberating or perplexing.
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.
Acceptance is your most potent ally in meditation. It’s not a beginner’s experience on the way to something better. It still shows up to teach me every day, after 18 years of practice.
Acceptance is not a slide into passivity. Instead, we see how we’re already actively resisting parts of our experience—pushing away nagging thoughts, clenching against unpleasant emotions.
Acceptance is the dawning realisation that we can let go of that struggle without the world imploding. We can even lean into it—noticing, as Mark Manson put it, that facing the negative is a positive experience.