Acceptance is easiest to define by saying what it is not. It's not giving up, or giving in. It's not settling or resigning yourself to anything.

Acceptance–the kind I'm talking about–is only about right now, this very moment–or at the very most, only about today. Acceptance has nothing to do with accepting anything at all forever, for tomorrow, or for the future. No one can foretell the future, so why would anyone ever accept anything “forever?” You can only accept stuff for now anyway, since unimaginable turns of events occur, and things often change when we do nothing at all. No one knows what the future holds.

To accept something for now means to take whatever or whoever it is in your life that seems to be causing you pain, and practice non-resistance. Don't resist it. Don't do anything about what has happened. Don't push it away, don't rebel against it. Don't scheme against it, don't analyze it, don't think about it at all if you can. Don't get upset about it, nor do anything about it except just let it be, whatever “it” is. Don't judge it, don't label it–right/wrong or good/bad, difficult, impossible, torturous, terrible. Just let it be what-it-is, as much as possible without any reaction at all, and stay in that space for a little while.

Acceptance is not about sitting and thinking about something. Acceptance isn't about imagining something, nor visualizing it. And it's certainly not about hearing yourself talk about it, or listening to your inner voice or inner voices talk at you about it, or about any of the bad stuff in your life (which would just make you even more unhappy.) Again, acceptance is not about thinking, talking, visualizing, or even feeling. It's about just knowing, being aware, but without all the added resistance.

To accept something–anything–that you don't like about your life, just know it “is,” know all about it, hold it lightly within–without pushing it away. Just be there, be here, with it, for awhile. Acceptance is staying with what you used to resist, staying with it just for now without running away, without avoiding or defending or escaping or flinching or squirming and without fighting back or fighting against anything about it (and/or all the feelings that might come up about it.) Or if the feelings do come up, stay with them, accept them, and be with them for awhile.

You'll find that your reactive feelings will come and go. Accept that. Thoughts may come and go, and images that you don't want, just accept that they keep coming up, and keep letting them go. Just stay quietly with all of your crazy-making stuff, and don't, just for now, do anything about it, nor do anything else. Sometimes acceptance feels hard and sometimes its easy, and sometimes it's scary and sometimes peaceful. Sometimes the hardest thing is slowing down long enough to be still with whatever is making you crazy, when what you want most is to do anything else but that.

What happens when you accept “what is” in the present about yourself, your life? When you stop for just long enough to accept “what is” and who you are–just for the moment, without all your crazy and mental and reactive and stressed and freaked-out non-accepting stuff attached to it?

Try it.

Next: Why should I accept something that's wrong or bad?