acceptance - acceptance 2

Acceptance is not submission; it is acknowledgement of the facts
of a situation, then deciding what you're going to do about it.

Kathleen Casey Theisen

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Of course there is no formula for success except, perhaps,
an unconditional acceptance of life and what it brings.

Artur Rubinstein

The survival of the fittest is the ageless law of nature, but the fittest
are rarely the strong.  The fittest are those endowed with the qualifications
for adaptation, the ability to accept the inevitable and conform to the
unavoidable, to harmonize with existing or changing conditions.

Dave. E Smalley

Everything is acceptable as it is and how it is in existence.  There
is not the slightest desire in nature for it to be otherwise.

Ormond McGill

Acceptance of what has happened is the first step
to overcoming the consequence of any misfortune.

William James

Everything in life that we really accept undergoes a change.
So suffering must become love.  That is the mystery.

Katherine Mansfield

Radical Acceptance says that life works better when you accept people
for who they are, without judgment.  Once you have done that you can
then act accordingly.
   What does that mean?  Here is an example.  In a car the accelerator pedal
is on the right and the brake is to the left.  That is not a big deal.  I don't see
impassioned pleas to rearrange the pedals.  People know this and accept it
without judgment.  Now let's imagine that you think having this arrangement
is bad.  Furthermore, since you don't like it, you are going to act as if the
pedals are reversed.  It won't take you long to come to grief.
   But failure to accept people is like the example above.  How many of us see,
not the person in front of us, but the person we expect to see.  Then we act
as if they are how we expect to see them.  And, sure enough, we come to grief.
   Come to know them through their actions, accept without judgment and act
accordingly.  If the other is a controlling person, then I know I will either need
to let go my need for control or be prepared for a battle of wills.  If the other is
chronically late, then I need to invite them early to events, be prepared to start
without them, or wait.  In any case, to get upset is to pretend they are someone
different--and that's like pretending the accelerator and brake are reversed,
a quick road to grief.

Christopher Oliphant

Therapists want to help us throw out what is unwanted and keep only
what is wanted. But what is left may not be very much. If we
try to throw away what we don’t want, we may throw away
most of ourselves.
   Instead of acting as if we can dispose of parts of ourselves, we should
learn the art of transformation. We can transform our anger, for example,
into something more wholesome, like understanding. We do not need surgery to
remove our anger. If we become angry at our anger, we will have two angers
at the same time. We only have to observe it with love and attention.
If we take care of our anger this way, without trying to run away from it,
it will transform itself. This is peacemaking. If we are peaceful in ourselves,
we can make peace with our anger. We can deal with depression, anxiety,
fear, or any unpleasant feeling in the same way.

Thich Nhat Hanh

What you are comes from the blood of those who set you on this journey.
That is likewise unchangeable.  What you see in the reflecting pool of truth
is who you are.  You cannot change that, so it is wise not to curse it.
The wiser choice is to embrace it and make it your strength.

Joseph M. Marshall III
Keep Going

acceptance - acceptance 2

The best thing about coming out is, it's totally liberating. You feel like you've
made this incredible discovery about yourself and you want to share it and be
open and honest and not spend all your time wondering how is this person
going to react, or should I be careful around this person, or what will the
neighbors say? And it's more. It's about getting past the question of what's
wrong with me, to knowing there's nothing wrong, that you were born this
way. You're a normal person and a beautiful person and you should be proud
of who you are. You deserve to live with dignity and show people your pride.

Julie Anne Peters
Keeping You a Secret

Sometimes we fight who we are, struggling against ourselves and our
natures.  But we must learn to accept who we are and appreciate who
we become.  We must love ourselves for what and who we are,
and believe in our talents.

Harley King

It costs so much to be a full human being that there are very few
who have the enlightenment or the courage to pay the price. . . .
One has to abandon altogether the search for security, and reach out
to the risk of living with both arms.  One has to embrace the world like
a lover.  One has to accept pain as a condition of existence.  One has
to court doubt and darkness as the cost of knowing.  One needs a will
stubborn in conflict, but apt always to total acceptance of
every consequence of living and dying.

Morris L. West

We face up to awful things because we can't go around them, or forget
them. The sooner you say 'Yes, it happened, and there's nothing I can do
about it,' the sooner you can get on with your own life. You've got children
to bring up. So you've got to get over it. What we have to get over,
somehow we do. Even the worst things.

Annie Proulx
The Shipping News

The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.

Carl Rogers

    acceptance - acceptance 2

God does not make clones.  Each person is different, a tribute
to God's creativity.  If we are to love our neighbors as ourselves,
we must accept people as they are and not demand
that they conform to our own image.

Henry Fehren

But at some point you have to make peace with what you were given
and if God wanted me to be a shy girl with thin, dark hair, He would
have made me that way, but He didn't.  Useful, then, might be to
accept how I was made and embody myself fully therein.

Elizabeth Gilbert
Eat, Pray, Love

God asks no person whether he or she will accept life.
That is not the choice.  You must take it.  The only question is how.

Henry Ward Beecher

When I see trees growing on the edge of cliffs against the odds of the
wind and cold, birds puffing up their feathers to protect themselves from
the cold in the winter, and wild flowers growing alongside railroad lines,
I am filled with a sense of humility.  I see that the rest of the natural world
doesn't complain or resist the events of life over which it has no control.
Learning to accept the things we can't change in our lives, such as painful
emotions, suffering, loss, and external events that hinder our goals, is at
the heart of allowing greater contentment into our lives. . . . See if you can
perceive acceptance in the natural world and become aware of where
acceptance may reduce unnecessary suffering in your own life.

Claire Thompson
Mindfulness and the Natural World