The power of acceptance. How to learn to accept any life situation

There are things in our life that cannot be fought and cannot be avoided. We should learn to accept them in order to be able to pass through the trials. Five expert psychologists talk about what can become a support for us.

Lord, give us the humility to accept what cannot be changed; give us courage
change what needs to be changed, and give us wisdom to distinguish one from the other.” it
the saying is familiar to many, and for some, such as members of Alcoholics Anonymous groups around the world, has even acquired the status of an essential rule of life. But what is behind these words - "that which cannot be changed"?

Unfulfilled hopes, lack of love, suffering, injustice, the fragility of our very life - sooner or later each of us faces this, and it is useless to run away from it. Only a clear understanding of what is happening and a correct attitude towards it will help us to pass these trials and learn life lessons from them. By refusing to resist the inevitable, we get a chance to discover new possibilities. Five psychologists tell us about it.

Things don't always work out the way we expected.
Lev Khegay is a Jungian analyst.

Why do we suffer. The interview ended unsuccessfully, someone else got a new appointment, it still doesn’t work out to have a child ... The feeling that one’s own life is slipping out of one’s hands gives rise to a feeling of deep anxiety. This is especially noticeable in our culture, where the concept of success in life is practically devoid of spirituality.
component and is often measured only by well-being. Jungian psychoanalysis sees the cause of this suffering in the fact that we are not aware of the connection between ourselves and the world. And therefore we are doubly bitter: to the confusion that our plans are violated, the feeling is added that we have been abandoned alone. This feeling of powerlessness resurrects in our souls that confused child that we once were and who does not understand why he was denied something. The more often we experienced this orphan feeling in childhood, the more difficult
us to accept all those "no" that life sometimes tells us. On the contrary, if we agree that our very existence is subject to the laws of the Universe, we will thereby subdue our own - so human - desire for omnipotence. How to take it. Asking ourselves if this event happened only due to external causes, or whether it was influenced by our not quite reasonable choices and wrong decisions. Such introspection will help you to become the actor of your own life again and look more confidently into the future. You can also think about what exactly we are missing. Our plans were frustrated, and this deprived us of the pleasure of carrying them out. But what
Was it the satisfaction we were expecting? Public recognition, emotional support, material wealth? By understanding what our unfulfilled expectations are, we can think about how to realize them in other ways. By exploring the connection between our actions, events, and opportunities, we become, as Jung believed, more open to life, learning to recognize its messages and happy coincidences that will help us make the right choice more often.

Others do not always love us and are faithful to us
Marina Khazanova, client-centered therapist, trauma therapist

Why do we suffer. We need love, to feel loved - this is how we feel that we are recognized, that we are very important to someone. But these days, the bonds between people are less and less strong, and this gives rise to in our soul
deep anxiety. Without feeling loving glances on ourselves - relatives, spouse, friends, colleagues - we seem to no longer feel ourselves. We lack recognition, as if the meaning of life itself eludes us. We experience betrayal even more sharply - betrayal destroys the unspoken agreement between people: "I give my love and in return I receive an equivalent gift." Violent violation of this contract undermines our faith not only in another person, but also in ourselves: “What am I worth if I was betrayed so easily?”

How to take it. Infidelity in relationships (love, friendship, family) is different from
situations where, for external reasons, our loyalty or good feelings suffer (for example, layoffs at work). Relationships are always collaborative. They should be carefully studied in order to understand how we built them. What in them was the result of our action, what exactly and how much (insufficiently or in excess) did we invest in them? What was expected from the other? Were you able to take care of your most important needs? If necessary, a specialist can help carry out this work. But how to find love again? Even if now we don't
we see next to us, it exists within us. You can feel it by asking yourself: what do I like, what resonates with me, awakens a keen interest in me? Finding an answer can take time, but when you find your favorite thing, people around you who love it just as dearly appear. And these will be people who are really close to us, who love the same thing as we do, and will always be able to support us.

The question "why me?" it is better to ask differently - "for what?". What can I learn from this test?

Suffering is part of life
Natalia Tumashkova, existential psychotherapist

Why do we suffer. A breakup, an accident, an illness... It is impossible to remember the moment when we experienced pain for the first time. Throughout life, it occurs more than once,
sometimes warning and protecting us, but very often causing us torment. They are aggravated by fear (“something is wrong with me”) and guilt: brought up in a Christian culture, we unconsciously associate pain with punishment for sins and look for an answer in our past. The question "why me?" not that it is useless - sometimes it helps to rethink the events of our lives. But it is even more useful to reformulate it - “for what?”. And think not about the reasons, but about our goals and capabilities.

How to take it. Guilt suppresses, weakens us, stops us at the point where we are, prevents us from moving forward. If we ask “why?”, “What can I learn?”, then we experience pain as a test. Strong shocks exacerbate the feeling
life. We understand, or rather, we begin to feel that our forces have a limit, and this prompts us to clarify goals, to separate the important from the secondary. Much is being rethought at this time. But it is important to remember that pain is primarily a signal, and we
we can understand what information it carries, what this pain is talking about. Specialists - a doctor or a psychotherapist - can help with this. Information tames fears, helps to more realistically assess how dangerous the situation in which we find ourselves. It is also important to realize
secondary benefits that we may derive from enduring pain. They are often difficult to recognize: it may be a desire to punish yourself for something or a reason to demand more attention and care from your loved ones.
Sometimes those who are nearby annoy us: why do they feel good when we feel bad? Irritation is repressed anger. By allowing ourselves to experience it to its fullest (“This is not fair! Should I be in pain?”), we will let it come out in a scream or cry - and so we get the opportunity to meet our aggression. And she, in contrast to guilt and fear, is a powerful energy resource. For us, this is an opportunity to get in touch with our life force and use it to move forward.

Life is not always fair
Patrice Gourier, priest and psychologist

Why do we suffer. Manifestations of injustice cruelly remind us that it is not enough to always behave well and correctly in order for life to be fair to us. Three reasons can cause this acute feeling. First, the aversion to deprivation: Western culture prioritizes personal hedonistic happiness, and when our desires are not fulfilled, we perceive it as a personal insult. Secondly, we suffer because of what is really unfair: we feel bitter helplessness, not understanding the meaning of the test. (Why did someone dear to me suddenly pass away? Why was I fired, because I put so much into this job?) Finally, our own (unwitting) injustice towards others, relatives or strangers, can hurt us. In this case, our ideals and moral values ​​suffer - and therefore it is bad for us too.

How to take it. First of all, by replacing the word "accept" with "realize". Then asking ourselves: Is what we perceive as injustice really unfair? Are we trying to rid ourselves of responsibility with the help of this feeling? Losing a loved one is really painful and unfair. No psychologist can shorten the time of our grief and anger, but he is able to help if the mental pain is unbearable. In case of other injustice, in life or in relationships, let us ask ourselves: “What can I do that is fair, what I consider good?” This will allow you not to become isolated in your bitterness or desire for revenge. But the main thing is, first of all, to determine the emotions that injustice awakened in us. We often overlook the damage it does to our self-esteem. Paradoxically, the one who turned out to be a victim, instead of defending himself and asserting his right, sometimes feels guilty and ashamed - because he was not up to par and was treated badly. Therefore, injustice must always be called words, it must be worked with. And if you keep this suffering
in itself, for our soul, it will eventually become truly destructive.

Everything comes to an end
Vladimir Baskakov, body-oriented psychotherapist

Why do we suffer. In nature, everything is cyclical: day and night, winter and summer alternate. Life is an eternal change, but who among us does not want to keep a happy moment!
The inevitability of change leads to the thought of the inevitability of death - and it is unbearable for us. We know: children grow up, friends move away, the body gets old... And sometimes we try to fight the laws of being, maintaining the illusion of invariance: for example, with the help of rejuvenating agents or developing vigorous activity so as not to be alone with ourselves... We are all for changes we treat differently. The more they upset us as children, the more we will be afraid of them as adults. Conversely, if from an early age we perceived them as an exciting part of life, it will be easier for us not only to accept the inevitability of change, but sometimes to strive for it.

How to take it. We can learn a lot from our body if we see in it a friend and adviser, and not a traitor who betrays our weaknesses. Pay attention: inhalation and exhalation follow each other. You can try to hold your breath, but the longer we do not breathe, the more difficult it is to restore its rhythm later. The periods of sleep and wakefulness also follow each other. If we accept our natural needs, we establish a connection with our body and through it - with our nature. We begin to feel part of the whole, obeying the general rhythms. Let us also think that we have the experience of numerous transitions from one state to another. We were conceived, passing to being from non-existence, then we came out of the mother's womb into the light, said goodbye to childhood for the discoveries of youth, moved in time, leaving something behind and discovering something new ahead. Let's try to understand: without completion there will be no continuation, without farewell - a new meeting. Since life is organically inherent in cyclicity, then change is not a threat, but a natural condition for our existence. Death terrifies us with its unknown, but it remains part of the life that continues today. And in this continuation, we can discover new opportunities and do something important.

Acceptance is, in my opinion, one of the main human virtues that contributes to the achievement of happiness. Acceptance frees your attention from everything superfluous and allows you to direct it to what is really important.

What is acceptance? Acceptance is the opposite of denial, rejection. Acceptance allows accept reality, such as it is, and not feel frustrated that it does not meet your expectations.

Much human suffering is born out of differences between people's expectations about the nature of reality and how that reality presents itself to us.

Our expectations may relate to how people should behave, how we ourselves should be ... We can expect all people to treat us well. We can expect our government to be humane and just. We can expect from ourselves that we will always be healthy, attractive and perfect.

But, our expectations are often not quite adequate to the state of reality. Reality dictates its requirements. Reality acts according to its own laws, not according to our expectations.

Not all people show sincere admiration for us, no matter how good we are. Government workers have the same vices that we are subject to, and do not always act fairly. And we are not perfect, our health and beauty are not eternal.

These are the facts of life from which there is no escape. We can either come to terms with these facts, accept them, since we do not always have the opportunity to influence them. Or we will experience eternal rejection that some things in this life are not the way we would like them to be, although we still cannot influence these things.

Of course, we can influence our health, go in for sports, give up bad habits. But we will not be able to change the fact that it deteriorates with age, no matter how healthy a person is initially.

Banal truths

We can either accept these facts of life or not accept them, creating meaningless suffering. Naturally, the best of these options is the first option.
Someone will think that I am saying terribly banal things. But, as I have noted many times before, many of the most valuable truths are very obvious! Originality is often a property of delusion and confusion. And the truth is simple.

Despite its simplicity, it is not accepted by most people. Remember how many times you felt angry because of those things that you cannot change? For example, because of rudeness on the road, in public transport, or because of the arbitrariness of your company's management.

Yes, people are evil, unfair and act in their own interests, neglecting the interests of others. Didn't you know that? Isn't this an obvious statement? Of course everyone knows about it! But you forget about it every time you yell at someone, get upset because you were rude or treated unfairly.

At such moments, your emotions are a reflection of your reaction of rejection. You seem to be shouting: “I refuse to accept this order of things, I don’t want to, I won’t put up with it, even if I can’t do anything!” In this impulse, you become like a child who was offended by the bedside table when he hurt his leg on it.

Acceptance is a very simple concept within its formulation. "Take the world as it is!" What could be easier? But reality proves that acceptance is not easy to achieve.

The greater our expectations, the more they are divorced from reality, the deeper the suffering and rejection.

We potentially have more power over our inner world than over our outer reality. Therefore, when we are unable to change the world around us, we can always correct our perception of this world, our expectations...

Acceptance is not the same as passive resignation!

Here I want to make an important clarification. Acceptance is not a way of passive resignation to any circumstances, it is not a way to give up and adapt to all conditions.

Accepting reality as it is does not mean resigning yourself to the fact that your husband offends you. This does not mean putting up with a job that you do not like, giving up and silently enduring. This does not mean accepting your shortcomings and doing nothing about their eradication.

Acceptance does not exclude struggle, work on oneself, constant improvement of one's life, improvement of the conditions of one's existence. Acceptance only means that you don't get emotionally involved in things that you can't control. And even if you can influence something, then you do it with a mind free from resentment.

Suppose a colleague is systematically rude to you at work. For example, his rudeness is due to the fact that your salary is higher than his earnings. He envies you and considers it his duty to somehow pry you on the sly. Can you influence the fact that a stranger to you is experiencing envy? No you can not. At least not to your own detriment. You will not give up your salary so that your colleagues do not envy you? People are envious and envy makes them cost intrigues and behave ignoblely. This is a fact of life.

Can you somehow influence the fact that you are rude every day? I think yes. You can just calmly talk to this person, find out what the problem is. One face to face conversation is enough. Even if this dialogue does not contain any threats and is peaceful.

People love to weave secret intrigues, to act on the sly, to play the game in front of the public, but they do not like to act directly, “on the forehead”. And when they are directly asked about their motives, called to account, they experience the shame of exposure, the bitter feeling that you are talking to them about what they avoided to talk about directly. This contributes to the fact that these people lose their desire for unwanted behavior towards you.

If talking doesn't help, then you can take other measures...

In general, you can't influence the fact that people feel jealous in any way.

But you can exclude rudeness in your address in a particular case. It's up to you. Therefore, you calmly achieve this. At the same time, you don’t think, “what a bad person, what a boor, so I’ll show him, he must answer for this!”.

You don't spend the whole evening thinking about this person, longing for revenge. You are the master of your state. You do not allow anyone to manipulate you and influence your mood. You accept the fact that people are unfair, rude towards you as one of the facts of life.

But at the same time, instead of silently enduring this rudeness, you correct the situation in your favor. And do it calmly, without irritation, anger and constant thoughts of injustice. If you can't do that, then it's not so bad. You are not strongly attached to the idea of ​​restoring justice, if it is not possible to restore it.

You accept that justice is not always an inherent property of reality. This is acceptance!

This is where it differs from passive humility, and I have gone into this example at length to emphasize this difference. Acceptance is not the opposite of action!

Acceptance and self-development

Acceptance is a very important property in the process of self-development. Why? Because self-improvement means that your best qualities will develop, and your shortcomings will disappear. But one of the “side effects” of personality development is a strong rejection, a stage of denial.

Denial is a chimera of self-development. And this must be fought. You need to constantly pay attention to this.

Why does this denial arise?

Next, I will talk a little about myself, about my experience with rejection. You may not have that experience, but you may experience something similar. This part of the article will warn you against some things. I have already briefly touched on this issue in the article,. Here I will talk about it in more detail.

When I began to analyze myself, to direct my attention to my own development, I suddenly realized that what I had always considered an integral and uncontrollable part of my personality, in fact, was controllable.

I used to think that emotions, fears cannot be controlled by willpower, and personality cannot be changed. But then I realized that I can become the master of myself! And most importantly, I was convinced of this by my own example. But here a danger arose, which partly stemmed from excessive arrogance.

I believed that I can always control everything. It became my installation, my indestructible credo! And so I refused to accept that sometimes, after my success in self-control, my emotions again took over me.

I felt frustrated that, despite my belief in all-powerful self-control, I was still lazy, nervous in certain situations, losing control of myself. Of course, this has already happened much less frequently than before. Since then I have made considerable progress in controlling myself. But I could not fully rejoice at this progress, as I was disappointed because of my failures.

The very fact that I can't control everything has always bothered me a lot. Because of this, I was angry with myself. I also got angry at other people...

The result of this rejection was that I began to project it onto the people around me. I didn't accept things in myself and, as a result, I didn't accept them in other people. I experienced

frustration that people act on emotions, are prejudiced and do not understand things that have become obvious to me.

My rejection turned into such a form of denial that I began to deny all my previous habits, all my previous life, all my previous experience. I thought “here is the old me - bad”, and “the new me is good”. Yes, I did have a lot of bad habits. But I didn’t think much about what was bad and what was good in my old and new life, and I simply denied everything.

But only later I realized that even in this past life there was a lot of useful and valuable experience that needs to be transferred to a new life, and not to deny it. And after all, there is no past and new life, there is only one of my lives. She may have changed a lot, but it was always me, who did not stand still and changed.

I have changed, I have realized many things, but I am very far from perfect, I can still have weaknesses, I can still experience emotions, which I write about overcoming on my website. It's normal, there's nothing you can do about it. I am working on myself, but not everything is in my power!

Yes, I will fight, I will act, but there are things that I cannot influence.

The same goes for other people. They have the same weaknesses that I have. And they have rights to these weaknesses! People are what they are! Someone wants to change, someone can use my help. And someone will criticize my ideas and deny my experience.

And I can't always influence it!

Such is the nature of things! This is another fact of life that should be accepted! Why should I make something that I can't influence, my own problem and source of frustration?

This understanding had (and continues to have) a very beneficial and sobering effect on me. It was even fatal and marked a whole new stage in my development.

I consider this very important and therefore I try to provide this article with detailed examples.

"Lion Stage"

In connection with the last example from my life, I am reminded of the stages in the formation of a personality that the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche outlined in his book “As Zarathustra Spoke”.

I experienced the great influence of this philosopher in my youth, having read all of his major books. But now my views are almost the opposite of the main ideas of Nietzscheism, for which I am unspeakably glad. Nietzsche's philosophy contains the most dangerous delusions for the individual. My ideas have nothing in common with the sophisticated aesthetic hedonism and egocentrism preached by the German philosopher.

I won't go into detail on this. Let this be the topic of a separate article. This was a necessary remark. Since I am citing an example from Nietzsche's book, I must also briefly indicate my attitude towards his views.

So, the philosopher designates three stages of personality development.

The first stage is a camel. Man, like this animal, hangs tons of weight on himself. Of course, the load is a metaphor. This refers to the ideological load: moral norms, social stereotypes, behavior patterns, ideals. The camel does not ask what exactly lies in those bags that were placed on it. Also, a person does not ask about the meaning of those values ​​that have been "hung" on him.

The second stage is the lion. This stage corresponds to a reassessment of values. The lion is a formidable and aggressive predator. A personality, like a lion, after a reassessment of values, will aggressively attack its past ideals, which society “hung” on it at the camel stage.

He will not ask what is bad and what is good, but will simply mindlessly destroy all this cargo.

This stage corresponds to the stage of denial, which I wrote about above.

The third stage is the baby. The baby looks at the world with a clear eye. His perception is pure and free from stereotypes. The lion destroyed the old ideals, and now the baby can re-learn nature, create a new value system.

I gave this classification because I partly agree with it. Only I do not agree with the conclusions to which the philosopher comes. His infant forms a new, bloodthirsty, opportunistic, hedonistically oriented scale of values. My baby is partly returning to the traditional values ​​of kindness, love and compassion and happiness (namely, permanent happiness, not transitory pleasure), only he already perceives these values ​​consciously, and does not thoughtlessly “throw” on himself, like a camel.

These values ​​cease to serve him as abstract ideas, but become real, applied experience.

So, I gave an example of Nietzsche's reasoning in order to clarify this article. I want you to pay attention to the lion stage. This is the opposite of acceptance - denial, nihilism. Only in my example, the lion's fury is directed not only at values ​​and ideals, but at the world in general (and yourself in particular) along with all its properties.

You have taken some steps in self-development and have seen what you had not paid attention to before: your many problems and the problems of other people. And suddenly realizing these problems can lead to denial!

You must understand that denial, the “lion stage,” is not the last stage of personality development. I do not want you to think that when you began to notice the weaknesses of other people more than before, when you began to pay attention to your shortcomings, when you began to attack your former ideals with the fury of a predator, then you have already reached the limit of development.

The lion stage is inevitable for many people involved in self-development, so there is nothing wrong with it, as long as you do not linger in it or, even worse, do not stay in it forever.

There is a tempting temptation to constantly feed on an illusory sense of one’s own superiority over other people, to blame their values ​​and ideals, to criticize their behavior, although you yourself have moved away from them by a millimeter step and yesterday you were the same as them ...

As awareness develops, reality reveals many new properties to you. And along with these properties, all the injustice and grief with which reality is saturated begins to appear.

There is a danger of being carried away by the denial of this reality, in connection with your new, enriched understanding of it.

Do not go in cycles in this denial! Know that something even better is ahead of you! Defeat the lion in you!

How to defeat a lion?

How to defeat this aggressive predator inside you? How to learn to calmly accept reality as it is?

Get rid of expectations

As I wrote above, the stronger your expectations, the less they correspond to the facts of life, the stronger your rejection of reality becomes.

Expectations or mental attitudes that prevent you from accepting reality as it is may be the following:

“I have to be better than others in everything”

The fulfillment of this desire is impossible, because there are no ideal people and it is impossible to be better than others in everything. There will always be someone who is better than you at something. And there is nothing wrong with that, it is normal. It's even good, that's why people learn from each other, share experiences, adopt the strengths of other people.

Both the development of society and personal development are based on the mutual exchange of knowledge and skills.

If you rely only on yourself, believe that you should be the best, then you will suffer, because you will never be able to fulfill this desire. And instead of learning from other people, you will grieve that they are superior to you in some way.

I dwelled on this aspect in more detail in the article why communication is needed.

"Everyone should treat me well"

It is impossible, just as it is impossible to be better than others in everything. No matter how good you are, you are unlikely to win the love and respect of every single person. There will always be people who won't like you. And people who treat you badly are not necessarily bad.

And if someone does not like you, it also does not always mean that you are bad yourself. Each person is a whole individuality. And often the attitude of people towards other people depends on personal attitudes, upbringing, principles, available information, state of mind and many other internal factors that you can’t influence in any way.

The problem of attitude towards you is not always your personal problem! And it depends not only on you, but on the subject who perceives you.

Therefore, it is impossible to please everyone and everyone (more on this in the article). So what's the point in worrying about it?

But a bad attitude towards you is not always only the problem of another person. Sometimes it can show you your weaknesses. And if so, then a bad but fair opinion about you only benefits you, because you can change thanks to it! This is good, therefore, there is no point in worrying about this, again!

"I must always be right"

Every person can make mistakes. And you are no exception. You are not always right, even when you are sure of it. And if you think that the truth is only yours, then such an attitude will prevent you from being flexible, changing your views if they were wrong before, or simply supplementing them.

Each person's experience is limited and therefore opinions based on that experience are often erroneous or incomplete. The exchange of opinions between people should enrich each individual (more details in the article). But this will not happen if you think that your opinion is the only correct one. And you will suffer, because reality will sometimes show you how much you are mistaken. This is normal and should be accepted as a fact and not be frustrated about it.

“I have to prove that I am right to those who disagree with me”

No, they shouldn't. You will never convince some people that you are right, even if you are really close to the truth and are infallible in logic. Therefore, attempts to convince someone of something are often doomed to failure and cause only mutual indignation on both sides of such a dialogue.

Many people will never accept your views and beliefs, no matter how correct they may seem to you. This is a fact of life. So what if the person disagrees with you? Who cares? Even if you suddenly manage to convince him, what will you benefit from this? Often nothing!

“I have to respond to every insult addressed to me”

No, they shouldn't. If your neighbor's dog barks at you, you don't have to bark back at him. The fact that you have been insulted should not create a problem for you. It remains the personal problem of the one who offended you, not yours.

There is an excellent Buddhist parable. Once the Buddha and his disciples passed by a village. People from the village began to insult the Buddha, but he did not react to this. The disciples of the Buddha began to ask the teacher why he did not respond to such vile insults.

The Buddha said, “These people are doing their job. They are angry. They think that I am an enemy of their religion, their moral values. These people insult me, this is natural (My note: If you adapt the last statement to the context of this article, then it can be paraphrased as follows: people are angry at those who trample on their values ​​and ideals. This is natural. This is a fact of life, I accept this fact).

I am a free person and my actions stem from my inner state. Nothing can manipulate me, including other people's insults. I am the master of my own fortune."

In turn, the Buddha asked the disciples, “When we passed by another village, people brought us food, but we were not hungry and gave them their food back, what did they do with it?”

“They must have taken it back from us and distributed it to their children and animals.”

“That is so,” replied the Buddha. “I do not accept your insults, just as I did not once accept food from the inhabitants of another village. I return your resentment back to you. Do with it what you will."

Here, the Buddha's words "do not accept" do not mean "rejection" in the terminology of this article - do not confuse. On the contrary, the Buddha accepts the fact that people can be rude to him. Not accepting insults, he simply does not let them into himself.

"I can always control everything"

No, not all. Life situations can get out of your control, as well as your emotions. Accept it.

“In life, everything should turn out the way I want”

Life exists according to its own laws. And these laws do not always meet your expectations.

"I must always remain joyful"

There are moments of joy and moments of sorrow in life. A person is subject to different states and one state replaces another. It is difficult to always remain cheerful and joyful.

Accept unpleasant emotions when they arise.

This advice may seem strange to those who have been reading my blog for a long time. After all, I always said that you need to get rid of negative emotions, and now I advise you to accept them.

One does not contradict the other and, on the contrary, complements. A person can be at times angry, irritable, prejudiced, envious, no matter how well he knows how to control himself.

Accept this as a fact and don't berate yourself for the fact that at some moments you show weakness, that on some days you are not as collected and focused as on other days.

Everything is constantly changing within a person. One day you can stay focused, be confident, be in a sense of happiness and harmony. The next day, everything will fall out of your hands, you will be frustrated and nervous and, sometimes, you yourself will not know what it is connected with.

Such is the nature of things: nothing is eternal, everything is constantly changing, and we cannot always trace the reasons for these changes. It remains only to accept it as a fact. Today our condition does not meet our expectations: we are tired and irritated. But this is only a temporary mood, like any other. It will be replaced by another state. Therefore, one should not dwell on it, experience rejection. As soon as this feeling appeared, so it will pass.

This is what it means to accept.

"Health and beauty will never run out"

Health is a transient thing, as well as beauty. Accept the fact that these things won't be with you forever. Now you are young, healthy, successful with women, but it will not always be so.

No need to be sad about this, just accept this fact so as not to be disappointed later. People who are too strongly attached to sexual pleasure, the sensual impressions of youth, external brilliance, have great difficulty parting with these things when their time comes.

If these things once formed the basis of their existence, then, having lost these things, these people seem to be deprived of everything. Therefore, I believe that one should not get hung up on these things, but it is also necessary to take care of moral, intellectual, spiritual development.

"There must always be justice in life"

Unfortunately, life is neither fair nor unfair. The concept of justice exists only in the human mind. Justice is not an objective property of nature.

Your young neighbor can live much richer than you just because he has rich and influential parents, although he himself did not lift a finger in order to achieve this position. Everything that you have been striving for all your life through hard work, but have not achieved, your neighbor already has now.

Reality constantly demonstrates to us its inconsistency with human concepts of injustice.

How your life will develop depends very much on you. Much stronger than many of you are used to thinking. But, nevertheless, much depends on chance, on blind arbitrariness, beyond your control.

And instead of thinking about how unlucky you are, with the fact that your life has not turned out the way you wanted, lamenting that you were born in the wrong family, in the wrong country, think about how lucky you are!

After all, things could have turned out much worse. I constantly think about how well my fate turned out, that I was not born in the USSR during the repressions, I don’t go hungry and don’t work for 14 hours at a factory somewhere in North Korea, I don’t go deaf from shell explosions, sitting in the trenches at the front, I don't suffer from any fatal disease.

When I hear about such horrors, I immediately begin to think that I myself could easily find myself in such a situation and I am immeasurably lucky that I have food, water, a roof over my head, health and a bunch of other advantages of civilization. I do not put myself in mortal danger every day, which I am very glad about.

I do not want to bring my reasoning to the fact that you need to put up with everything, not to try to make this world a better place. No, I want you to accept this world as it is with all its injustice and bitterness and stop denying the things it shows you.

Strive to make this world a better place and people happier! But accept what you can't control!

People are rude, angry and fixated on themselves. It's a fact of life, accept it. Those on whom you depend do not always follow justice and considerations of caring for others. It's a fact of life, accept it.

Life doesn't always meet your expectations. It's a fact of life, accept it.

Acceptance is not identical to some kind of dull humility, when you understand that everything is bad and dejectedly lower your head, constantly being aware of the imperfection of this world.

No, acceptance means the absence of suffering for an empty reason, the absence of denial, which drains your moral strength, causes anger and intolerance. Acceptance implies peace and freedom.

The freedom of your state from the negative manifestations of the outside world and from the will of other people!

Voltaire said: "We live in the best possible world!"

All we have is the world we live in. And this world is what it is, and no other world is given to us.

How often do we get angry! With or without reason. Slow movement of the queue to the checkout, traffic jams, bad weather that changes all our plans, disobedience of children and much, much more. When we get irritated, we splash out the negative and, as a result, spend a lot of our energy. But for what? Something we can't change!

How same learn to accept not satisfying us situation if we can't change it?

To accept means to consciously admit that something may not go the way we want, not the way we are used to, or not the way we planned. The opposite of acceptance is resistance or a negative attitude towards what is happening. For the majority, this is the pattern of behavior that is more familiar, and we resist almost everything that goes against what we want.

But why do we resist? To some extent, we are influenced by our past experience. For example, you are used to your parents always talking to you in a calm tone and, of course, you expect that this will continue to be the case in the future. But one day you are faced with the fact that the parents raised their voice significantly in a conversation with you. Of course, this is unpleasant for you and you perceive it negatively. Perhaps you even begin to shout back, thus expressing your resistance to the current situation.

But resistance inevitably causes suffering.

Marathon runners have this slogan: “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is a personal choice for everyone.” When a person runs a long distance, sooner or later his leg muscles begin to hurt. And here the runner makes a choice - either suffer, focusing on pain, or switch his attention to something else.
So it is in life: you can find yourself in a situation where you were betrayed, abandoned, taken away from you, your plans and dreams were destroyed, left alone with difficulties. Of course it hurts. But whether to suffer is your personal choice.
Of course, there are simpler situations where there seems to be no pain - traffic jams, a slowly moving queue, a person does not answer our calls and SMS, work colleagues are extremely slow, etc. However, these situations annoy us because we experience discomfort. It is unpleasant for us, we are trying to overcome the circumstances. How? With our negative attitude, resistance - from the fact that we are not comfortable, and we suffer to some extent.

Of course, when we find ourselves in circumstances that are unpleasant for us, or even very difficult ones, of course, we try to act. However, after all, you can act in different ways - with the acceptance of the situation or with resistance to it. Which option makes more sense?
To understand what acceptance is (not to be confused with inaction), imagine scientists who make their calculations without taking into account the fact that gravity acts on Earth. Where there is no gravity, some things are, of course, much easier to do. But there is gravity on Earth - scientists take it as a given that they cannot change and build their calculations taking this phenomenon into account.

So, to all the situations that you do not like, but which you cannot change, treat like ... scientists to the Earth's gravity - just take into account the circumstances and act taking into account the changed situation.

Acceptance, like any other skill, can be trained, which means you can learn to accept the situation. How?

Step 1 - Awareness
You found yourself in a situation where something went against what you want. You are unhappy. Be aware of this dissatisfaction. You can say to yourself, "I'm not happy because this happened, but I wanted it to be like this."
Why do it? The fact is that many people do not even realize what it is that irritates them so much in the circumstances. Awareness is the first step towards understanding and accepting.

Step 2 - OBSERVATION WITHOUT EVALUATION
The essence of this step is to observe your thoughts and emotions without judging whether they are good or bad. You seem to be looking at yourself from the outside, allowing everything that happens to you to BE, without doing anything about it.

Step 3 - PHYSICAL FEELINGS
Pay attention to your physical sensations in this situation - how you breathe, how fast your heart beats, whether you feel a rush of blood to your cheeks, whether your head hurts, whether your hands tremble, whether your cheek twitches. What do you actually feel in your body?
Try to focus solely on your breathing - focus on how cool air passes through the nasopharynx, descends into the lungs, how your chest expands, how you exhale warm air. About 5 minutes of such concentrated breathing is enough to calm down.

Step 4 - TURN ON THE BRAIN
After you have acknowledged your dissatisfaction, observed your thoughts and emotions, breathed and calmed down a little, it's time to ask yourself the question: "What is my goal at the moment and how can I achieve it in the current circumstances?"
Sometimes to achieve the goal you will need to take certain actions, and sometimes you just do nothing, calm down and wait.

An example from my personal life: I am a very punctual person, and if I was traveling in public transport, which dragged like a turtle, and realized that I could be late, then, like all punctual people, I was nervous. Sometimes strong enough. And then at one fine moment I realized that I was nervous and realized that I had three options - to continue to be nervous, transfer to another transport or run ahead of the transport. Strange as it may seem, the very thing that irritated me so much contributed to the comprehension of this fact - the slow traffic. I just had the opportunity to sit, do nothing and just think. By the way, a lot of good ideas came to my mind in transport. Hence follows

STEP 5 - THANK YOU
Every situation is given to us for something. Even in the most insignificant, in our opinion, unpleasant situation, there is something useful for us. Your task is to realize WHAT EXACTLY and thank the world for the opportunity to learn and work on yourself.

Hello dear readers! Not everything in the world is under our control. Sometimes things happen in life that we can't change. But this understanding does not make it easier. A person suffers from his own helplessness and cannot cope with emotions in any way. You understand that, in general, you are not to blame for anything and you can no longer influence what is happening, but sad thoughts do not go out of your head. How to find relief in this situation?

This child feels omnipotent, it is difficult for him to accept that he is at the mercy of his parents and certainly does not understand that their life also depends on many factors. It can also be difficult for an adult to realize that he is subject to certain laws. The sooner you realize that there is something in this world that is above us, something stronger, more fatal, the easier it will be for you to cope.

If it’s hard for you to realize that nothing can be changed, try to take the reins of your own destiny into your own hands again. Ask yourself what was the result of the situation in which you find yourself? Is fate to blame for everything, or did at some point you didn’t pay attention to some little things?

What specifically have you wanted to achieve in the past? Why were they trying? Perhaps you wanted love or recognition in society. Is it possible to achieve the same thing using other ways? Perhaps this is just one event that cannot be changed, but the task will eventually be solved anyway?

I can recommend a book Anthony Robbins "Awaken the giant in you", thanks to which you can find a lot of ways and do it with the most effective approach, without despair and without losing inspiration.

Love

Great suffering can be caused or the loss of a loved one (now we are talking). We feel complete when we are loved. A person invests in relationships, trusts another, but, unfortunately, this is not always enough for the union to be and remain harmonious throughout life.

All of a sudden, the world disappears from under your feet. We ask ourselves the question: “Why did he do this to me?”. At such moments, it is better to immediately stop yourself and reformulate the question. It would be more correct not “for nothing”, but “for what”, “why” he did it.

In this case, as a rule, nothing can be returned, but love has not left your life forever. She is still there. You can feel it if you think of your friends, relatives, children, perhaps someone has a hobby or job that gives pleasure. You did not lose this feeling forever, but only temporarily lost an object that, according to some criteria, did not correspond to you anyway.

It will take time to get over the pain, but very soon you will learn again and will be surrounded by people who truly love you. Don't believe in this yet.

Read the same book Anthony Robbins "Notes from a Friend". It will be ideal for those who believe that love is the most important thing in life. The chapter why there are no failures in love relationships will be especially useful to you.

That's all for me. See you soon and don't forget to subscribe to the newsletter.