Acceptance

For this year's AtoZ challenge, I am planning to focus on various emotions, feelings, quality, phrases or situations in life and end the post with a song that I feel may evoke that particular emotion/word/phrase. Usually, I have written with the flow, but this time, I want to push myself. Let's see where this heads towards :)

Acceptance. 

Isn't this the most important, yet the most difficult thing to do in life? It is tough to accept ourselves and each other as we are, to look beyond our biases and insecurities, and even to accept certain situations in life. 

While our first reaction to difficult situations in life mostly is denial, it takes us time to reach to a stage of accepting the eventualities and thereafter look for solutions or moving beyond the situation. Acceptance is almost never the first reaction, and it is understandable. For us, survival is the key and the fight, flight or freeze response is our way of tackling with an issue at that particular moment. If only, we take a time-out to think of the situation, analyze, accept and then respond, many of our problems will be resolved without giving us anxiety attacks. Better said then done, right? But, what if it could be done?

The other challenge for non-acceptance is our perception, especially of others. We often get blinded by our biases, our conditioning, our environment, and do not want to see others the way they are, and most importantly, accept them for who they are. We often idolize or dislike people, categorizing them into different buckets. And, almost always we are disappointed. Our basis is on unreasonable expectations. If only we could accept others equally with their flaws and strengths, we would be much happier species. 

However, greatest of all issues, is our inability to accept our own selves. Even before accepting others or any situation, it is important to accept the person that we are. No one knows us the way we know ourselves. And if that's the truth then why deny being who we are? Embrace the intrinsic self, because the mask that we put on for others, that we think is who we are, would soon tire us to no end. If only we wholeheartedly accept ourselves, we will forever find the peace that we seek in the outer world. 

Personally, for me, this song evokes the need to accept our own self and allow us to love ourselves and be happy :)