ACCEPTANCE ISN’T SO BAD
once I understand it

PREVIOUS:
Acceptance & ACoAs (# 1)

1. The PROBLEM (cont)
🔹 Negative MEANING (cont)
We (self-destructively) ACCEPT that we deserve / or must endure:
• being controlled, verbal abuse, disrespect,
• being treated like a dumb kid (we were never dumb, even as kids!)
• being over-looked, unappreciated, ignored
• having to let others use, manipulate & torture us
• having to deny / destroy ourselves in order for others to be OK
AND TO
• not be able to have a positive impact on our world (be effectual)
• never finding love & validation, since our parents didn’t (narcissists attach, but don’t actually love others)
• only staying with unavailable, distant, cruel & selfish people (note the parents in Hansel & Grethel).
• staying small & ‘weak’, not knowing how to take care of ourselves

Our Toxic Rules are so deeply ingrained that even when we start having useful, valid new information about ourself & the people in our life (A1), we still skip over A2, automatically going to A3.
Whenever we have any new Awareness, ACoAs immediately ask: “What can I / should I DO about it?” (Action is not Acceptance) . This Chart shows why :

We compulsively SKIP the middle ‘A’ because:
• it’ll make us safer, considering the harmful CD we think it means
• our whole culture focuses on Action (just DO it!)
• our culture does not value process, ONLY immediate gratification
AND
• we’ve been waiting so long for something better to come along, we don’t want it to take time. The WIC is convinced that if we’re told to wait, it means it’ll never happen / never get our needs met
• our dysfunctional family made their approval conditional (if at all) – based on our actions that suited them. If you act bad, you’re bad, if you act good, we ‘love’ you – sort of.  YUCK. Healthy love is unconditional!

We think we have no choice, trapped in a double bind:
• on the one hand – we hate the rules we grew up with
• on the other hand – we’re terrified to disobey them, ever.
So, since OUR version of acceptance is so painful & debilitating, we keep trying to ignore it altogether, as if we could control the truth away!

♦️                                   ♦️                                ♦️
2. HEALTHY ACCEPTANCE
ALL Acceptance is simply acknowledging the TRUTH about things, without any makeup or mask. It’s ONLY about what actually is or was! It’s about reality, not what we wish things were like, what we think they should be, what others say things are, or even what could potentially be.

Acceptance is only about WHAT IS, such as:
• being damaged in childhood, whether from an alcoholic family or not
• that it caused us great harm
• that we are NOT the source of that damage
• that we’re responsible for working toward healing that damage, no matter how unfair
• that people aren’t always what we want them to be
• that we don’t have the power nor the right to try changing others
• seeing who people ACTUALLY are, not ignoring the parts that hurt us….

ACCEPTING good things requires that we slowly:
• leave behind all our ratty, smelly baggage & garbage in the old internal universe, carrying that broken down spooky old mess we grew up in, dropping the rags of our False Self , a piece at a time
• patiently move our God-given True Self into a beautiful new Inner Universe, with a castle that we have the full deed to, which has level floors, clearly defined halls, stairs & comfortable rooms, with cozy furnishings just to our taste!

NEXT: Healthy A2 – Cont. (#3)