David Baxter PhD
Late Founder
Taking Back Control of Your Mind: The Power of Acceptance
by Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D.
Dec 2nd 2011
Recently it?s been very windy out here in Southern California; Pasadena even declared a state of emergency. The other day I was walking outside and I knew I had about 5 minutes until I reached my destination and I couldn't help thinking, "It's windy, I?m cold, I?ve underdressed for this weather and I?m going to be uncomfortable when I get there." So how is this significant to your life?
As I was walking I really wasn't aware of much else, except that this was really unpleasant. How I was contributing to the unpleasantness wasn't in my awareness in the moment.
As I came to a stop light there was a man standing next to me who I turned to and said, "Man, this is unbelievable." Although he looked pretty calm and replied, "Yup."
In that moment something happened, my mind took the discomfort to such a ridiculous extreme popping me into a space where the question arose in my mind, "is this really that unpleasant, it's just wind."
I realized in that moment that it wasn't only windy outside, but there were gusts of debris of automatic negative thoughts (ANTS) being kicked up my mind too. I had a choice to both accept the windy coldness and become present to the experience or to fight it.
As I chose to just accept the reality of it and realize that I'd be in it for the next minute (4 minutes of fighting had elapsed), I noticed that my facial muscles had been tight and they started to relax as did the rest of me. To this day, it still amazes me how this happens.
This experience is so similar to how we work with stress and difficult emotions. When we fight sadness, fear, shame or anger, we end up creating tension in the body which makes us feel constricted. When we're constricted it's easier to get our buttons pushed.
There's a field of psychology called Psychosynthesis that calls this living in the survival personality.
Accepting the moment doesn't imply that you're ok with it, it simply means being aware of the reality of the moment and not fighting it.
In fact, my experience in my life and working with the lives of others has shown me that the opposite approach of welcoming the experience and giving it space creates a feeling of greater peace and ease even though our minds might predict an opposite result.
So next time you're experiencing something difficult, see if you are fighting what's there and in that moment, that space, choose to accept that in that moment, that's reality. See if you can take it one step further and actually welcome the difficult feeling as just a guest in your house.
by Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D.
Dec 2nd 2011
Recently it?s been very windy out here in Southern California; Pasadena even declared a state of emergency. The other day I was walking outside and I knew I had about 5 minutes until I reached my destination and I couldn't help thinking, "It's windy, I?m cold, I?ve underdressed for this weather and I?m going to be uncomfortable when I get there." So how is this significant to your life?
As I was walking I really wasn't aware of much else, except that this was really unpleasant. How I was contributing to the unpleasantness wasn't in my awareness in the moment.
As I came to a stop light there was a man standing next to me who I turned to and said, "Man, this is unbelievable." Although he looked pretty calm and replied, "Yup."
In that moment something happened, my mind took the discomfort to such a ridiculous extreme popping me into a space where the question arose in my mind, "is this really that unpleasant, it's just wind."
I realized in that moment that it wasn't only windy outside, but there were gusts of debris of automatic negative thoughts (ANTS) being kicked up my mind too. I had a choice to both accept the windy coldness and become present to the experience or to fight it.
As I chose to just accept the reality of it and realize that I'd be in it for the next minute (4 minutes of fighting had elapsed), I noticed that my facial muscles had been tight and they started to relax as did the rest of me. To this day, it still amazes me how this happens.
This experience is so similar to how we work with stress and difficult emotions. When we fight sadness, fear, shame or anger, we end up creating tension in the body which makes us feel constricted. When we're constricted it's easier to get our buttons pushed.
There's a field of psychology called Psychosynthesis that calls this living in the survival personality.
Accepting the moment doesn't imply that you're ok with it, it simply means being aware of the reality of the moment and not fighting it.
In fact, my experience in my life and working with the lives of others has shown me that the opposite approach of welcoming the experience and giving it space creates a feeling of greater peace and ease even though our minds might predict an opposite result.
So next time you're experiencing something difficult, see if you are fighting what's there and in that moment, that space, choose to accept that in that moment, that's reality. See if you can take it one step further and actually welcome the difficult feeling as just a guest in your house.
