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De-Stressing Your Life

The Concept of Acceptance

by Richard O. Aichele

Stress, which affects everyone at different times, is often the result of an external event beyond a person's control or a series of circumstances that have not been properly dealt with previously. Call it avoidance of reality or the fear for a person to leave their artificial comfort zone. Irregardless, the stress remains because the causes have not been faced and the needed personal changes have not been even started let alone completed.

Making and accepting some of those inevitable less than pleasant changes to one's life and lifestyle is never easy. Taking the necessary steps to adjust to the changes can be so difficult that some people decide not to make the transition effort. It may seem easier for those individuals to just accept the changes as part of their daily aggravations and personal chaos. Ultimately, the results of that decision can be greater unhappiness, bitterness and both psychological and physical health problems into the future.

Get A Grip On Your Life

The good news is a person can really do better. Moving forward does not have to mean moving away from the life you have built. It can mean to accept realities, accept other people's apparent weaknesses and most importantly accept your own less than the best personal performances. Getting a grip involves making the necessary positive readjustments and approaches to your own life and lifestyles. Working to find honest solutions and to improve any situation can shift your focus from "problems to endure" to "challenges that can and will be resolved."

It is not easy requiring real work and serious dedication. Every person's behavior is based on what was learned in their previous lifetime years. Moving forward and making the needed personality readjustments requires a higher level personal honesty and courage. However, once achieved the rewards can be worthwhile.

The Role of the Ego

A person's ego can stand in the way of making personal readjustments. The ego may be defined as seeing ourselves as we want others to see us or how we think they see us. It begins to function when a person is an infant and grows absorbing and responding to the pleasant and unpleasant inputs of other people. The ego continues to grow as an important director of a person's actions in life.

A properly, well-developed ego serves as an internal mind - spirit mechanism that balances a person's attitudes and behaviors toward other people and events. The balanced ego is vital for people to achieve their goals. Importantly, a balanced ego allows the person to honestly recognize their abilities, strengths and weaknesses. It also allows the person to rationally deal with multiple events while responding to the millions of pleasant and unpleasant changes in a person's life.

However, those people with improperly developed egos basically can be off balance and unable to function in truly rational manners by normal standards. At one end of the ego extreme are those known as being egotistical. Convinced they are superior to others their typical mannerisms include rejecting any constructive criticism or advice. At the other ego extreme are those with very low egos and low self-esteem exhibiting feelings of incompetence, inferiority and being incapable of taking positive actions.

A person's ego level will influence their approach to dealing with unplanned changes in their life and lifestyle. However, the ego is not in total control of a person and it is always important for a person to realize the reality that an individual has other internal and external sources to draw upon. They may include the philosophies of any organized religion, spiritualism in any form or belief and reliance in a greater entity. Everyone believes in "something" and even those that do not believe in traditional guidance do tend to believe in other avenues to reach solutions. For some people, it is reliance on their life experience and the "common sense" they have developed.

Solutions Possible With Acceptance

Solving any problem requires completely reviewing the background of what caused the problem, assessing any related factors and then taking action to solve the problem. At times there is no action to take simply because the time is not right and the best response at that time may be patience and understanding the other people involved.

"You've got to know when to hold 'em

Know when to fold 'em

Know when to walk away

And know when to run."

Those twenty-three words in Kenny Rogers' song "The Gambler" are very appropriate as an answer to many personal situations and unplanned changes to a person's life and lifestyle.

The concept of "acceptance" is one of the best approaches to resolving and recovering from unplanned situations. Acceptance should not be viewed by any individual as surrender to events or other people or to taking a negative approach. Instead, properly applied it is accepting the set of new realities created by the new troubling circumstances. Simultaneously, acceptance provides the opportunity for a necessary period of personal reflection and creative thinking while developing a plan to improve the person's life and lifestyle approaches in the new circumstances.

Properly approached, creative thinking and acceptance can set the foundation for a more fulfilling and reduced stress life style. Three steps should be followed:

First is the acceptance of change by understanding that events will occur and other people will behave as they do. A person cannot change another person without their approval.

Second, is to remove the concept of blaming either others or yourself for an event occurring. Placing blame anywhere and keeping it alive demands a person's constant attention to the negative. It also requires great energy to convince one's self and others where blame should be placed. It is not worth the effort. Remember, that the event's occurrence was in the past and now is the time to move forward creatively thinking of solutions, and as the old saying goes: "Make lemonade from the lemon."

Third is the recognition that almost every less than pleasant change in a person's life, properly viewed, contains the elements and lessons to move on and develop tomorrow's new opportunities.

As the creative thinking and acceptance approach is taking place, a person's attitudes and personal philosophies may undergo changes leading to a broader outlook toward all life in the universe and an increasingly a more stress-free life and lifestyle.