Let’s talk about some very concrete inner work you can do for your healing and transformation. Let’s talk about acceptance.

Compassion

As a coach acceptance is one of my key tools to enable clients to move forward, find more inner peace and let transformation happen. And of course acceptance played a huge part in my own development and empowerment. There were (and still are) many things, believes, emotions etc. in my life that I didn’t like, pushed away or plain rejected or denied. Things like sadness, my childish behaviors, my inner gremlin that told me I’m not good enough. These aren’t pleasant things and by pushing them away I hoped that they would vanish. Well, this didn’t work for me. After having vulnerable talks with many people I saw that this also doesn’t work for others. So why do we still ignore or reject unwanted parts of us, when it doesn’t bring the desired results? Because it kind of makes sense. We do it all the time with food, persons and so on. And we also don’t want to deal with emotions or thoughts that trouble us. In addition, the majority of us hasn’t learnt how to approach our inner world in a loving and healing way. I found a lot of compassion for myself and my actions, because on some level they made sense. And I have compassion for others – we all do what we think is best or easiest in the very moment. (I am still responsible for respecting and defending my boundaries!)

Acceptance as a means to end the fighting

When I started accepting my unwanted parts I was blown away how effective it was in changing the way I treat myself. And it is so simple (though not necessarily easy). When I talk about acceptance I mean a natural and peaceful sense of acceptance and not resignation or tolerance. It rather feels like surrender and lacks anything forceful. This gentle approach is exactly the reason of its transforming power.
We learnt in physics that every force leads to an opposing force of the same strength. With acceptance we decrease the force / the inner fight against a piece of ourselves. This leads to a decreased force / strength of this part. The anger is seen and has less strength to surface. The sadness is recognized and has less power to overwhelm us. We all want to be seen and belong and so do these inner parts of us. Else they are strong and loud and demand our attention. We know how that looks like.

Find acceptance within

• What emotion, sensation, thought do you struggle with?
• Where do you feel it in your body and what does it feel like?
• Give it a voice: what does it communicate with you?
• Scan your body if there is any part of you that has acceptance for this emotion, sensation or thought.
• Don’t force acceptance, just allow it.
• If you don’t find acceptance, can you accept that?
• How does the emotion, sensation, thought or non-acceptance react to the acceptance?
• How does it feel like in your body?

What are your experiences with acceptance or rejecting? Do you have a question? Write me!

Love,

Maria

Tl;dr

• What emotion, sensation, thought do you struggle with?
• Where do you feel it in your body and what does it feel like?
• Give it a voice: what does it communicate with you?
• Scan your body if there is any part of you that has acceptance for this emotion, sensation or thought.
• Don’t force acceptance, just allow it.
• If you don’t find acceptance, can you accept that?
• How does the emotion, sensation, thought or non-acceptance react to the acceptance?
• How does it feel like in your body?