Accepting what is – that sounds simple, but for many people it is a huge challenge.
Especially in a world where self-optimization in social networks, books and online courses is highly stylized to one of the highest commandments of modern times.
No matter if our character, our body or our life: Everything must be optimized.
Some of life’s struggles are tilting at windmills. We have a lot in our hands (and it’s good to realize WHAT we have in our hands), but we can’t change everything we want to change.
In this article you’ll learn how to accept what you can’t change.
What does accept mean?
Acceptance is above all a mental attitude.
The German word has its origin in Latin accipere and means as much as "to approve, to agree with something".
You accept something when you take an inner yes attitude to a circumstance, a person or a situation.
This can refer to many aspects. For example on a disease. To a character trait or behavior in us or in others. Or also to external events like a pandemic, which suddenly causes laws and commandments to be enacted, which really shake up our everyday life or our professional life.
However, it is also important:
By the way, accepting does not mean giving up. It does not mean that we must find everything in life, which is actually stupid, suddenly great. Or that we can’t keep working on our supposed weaknesses if we want to.
On a deep, very wise level, acceptance means first of all saying "YES" to life. Yes to everything that life has in store.
And there will always be things that we consider "right" or "beautiful" and at the same time things that we consider "wrong" or "unattractive".
Why accepting is so important
Now it becomes a little paradoxical:
Strictly speaking, acceptance is again an optimization. An optimization of your mindset.
However, it shows that simply much of our happiness in life is made in our heads. And energy often comes to flow when we relax. With all of our flaws, imperfections, and any love handles we may have.
It is totally advisable to take your fingers out of the gears of life more often.
Because who accepts, swims with the stream of life. It costs a lot of energy to fight all the time. And thus, feelings that really torpedo your joy and happiness in life often arise.
If you lovingly accept your love handles instead of slaving away at the gym four times a week with a grim face, maybe you can put that energy and time into other projects that are more worth it.
This applies to everything we are in resistance to right now.
What is it about you? Feel free to take a brief moment and think of this central points In your life that you know for sure it’s time to let go of and embrace.
Accept or change: What things should you accept as they are?
Does this mean that you should no longer set goals in life and just accept everything as it comes??
No, it certainly doesn’t mean that!
Do you know the so-called Serenity prayer?
God, give me the serenity to accept things I cannot change,
the courage to change things that I can change,
And the wisdom to distinguish one from the other.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Whoever acquires this wisdom can truly be spared a lot of suffering in life. And yes, unfortunately there is no patent remedy.
We can’t give you a simple three-step formula by which you can always easily find out whether you should rather change something or accept it.
Above all, it’s important to be very mindful in every area of your life, to trust your intuition sometimes, and to listen less to what societal norms or your ego whisper to you.
Even if you want to change something: change always works best from a positive basic attitude.
In the following sections we will look at some topics where it is important to learn to accept. Whether you then change something or find your peace of mind and soul with it, is mainly up to you.
Accepting yourself: Cool with myself
As long as you struggle with yourself nothing will relax. You are always in resistance with yourself.
Maybe you have already experienced it? There are people who are considered beautiful by all social rules. Maybe they have a perfect figure, great skin, a toothpaste smile like in an advertisement.
But still you feel instinctively, if you look closer at the person, that he is in a clinch with himself. It doesn’t accept itself in depth – and you can see that on the outside.
Yes, it’s great to do something for your body or learn what mindset you can use to bring even more success into your life.
But psychology agrees on one point: Many of our character traits are shaped in very early childhood or even given by our gene pool. 1 https://lexikon.stangl.eu/257/praegung/
If you are more the cautious type and security is important to you, then you can learn to make important decisions with courage, but you may never be a daredevil like others are. And that’s okay. That is even quite wonderful so. Because the universe has arranged it exactly in such a way.
For that you might have the ability for your friends like a rock in the surf To be there when they need you. And someone else would run away in such a situation.
Joie de vivre and charisma arise above all when you accept yourself.
And if we look at it very closely, then you can also learn to accept that you simply do not accept some things yet.. Just be loving with yourself, because no master has yet fallen from the sky.
Recognize and accept your own limits
No human being is able to perform 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Especially if you are a perfectionist or place a lot of value on acceptance from the outside, this can also lead to difficulties.
Recognize and accept your limits. It is not possible to invest a lot of energy in the long run, if you don’t have the time to take care of yourself and recharge your batteries.
Saying NO to someone else can be a profound act of self-acceptance. It is often a YES to yourself.
By the way, it does not always have to be about others. Even if you are often hard on yourself, you can allow yourself moments of relaxation and say: "This is just my limit, I can’t go any further at this point – and that’s okay too!".
Accept other people as they are
If in our relationships (love, friendship, job, etc.) there is no hope for the future, it is a question of hope.) something does not run, then we look for the cause gladly with our counterpart.
But you will never be able to change another person by fighting them. The consequence is usually even further deterioration or freezing of the relationship.
This does not mean that you have to let everything go by. If someone is violating your values or you don’t feel comfortable around that person, it’s perfectly acceptable to set boundaries and say, "No, I don’t want to do that."But there it is primarily first of all about yourself.
You will only be able to support a change in other people if they want it themselves.
And even then it will only work out of a loving, mindful awareness. People open up and relax their own ego when they are seen by you and feel that you mean well with them and help them because you want to do something good for them and not (only) for yourself.
If you notice that you are fighting something in other people in one of your relationships, first take a step back and say consciously YES to what annoys you, what upsets you or what otherwise triggers a feeling in you.
Accepting chronic illness?
What we have written in the previous sections also applies to chronic illnesses – another topic that many people find difficult to accept.
As long as you are in resistance to your illness, this usually causes even more stress and negative feelings. And these are often a big cause of chronic diseases.
At Primal State, we firmly believe that there is always something you can do about chronic illnesses. A large part of especially our so-called Civilization diseases (heart, circulatory, obesity, intestinal problems, autoimmune diseases, etc.) are closely linked to our lifestyle. Here, for example, stress or wrong nutrition play a major role.
Remedy is for example a bowel optimization. But the first step is always acceptance. Only when you fully accept the fact that you have the disease on your cheek, you can move on and do something for the healing.
The same is also true for mental illnesses. Like when it comes to accepting depression. There is nothing at all wrong with really exploring all means to achieve improvement or relief.
But sometimes it is simply important to say that depression is part of you. Many sufferers report that acknowledging can help enormously.
You ARE not your depression, you ARE not your disease. You are much more. But perhaps (at this stage of your life) it is simply a part of you. And then you can out of acceptance see how you can change something.
Accept separation or fight?
The question of whether there is hope after a breakup is one of the most exciting questions of love.
If really all possibilities are exhausted to fight for love, then at some point it is time, to switch into acceptance mode.
We can only offer people to relate to us – but we cannot demand it and certainly cannot force it. A good key to getting over heartbreak is to be grateful for what has been.
When you consciously make space to be grateful, you move from scarcity to abundance. You can close and open the space for something new.
By the way: We also have an exciting article on the topic of heartbreak in our repertoire, which you can read here. It shows you how to best deal with the four stages of heartbreak.
Learning to accept: what matters
As the title of this section already says, we can fortunately learn to accept.
You have surely heard the phrase, That we can create our own reality. I would sign this sentence 100%.
However, it is misunderstood by many people.
When we create our own reality, it does not mean that we suddenly "affirm away" gravity or other laws of nature. You don’t suddenly become 6’1" when you’re otherwise 5’5" or get brunette hair when you’re otherwise blonde.
Reality – and along with it, how happy we go through life – depends on how we perceive and evaluate reality. It’s about our inner reality, so to speak.
Figuratively speaking: If you were born a playful, happy dolphin, you will probably never be a daredevil wolf. And vice versa.
It can cause a lot of suffering if you spend your whole life trying to bend yourself into something just because you think you would be "better" or "more valuable" in some other way.
The magic formula for accepting the things you can’t change is this: Make YES your new mantra.
And that a radical YES. Sit down, take the time and look very mindfully and very closely at where in your life you are turn a NO into a YES can.
It probably won’t happen overnight, but the more often and the more deeply you do just that, the more energy and vitality will be released into your life.
What else you can do
Accepting things you can’t change and having a positive mindset have a lot to do with mental strength and flexibility.
For this reason, it is advisable to exercise the mind regularly – but also to promote it in other ways. For example, by supporting our brain and its functions with the right nutrients.
With a team of nutritionists and psychologists, we have developed Primal Daily Flow specifically for this purpose.
Daily Flow is a smart drink powder for mental strength. It contains a sophisticated mix of natural ingredients whose effects are confirmed by the European Food Safety Authority.
For example, the product effectively protects your body from oxidative stress, ensures that the main Neurotransmitters in a good balance stand and support the Energy metabolism for mental power and energy on each new day.
You can order Primal Daily Flow here.
Conclusion: Acceptance creates freedom
From the bottom of our hearts, we always wish you the wisdom to sense when it’s time to change things and when it’s time instead to accept things you can’t change.
Life is about being in the flow and letting energy flow. But this will be difficult if you cultivate in your mind a permanent NO against life and its manifestations.
May you always have an inner YES towards the things that can’t be changed. Because that’s a big step towards it, to live a life of freedom.
FAQ: Frequently asked questions about accepting
Acceptance means that one takes an inner attitude of agreement to a circumstance, a situation or a person (also towards oneself) and does not think that something has to change in order to be "right".
You only learn to accept by accepting. Take your time and leisure and say YES to yourself and everything that makes you stand out. It is important not only to see the positive side of this. Also all our faults, imperfections, etc., are to be taken into account. belong to it. Acceptance always involves EVERYTHING.
If you have really explored all possibilities and there is really no future together, the only thing that helps is to accept the separation. The most important thing is to strengthen yourself, to be grateful for what has been and to look ahead, even if it is hard when your heart is aching.