"Out of evil, much good has come to me. By keeping quiet and repressing nothing, remaining attentive, and hand in hand with that, by ACCEPTING reality - taking things as they are and not as I want them to be - by doing all this a rare knowledge has come to me and rare powers as well, such as I could never have imagined before. I always thought that when we accept things they overpower us in one way or another. Now this is not true at all. It is only by ACCEPTING them that one can define an attitude toward them. So now I intend playing the game of life; being receptive to whatever comes to me, good and bad, Sun and shadow that are forever shifting, and in this way ACCEPTING my own nature with its positive and negative sides. Thus everything becomes more alive to me. What a fool I was; how I tried to force everything to conform to my ideas".
From a letter to C.G.Jung. (My capitals). Love. jonathan.
wish i could accept my situation, and at times i do and things seem a little easier for a while............but it never seems to last. its hard accepting what you hate. x
Hi.sam. You CAN accept what you hate! The whole idea of acceptance is to accept everything, hate and all. This means EVERYTHING. Total acceptance. sam, this is not easy and it can seem difficult but, believe me, it does work eventually. Like all treatments, it takes time. How impatient we are with time. There is no quick fix. If you broke your leg you would wait patiently (six weeks or more) for it to heal. Why do we think nervous illness is any different? It is the gradualness that makes it difficult.
ella is right. You have accepted and 'things seemed a little easier for a while'. That is what Dr. Weekes calls 'glimpsing'. It means that you can see that it is possible to recover using acceptance. Hope you find others on the site who are accepting. Best wishes. jonathan.
You have seen that tiny bit of what you can have Sam. Keep practising acceptance and it will become like nothing to you. Keep strong love and thank you Jonathan for that wisdom xxx
This is a tough one to take on board as we are all so keen to send the anxiety and the horrible symptoms packing. Accepting seems the wrong way to go about it.
Maybe it's not so much accepting as allowing it to happen and dealing with it rather than running away from it mentally.....not mentally trying to escape but say ok it's here and this is what I will do.......
There are many ways of dealing with it and they are mostly worth a try, plus some of us use methods like CBT, medication and even breathing exercises and meditation and so on.
I found this on-line which I think describes what accepting means .......
"Learning how to accept your anxiety disorder is actually very difficult.
This is because our natural instinct is to fight our anxiety symptoms and do all you can to push your anxious thoughts and feelings out of our mind.
But in fact, really accepting your anxiety disorder is perhaps the best way to manage and ultimately eliminate anxiety from your life.
Sometimes when people ask you to accept something you really don’t fully accept it. What a lot of us do instead is just put up with whatever the issue is. However, in order to really get a handle on your anxious thoughts and feelings you will have to learn how to accept your anxiety disorder 100%.
This does not only involve telling yourself “o.k. I accept” it is much more than that. It’s also physical acceptance that is required. In other words, when you get palpitations, headaches, dizziness or insomnia you don’t just say to yourself that you accept this, you have to “go limp” as it were and really, truly accept what is going on in your mind and body.
This is actually very hard, but with practice it can be done. Acceptance is important because it allows you time to rest and it also offers a real understanding of what anxiety symptoms can and cannot do to you. By accepting fully all the things that anxiety can produce you will come to learn (and accept) that although it can make you feel and think strangely it will not actually hurt you.
One of the biggest worries that I always had was my concern about the possibility of my anxiety growing into something worse, but it didn’t and it won’t for you, either.
I remember sitting in a chair and getting a flash of panic which would always cause me to stand up real fast and grab my head – almost like I was trying to stop my head and thoughts from running out of control.
Now when I get those flashes I am uneasy but I don’t add to it. I don’t reinforce it with secondary fear. I just sit or stand there and let the anxiety symptoms flash, pulsate and run right through me.
Will you still be somewhat uneasy when this first burst of anxiety comes over you? Sure you will, but understand that if you just wait a few minutes and remain as calm as you can possibly be it will subside much faster. It’s when you jump out of your seat and start pacing around that you stir up the adrenaline in your body and almost surely guarantee yourself a tough night.
I understand that this is very hard for you because your anxiety symptoms are so frightening – however believe me when I tell you that accepting all aspects of your anxiety disorder will change your life.
It is hard having an anxiety disorder because it can dominate your life but that is precisely why you have to do something about it. I wouldn’t expect you to be able to accept your anxiety fully within a week. But with everyday that you try to accept you will see a huge difference in the frequency and severity of your anxiety attacks.
And so it all starts with baby steps. I am sure that you are frustrated but you have to start somewhere and acceptance is a good place to start.
So the next time you get a disturbing thought or strange symptom let it pass.You have to accept before you can get better, but luckily this part of your recovery is well within your control."
Hi. Penny. This is so right. With acceptance you safeguard the future. If you get a 'setback' then you can deal with "IT" in the same way as you did originally. Many thanks. Love. jonathan.
Thank you so much for posting this. Today I have been full of anxiety and have only just signed up, hoping to find out how other 'sufferers' cope with the horrible symptoms. I have a wonderful husband, but unfortunately he cannot understand how I feel. I read Claire Weekes book 'Self Help For Your Nerves' a few years ago. I must dig it out again.
Hi. wilk. There is an updated version of her work which gives the previous books plus more which she wrote later. "Essential help for your Nerves". Give it a try. Good reading. Best wishes. jonathan
Hi wilkie46 .......it is really hard for others to understand though it doesn't mean that they don't care, it's difficult for them too at times as their lives are often affected almost as much.
I am quite new here also and have learned a lot from others who post here.
Hi Wilkie! welcome to this site ! I hope you find it s helpful and friendly as I have done. I've learned more here in the last months than I have in a life time!. Thank you P/L for your post, it has just reinforced me for today!!! love and hugs xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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