“Soon enough, reality kicks down your front door, and then you can’t pretend anymore. Pain is real. And we do better dealing with it when we acknowledge it.” -Eric Greitens

Acceptance is tough. Really tough. Of course, this depends on what we’re trying to accept, and whether it’s something we wanted or not. It’s easy to accept winning the lottery and plan our extravagant get away, but it’s another thing when things go sideways. When life kicks us in the teeth. 

When we must accept a tragedy that we didn’t see coming. When we must accept an unexpected injury and go through the steps to rehab it. When we must accept that someone we hoped would change—doesn’t.

Acceptance is a turning point of our growth though. When we accept things that are out of our control, then we can take action to move our life in a positive direction. If we don’t, and are in denial of how things are, then we create problems.

Refusing to accept something that is out of our hands causes inner turmoil. We sit and ruminate about how someone is treating us, or how past events unfolded, yet we can’t control those things. It may not be easy to accept, because part of is hopeful that the situation can change, but that’s not always realistic.

There is an inner tension between how things actually are and how we want them to be. So, by practicing acceptance it opens the doors to our life so we can continue forward, while refusing to accept reality locks those doors shut. 

We know deep down that something isn’t worth holding on to, but we try to do so anyways. We hope, desperately so, for that change to occur; when it doesn’t, it devastates us. So we struggle to accept the person who won’t change; to accept that we are injured; to accept someone we loved is gone. Because when we suffer loss, we feel lost. It changes the direction our life was heading. 

 

 

Similar to the Greek story of Sisyphus–who, as a punishment–was forced to push a giant stone up a mountain day after day for eternity. Each day he pushes it up the mountain, and each day the stone rolls back down.

When we don’t accept things as the way they are it can feel like a similar situation. We give someone a chance and put in the hard work of pushing that stone up the hill, but it just rolls back down again without anything changing. 

What if, instead, we accepted that the stone was always meant to stay at the bottom of that mountain. What if, instead, we realized that we can’t change someone else because that change must start within themselves. Maybe Sisyphus couldn’t change his destiny, but we can. When we stop struggling with the stone, and accept that which we cannot change, then we can do the work we need to do. 

“The right acceptance of what must be accepted will allow you to begin what must be begun.” – Eric Greitens

 

You Don’t Have to Love Acceptance

Acceptance doesn’t mean that we love what happened, but that we acknowledge that it happened. Because of course we don’t love when we suffer loss. We don’t love to be injured, or to experience heart break, but those things did happen.

This is what makes acceptance tough, because sometimes we don’t want to accept what happens in life. We’re angry when someone is taken from us too soon. We’re annoyed when we suffer an injury. We’re devasted when a relationship ends. But—and I want to stress this—acceptance is crucial for living a fulfilling life, and it comes in different shapes and forms.

 

 

There is acceptance that leads to passivity. This is dangerous. We believe acceptance to be a good thing, so we decide to stop there. “Oh well, I messed up, but I’m only human. So it’s okay,” we say to ourselves, then do nothing to grow from that experience. This is not practical acceptance because it’s used as an excuse for inaction.

There is acceptance of things that we cannot change. Tragedies that take loved ones from us; the car crash that leaves us injured; the diagnosis of an incurable disease. Simply put, we can’t control that these things have happened to us, but we can accept that they did and choose how we respond to them.

Lastly, there is acceptance of things we do have control over. This is where we take ownership and responsibility for our lives—responsibility for our role in our life. We do what we can with what we have.

“When we accept what we cannot change—that some pain cannot be avoided, that some adversities cannot be overcome, that tragedy comes to every one of us—we are liberated to direct our energy toward work that we can actually do.” -Eric Greitens

This concept of acceptance applies to the gym as well. When we get injured or feel pain, regardless of what caused it, we can and should accept it’s there. Once we do, then we can modify training by changing the position, or by doing another exercise altogether.

If we ignore that something is wrong then we could make things worse. If we strained our quad squatting for example, then ignoring it and squatting even more wouldn’t be the best call. When it comes to injuries it’s best to accept that the injury happened, because then we can do something to get better.

Regardless though, of what form and shape this acceptance takes on–whether it’s in relation to a tragedy, injury in the gym, or someone in our life-it’s an essential part of living a fulfilling life. Deeply connected to acceptance, and something that is crucial for living a fulfilling life, is cultivating resilience.

 

 

 

Choose Resilience

“We cannot bounce back because we cannot go back in time to the people we used to be. The parent who loses a child never bounces back. The nineteen-year-old marine who sails for war is gone forever, even if he returns…there is no bouncing back. There is only moving through.” -Eric Greitens

That last part, “There is no bouncing back. There is only moving through,” is key. We don’t get do-overs to go back and become who we were in the past. What has happened cannot unhappen. But, we can take those experiences that life dealt us, and we can move forward with them.

Nobody cruises through life without ever facing tragedy; without losing a loved one; without suffering some kind of injury or physical pain; without heart break. We all have pasts intertwined with pain. Life will never be free of hardships. So, we can either deny that reality, or, we can accept it, and do what we can with the hand we’re dealt.

We can let that bump in the road throw us off course—where we wallow in it and let it prevent us from living—or we can course correct. We can choose to keep moving forward in a positive direction that will lead to our growth.

That’s where resilience comes in. It’s a skill that we cultivate over time, because like any other skill, it must be practiced. We choose to build resilience, or, we do not. If we do develop it, and practice acceptance, then we have the chance to live a fulfilling life. If we don’t, well, then life becomes much, much harder.

Make no mistake though, practicing acceptance and resilience doesn’t mean things will suddenly be easy, or that things won’t still hurt.

It’s like carrying a suitcase that is connected to you forever. Processing our pain—practicing acceptance and resilience–doesn’t make the suitcase go away, but it can make it lighter. Our past is forever a part of us, but that pain and hardship can become easier to carry in time.

To practice acceptance and resilience is a choice, and they take hard work. But they help us make the most of the hand we’re dealt, and to live the best life we can. When injured in the gym we find a way to keep training and grow stronger from it. When tragedy hits us unexpectedly we learn, in time, how to accept that loss and move on as best we can. We accept what we can’t change, or who we can’t change, and we accept what we can change—our self.

 

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