Mindfulness Skill 7: Acceptance

TRANSCRIPT

Interviewer:

You tuned into the morning show here on Youth Jam. And right now with the Thursday, I've got on the other end of the line, dr. Patrick Jones. Patrick comes on air each week to discuss mental health and well-being. And these last few weeks we've been looking at a variety of mindfulness techniques. Patrick, the technique that we're going to be looking at today is acceptance. So what are we referring to when we talk about acceptance in mindfulness? 

Patrick:

Yeah, well, acceptance is a critical part of mindfulness and we've looked at other things and one of them is the neutral nonjudgmental awareness of thoughts or watching thoughts. This is the other half which is allowing feelings and it's the main focus of mindfulness, these two, to be able to watch thoughts and allow feelings and then be able to see beyond that, I would probably say to the true nature of who you are. So the acceptance part is critical and it's essentially just allowing the emotions through or the feelings that we may have or sensations versus trying to get rid of them as quickly as we can if they happen to be say, negative ones. 

And once we've learned to be able to watch our thoughts and not always engage the thoughts and oh yeah, that's true and yeah, that's why it happens. And if we've sort of got that skill, this is the second half is to be able to then let whatever feelings or sensations that might arise to be able to just accept them without stirring them up. The analogy often uses a little bit like they say porridge, for example. The funny thing is that is what we would call a stir-thickening fluid. Like if you stir it gets thicker, whilst tomato sauce is a stir, thinning fluid. And if we allow feelings, it's a little bit like it lets them through. 

But if we happen to allow the feelings and we start thinking all the negative stuff, we might think about those feelings, what happens is it tends to stir those feelings up. So you could say it's a stir. Those things become like a stir-thickening fluid, the emotions get bigger and stronger. But if we can just watch the thoughts allow the feelings, the miracle is that they just move through because they don't have much stamina. Small ones may go quickly, and larger ones may take a bit longer, but they all pass. And I think this is a really big focus in mindfulness and general sort of wisdom literature is that ability to be able to just accept it, allow it through, and then once it's passed, there you are resting as you were before. 

Interviewer:

And what were talking about last week was openness, which had to do with permitting these good or bad feelings to arise. So it feels that this is a logical successor to that technique. So then how do the techniques of openness and acceptance relate? Could you just sort of expand on that? 

Patrick:

Yeah, sure. So in a way, we could put them together but they are sort of two parts in a way it's a really good question to distinguish those two. The openness is in a way the first part it's like am I willing to be open to it's like a stance of openness towards myself or even interaction with others. Do I have a stance of openness to what people might say or what might happen or what I might feel? And if that's in place and that's also an openness to check your beliefs and whether they're still realistic once that's in place, then we need this second part, which is this skill of acceptance, which is being able to let through what we've opened to. And sometimes it can be a little bit torrid. But again, we're also looking at positive stuff. 

Sometimes people have real issues with really wonderful things they talk about in money, poverty, and consciousness versus an abundance mentality. And sometimes the idea of abundance or that your life is working and the relationship is fantastic and there's a truckload of money around for all the good things that you feel you want to do was a universe that people are also able to be open to easily. It feels a bit uncomfortable. So I like to highlight that acceptance is for the good stuff as well as the bad stuff. But I think we need to have the skill in place and then whether it's good or bad, we can be able to let it through and then work with it. 

Interviewer:

And in that answer, you were alluding just to positive feelings that you might sort of find difficult to accept. But in the scope of negative emotions and bad feelings, it can sometimes feel obvious as to why you would ignore them and it's understandable why people would want to sort of swerve in the direction away from them. But what is the danger or the detriment that comes with attempting to avoid those negative emotions? 

Patrick:

Yeah, again, really good question. This distinguishes the difference between, you could almost say the introductory level I often encourage people is it is better to cope than not cope sometimes if it's just too much it is probably appropriate to go look, I just can't go there at the moment, I can't handle that. It's better in a sense to be able to do that than not be skilled up to be able to manage what's there. So sometimes I would not say avoiding or denying, it'd be more of a conscious choice. Look, I'll note that as something I need to look at, but right now I can't. So that, I would probably say, is in the functioning or functional area, it's coping better than not coping, but it's not curing and that's the thing. So that phrase whatever you resist, persists.

So yes, I might cope with this particular method, but I'm not curing it. And what that means is that it keeps us captive. And I often have this sort of image of a bit like an imaginary dragon in a cave that stops us from getting through to the other side, to what life we would like to live. And if we always live on this side of that imaginary dragon, that imaginary fear or worry, then we can live our whole life not having passed through that and never having known whether or not we could have. And I think this is where mindfulness is such a not just mindfulness, but this is such a courageous way of living. And the acceptance one, as I said, the other half of mindfulness is we ought to watch thoughts neutrally. 

But this other one often people find even as challenging as watching thoughts is to allow the imaginary dragon to come up to you and to be able to go, okay, I think I can walk through this. And it's our fears. They might be silly to someone else, but they're genuine to us and possibly to a lot of others. So I think this is why it's important to not avoid them permanently, temporarily if needed. But we want to be able to get to the other side of our fears so that we can live the life that we want to live. 

Interviewer:

What I thought I'd do, and it's something that I feel isn't necessarily addressed all too much, is ask what are some of the problems with clinging on to positive feelings or memories. 

Patrick:

Yeah, well, this one is a little harder, possibly for people to see why that might be an issue. I think the answer is that the typical approach to getting a quality of life for people or well-being is it's pretty much a two-part process. It's to optimize pleasure or good things and to minimize pain or bad things. They're the two drivers. But if that's our whole sort of focus, then we can also become a victim to this in a sense that we kind of get sort of pushed around by needing this to happen. So, for example, I must not have bad stuff happen. I must have good stuff. And whilst they're great drivers, we don't want to be pushed around by, in a sense, even our desires for good stuff. 

So, for example, if you've got something that is great, it might be, well, I just want this to continue. Or if it's a fantastic relationship or job like this must continue. The idea that it couldn't continue is horrific to me. Well, in a way, there's somewhere a little bit of nervousness or a vulnerability or dependence on that really good thing. So I think any kind of what they call too much attachment to a thing or too much aversion to a bad thing can give that thing power. And it's really what we call exogenous or external well-being versus inner well-being, where that thing or that's what I was after, intrinsic motivation or extrinsic motivation. It's trying to bring the power back to you, essentially is what we're looking at. 

And it's a little bit of a subtle one, but I think once we can let go of our clinging to the good thing, we might be able to reduce our aversion to the bad thing. And then where we're left is being able to go, well, look, I'm actually in charge of my well-being beyond these things and a much more powerful place to come from. 

Interviewer:

Yeah, and with all this in mind, Patrick, we've yet to ask exactly what the technique for achieving acceptance is. So with that in mind, what is your technique for developing acceptance as a mindfulness exercise?

Patrick:

Yeah, well, I think just what were looking at earlier. Having any exercise that helps us not have too much of a negative response to a bad or positive response to a good or even a bored response to the neutral is important. They call this equanimity, you could say, in the mindfulness arena. The goal is to allow things to be able to be here and pass through in their own time and to be able to see that they're not that permanent or solid, but they're what we call passing mental events, passing emotion, passing feelings. So, therefore, there are always three categories things are. They're either a good thing, a bad thing, or a neutral thing, neither good nor bad.

And what's important is to be able to have a comfortable relationship with all three of those, as I said, not be pushed around by them needing to be a certain way for me to feel okay. And therefore, a great little method, if we just start with a good one, is to say good feelings. It's almost like in a gym, you're practicing a different exercise equipment. And so the good feeling you could say is one you just do one more, perhaps one rep. We choose one good thing in our life and just be able to bring it to mind and allow it and enjoy it. But the key is to not hold onto it, not have that wish it's still here, that it must stay. So, in other words, hold it, but just hold it lightly. That's the first. 

And one can take as short or long as you want on that. And then the second we go to the opposite end of the spectrum, the uncomfortable feeling is then just practiced a little bit, probably something smaller, and you can work up to the worst things you can imagine. Let's recall something that's perhaps difficult, not too difficult in the beginning and just be with it. It's not like I watch my tendency to push it away, not have it resist it, and just be able to let it sit here having what we could almost say a healthy relationship to things that I might feel not great versus can't go there, push it away, judge the person that it's connected to. Just equanimity just watching, allowing that's the negative one. And then the third would be neutral ones. 

Things that there's nothing really either good or bad happening. But then just to be with that, because sometimes, even funnily enough, that can be like, well, that's a real waste of my time. Nothing is going on here. And we end up having an aversion response to neutral things because like, well, I need to get on with my life. And yet a lot of life is these gaps where there's not a whole lot happening, and can I just be comfortable in those gaps as well? So they're the three, and they can be practiced anytime. A good experience, a negative experience, and a neutral one, and then they can also be increased. As you feel stronger, you've done a few more reps in the gym, say it's a one out of ten. 

You can start with discomfort or feeling good, push it up. As you feel more comfortable, you add more weight until in the end, the place you want to get to is where you can just and this is a very powerful way of being in terms of acceptance, is where you can feel that I can go anywhere, do anything. And I'm not kind of cowering in the corner. I'm just allowing myself to be open. I know myself well enough that I can feel even if there's something uncomfortable in me. A bit like that. I imagine the Scottish chieftain on the hordes coming towards him, in his villages behind him. He's going to protect, and he's heroically standing there. You shall not get past me. But there's still all this fear potentially that might be in him. 

But he's choosing not to go. He's choosing to do what he thinks is true for him and perhaps future things. We may look at some of the heroism, and research. It's really powerful. It's these people who can allow things within them like normal human beings and yet still move forward. And I think this is the real power of acceptance, is the potency or agency or power that you have because you can allow what's in you and still act. So that's it in a nutshell. 

Well, what's been interesting in this discussion is something that I sort of fixate on a lot the detriment that lies in being overly nostalgic. Like, I do tend to get quite nostalgic, even about periods that were not that long ago. Like, even like, oh, I remember how great February 2021 was, that kind of thing. And it's like, well, why is that? Because the chances are it's about as good as things are now. And I think there's a little bit of when you reflect on a period that you've lived through, you're doing so with, of course, the knowledge that you got through it okay, but at the moment, you're not sure of what's coming up in the future.

So when you're looking back from a perspective of nostalgia, you're doing so knowing that, oh, that was a great period and you know what?

Interviewer:

Everything after that was going to be okay as well. So that's safety and what you've talked about here in the scope of acceptance also feels like there's a degree to which you accept that moving forward in terms of chronology and time means a degree of uncertainty and it's also about coming to terms with that. 

Patrick:

Yeah, well, I guess if I pick a few things from that, it's in a way the silent enemy, if you like, if that's quite the word. But the silent attachment version is the good stuff. Typically it's the bad stuff that we feel is the issue. But in a way, if I'm attached to the good stuff, it's not so much like it's an accident waiting to happen because that good stuff may maintain, may endure, but I think the key is to be able to be with and enjoy the good stuff. But if there is that nostalgic thing from either the past, I must have that again. Then somewhere our well-being is a bit on hold, waiting for good times to arrive again versus creating the now. 

So again, the typical response is to have what they call equanimity, which is allowing the good at the moment. That's lovely, but just holding it lightly. So if it does go, we don't sort of set up that formula for nostalgia in the future. So I think that's the first bit. And the second, I guess, is that along with nostalgia for good stuff might be also the fear of the bad stuff coming again. And I think they're, in a sense, two-sided the same coin. I think the goal, again is to be able to just allow the feelings that may arise, but also when mindfulness does layer all the different qualities like present moment awareness, being able to be in the present versus relating to a virtual moment, which might be the past as if it's the present. 

I think that one of the dangers, in a sense is that we may create a virtual world in our head that we relate to. And sometimes if you can catch yourself thinking it's like, well, I'm relating to my thinking as if it's a real-world somewhere, as opposed to the one that's actually in front of me. So I think the nostalgia and also the fear of bad things happening can be interrupted almost immediately. But like just bring me to the present and then if there is something that's happening that's uncomfortable or I'm feeling a bit attached to just be able to step back and let that through. And then we can create a new moment in which know where life is from. 

Interviewer:

Now, Patrick, with that in mind, thank you very much for getting in touch with us again here on Youth Jam. Hope to speak to you again next week.

Patrick:

All right, sounds good. 

Interviewer:

Excellent. Take care.