A is for Acceptance
Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. I’ve heard that one many times in meetings, seen it on signs and probably said it myself a number of times though not in that exact language. The acceptance prayer in its entirety was taped to the wall of the nurse station at the place I went to rehab at the beginning of this year, and I found it a little humorous that it had been placed there. I wasn’t sure if it was for the nurses trying to retain their sanity or for me.
‘Acceptance’ was the topic chosen by the speaker at the meeting I go to most Fridays, and per my usual habit I found myself analyzing the etymology of it and what it really means to me. I think until this point I’d used the term in the way I used words such as ‘tolerate’, ‘own’, ‘admit’ and other words of that nature.
Randomly, the first thing I thought of was the rose ceremony in the Bachelor/Bachelorette shows. “Do you accept this rose” and that whole scene. I’m not even an avid viewer of these shows, so it’s funny my mind went there. But it got me onto a certain track of thinking. The bachelors and bachelorettes who accept these roses don’t just acknowledge, believe in, or tolerate the roses offered to them. They accept them. And they accept them with smiles and sometimes tears of gratitude, thorns and all.
Acceptance stems from the Latin accipere: to receive. It’s about receiving in the way one receives a gift, not just putting up with it. Tolerance comes from tolerare: to permit without interference, to put up with or endure. The two, though often used interchangeably, bear very different definitions that can mean all the difference in how we live our lives.
The word ‘acceptance’ doesn’t actually show up at all in the direct language of the twelve steps. The first one is about admitting the problem, not accepting it. I think the concept of acceptance must take place throughout all the steps since it’s a much more pronounced achievement than simply admitting we have a problem. To accept that our lives are unmanageable with alcohol (the first step) means to embrace that truth as a gift, not simply to throw up our hands in defeat and live in sobriety because it’s our only choice.
If I admit I have a problem, acknowledge its legitimacy. If I tolerate the problem, I allow that legitimacy to exist without denial or attempts to make it less of a presence than it is. But if I accept it, I take the situation as a gift and am more susceptible to perceiving the blessings that come along with it. In accepting that this is my life now, I can look around the room of others in the meeting with me and see that the two people I am sitting between are now two friends I view as in my closest support system and without whom I could not picture my life now, despite the fact that we may never have even crossed paths had my life remained on the trajectory it clung to about a year ago. Acceptance lets me look at my addiction not as a weakness but as a trait that led me into some horrible places but up into a deeper sense of joy and peace than I’ve known in a long time.
I think of any occasion on which I’m accepting gifts, and in those exchanges, regardless of the fact that there are always some gifts that merit greater excitement than others, there is also deep gratitude and appreciation involved. This is why acceptance is so important. Acceptance generates gratitude for all of it, the good and the bad. Even in the gift I never would have wanted for myself or chosen for a friend, I’ve found gratitude in the fact that this one was something picked specifically for me for some reason. Someone thought of me when selecting and giving it to me, hoping for me to receive it and recognize the reason for it in doing so. The reason could be “I saw this perfect item and thought immediately of you” or “I honestly had no better idea, so here you go.” I can choose to compare or resent that the givers know nothing about me and my desire, or I can see that both gifts are legitimate and worth the acceptance and gratitude because they are both designated for me.
It’s that way with any circumstances in my life. I like the saying that God never gives you something you can’t handle. I don’t think every experience in life is a beautiful gift to be celebrated, but I think we can find gratitude for everything if we are willing to accept them as circumstances placed in our lives as part of a grander plan than we can always see and will probably never fully understand.
Acceptance as a practice of this sort isn’t one I’ve applied to all areas of my life, even if I thought I’d done so. Injuries, heartbreaks, losses, and personal weaknesses are not easily received in life by anyone, but I can see that there is a path to gratitude in each of the experiences I thought only served as detriments to the quality of my life. I am here now because of everything, and I can see that accepting all of that will lead me to greater peace than merely admitting it all to be part of my story.
