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.