Empower

It is said that, in life, we are always either moving toward pleasure or away from pain. We often become consumed with, and therefore spend all of our energy in, rejecting, or moving away from pain.

One of the most debilitating things we do to ourselves is to believe we are powerless to change the way we respond to emotional triggers. People often feel that they have no control over their lives or what happens to them. Acceptance is the ability to accept, in a non-judgmental way, both oneself and the situation. It is, essentially, the ability to experience one's emotional state without attempting to change it, and to perceive one's environment without putting demands on it to be different. Acceptance is learning to embrace the only real control we have in life, and that is control of our responses to life.

It is important to note here, that acceptance of reality does not equate to tolerating it or approving of it.The resistance of reality is where most pain in life is found. Accepting what is, rather than continually and actively working to reject it, releases our resources to move forward. When we are unable to accept a given situation, we end up being trapped in chronic suffering from it; we end up in "stuck states". We must learn to move through these states, rather than getting trapped, or stuck in them.

This stage is often the more difficult stage to move through, however it is every bit as essential as the awareness stage.