Friday, August 24, 2007

Understanding Acceptance

It finally occurred to me that acceptance is not something done passively. It is an active decision to not overreact. It is the condition in which one takes the energy usually powering reactions and puts it into searching the situation for truth.

To achieve this, one has to make a decision to give up emotional attachments, and the attachment to one's unthinking exercise of emotions.

No wonder it's so rare.

And precious.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

In the same way, shalom is an active verb, to do peace. Gratitude is to pay it forward. Love is to visit the sick, to comfort someone in prison. Yet, it is in healing ourselves that we can truly benefit others.

Marty

Robin said...

I think that I was going toward something like T.S.Eliot's lines:

Between the idea and the reality
Between the motion and the act
Falls the shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

About how one can find God if one can stop before reacting.

maybe.

Anonymous said...

I was just reading again in Truth of the Heart by Rex Ambler. In one place in his essay, he translates "surrender" or "submission" to "acceptance." The context is in surrendering to the light, which is the same as accepting reality. So it is as you said - acceptance is not passive at all. It takes an act of courage to accept the truth.

Marty

Robin said...

Hi Marty, Thank you for your comment, a terrific addition. I have decided to write another entry on this, something about submission, surrender, acceptance.
Thanks again.