Acceptance

[MajestyJo]

Daily Acceptance


"Too much of my life has been spent in dwelling upon the faults of others. This is a most subtle and perverse form of self-satisfaction, which permits us to remain comfortably unaware of our own defects. Too often we are heard to say, `If it weren't for him (or her), how happy I'd be!'"

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Our very first problem is to accept our present circumstances as they are, ourselves as we are, and the people about us as they are. This is to adopt a realistic humility without which no genuine advance can even begin. Again and again, we shall need to return to that unflattering point of departure. This is an exercise in acceptance that we can profitably practice every day of our lives.

Provided we strenuously avoid turning these realistic surveys of the facts of life into unrealistic alibis for apathy of defeatism, they can be sure foundation upon which increased emotional health and therefore spiritual progress can be built


1. LETTER, 1966
2. GRAPEVINE, MARCH 1962

Accepting what is the moment, knowing it is subject to change. Until I can find the acceptance, I can't move on.

[honeydumplin]

What is Acceptance?
March 1962

One way to get at the meaning of the principle of acceptance is to meditate upon it in the context of AA's much used prayer, "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."
Essentially this is to ask for the resources of grace by which we may make spiritual progress under all conditions. Greatly emphasized in this wonderful prayer is a need for the kind of wisdom that discriminates between the possible and the impossible. We shall also see that life's formidable array of pains and problems will require many different degrees of acceptance as we try to apply this valued principle.

Sometimes we have to find the right kind of acceptance for each day. Sometimes we need to develop acceptance for what may come to pass tomorrow, and yet again we shall have to accept a condition that may never change. Then, too, there frequently has to be aright and realistic acceptance of grievous flaws within ourselves and serious flaws within those about us – defects that may not be fully remedied for years, if ever.

All of us will encounter failures, some retrievable and some not. We shall often meet with defeat -sometimes by accident, sometimes self-inflicted, and at still other times dealt to us by the injustice and violence of other people. Most of us will meet up with some degree of worldly success, and here the problem of the right kind of acceptance will be really difficult. Then there will be illness and death.

How indeed shall we be able to accept all these?

It is always worthwhile to consider how grossly that good word acceptance can be misused. It can be warped to justify nearly every brand of weakness, nonsense, and folly. For instance, we can "accept" failure as a chronic condition, forever without profit or remedy. We can "accept" worldly success pride fully, as something wholly of our own making. We can also "accept" illness and death as certain evidence of a hostile and godless universe. With these twisting of acceptance, we AAs have had vast experience. Hence we constantly try to remind ourselves that these perversions of acceptance are just gimmicks for excuse making: a losing game at which we are, or at least have been, the world's champions.
This is why we treasure our Serenity Prayer so much. It brings a new light to us that can dissipate our old-time and nearly fatal habit of fooling ourselves. In the radiance of this prayer we see that defeat, rightly accepted, need be no disaster. We now know that we do not have to run away, nor ought we to again try to overcome adversity by still another bulldozing power drive that can only push up obstacles before us faster than they can be taken down.
On entering AA, we become the beneficiaries of a very different experience. Our new way of staying sober is literally founded upon the proposition that "Of ourselves we are nothing, the Father doeth the works." In Steps One and Two of our recovery program, there ideas are specifically spelled out: "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable" – "Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity." We couldn't lick alcohol with our own remaining resources and so we accepted the further fact that dependence upon a higher power (if only our AA group) could do this hitherto impossible job. The moment we were able to fully accept these facts, our release from the alcohol compulsion had begun. For most of us this pair of acceptances had required a lot of exertion to achieve. Our whole treasured philosophy of self-sufficiency had to be cast aside. This had not been done with old- fashioned willpower; it was instead a matter of developing willingness to accept these new facts of living. We neither ran nor fought. But accept we did. And then we were free. There had been no irretrievable disaster.

This kind of acceptance and faith is capable of producing 100 percent sobriety. In fact it usually does; and it must, else we could have no life at all. But the moment we carry these attitudes into our emotional problems, we find that only relative results are possible. Nobody can, for example, become completely free from fear, anger, and pride. Hence in this life we shall attain nothing like perfect humility and love. So we shall have to settle, respecting most of our problems, for a very gradual progress, punctuated sometimes by heavy setbacks. Our old-time attitudes of "all or nothing" will have to be abandoned.

Therefore our first problem is to accept our present circumstances as they are, ourselves as we are, and the people about us as they are. This is to adopt a realistic humility without which no genuine advance can even begin. Again and again, we shall need to return to that unflattering point of departure. This is an exercise in acceptance that we can profitably practice every day of our lives. Provided we strenuously avoid turning these realistic surveys of the facts of life into unrealistic alibis for apathy and defeatism, they can be the sure foundation upon which increased emotional health and therefore spiritual progress can be built. At least this seems to be my own experience.

Another exercise that I practice is to try for a full inventory of my blessings and then for a right acceptance of the many gifts that are mine – both temporal and spiritual. Here I try to achieve a state of joyful gratitude. When such a brand of gratitude is repeatedly affirmed and pondered, it can finally displace the natural tendency to congratulate myself on whatever progress I may have been enabled to make in some areas of living. I try hard to hold fast to the truth that a full and thankful heart cannot entertain great conceits. When brimming with gratitude one's heartbeat must surely result in outgoing love, the finest emotion that we can ever know.

In times of rough going, the grateful acceptance of my blessings, oft repeated, can also bring me some of the serenity of which our prayer speaks. Whenever I fall under acute pressures I lengthen my daily walks and slowly repeat our Serenity Prayer in rhythm to my steps and breathing. If I feel my pain has in part been occasioned by others, I try to repeat, "God grant me the serenity to love their best, and never fear their worst. This benign healing process of repetition, sometimes necessary to persist for days, has seldom failed to restore me to at least a workable emotional balance and perspective.

Another helpful step is to steadfastly affirm the understanding that pain can bring. Indeed pain is one of our greatest teachers. Though I still find it difficult to accept today's pain and anxiety with any great degree of serenity – as those more advanced in the spiritual life seem able to do – I can, if I try hard, give thank for the present pain nevertheless. I find the willingness to do this by contemplating the lessons learned from past suffering – lessons which have led to the blessings I now enjoy. I can remember, if I insist, how the agonies of alcoholism, the pain of rebellion and thwarted pride, have often led me to God's grace, and so to a new freedom. So, as I walk along, I repeat still other phrases such as there," Pain is the touchstone of progress" . . . "Fear no evil" . . . "This, too shall pass." . . . "This experience can be turned into benefit."

These fragments of prayer bring far more than mere comfort. They keep me on the track of right acceptance; they break up my compulsive themes of guilt, depression, rebellion, and pride; and sometimes they endow me with the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

To those who never have given these potent exercises in acceptance a real workout, I recommend them highly the next time the heat is on. Or, for that matter, at any time!

Excerpted from: The Language of the Heart
pp. 269 – 272
Copyright ©1988 by the AA Grapevine, Inc.

[MajestyJo]

It was a real issue when I first came in about accepting my alcoholism. I knew I was an addict, my drug of choice had been more all my life. When I acknowledge that alcohol was part of that "more" and that I had used alcohol along with other substances, I could admit to my disease. It made it easier to accept when I said, "Dis-ease" not comfortable within my own skin and always looking for something outside of myself to make me feel better.

Another acceptance was the amount of damage I did to my body over the years. Acceptance of all the wasted years and space as the song goes. Not sure if my fibromyalgia is a result of the physical or mental abuse, a car accident I had at 17, or a combination. I was told that I had PTSD, but not by a doctor, but by a therapist in later years when I went for sexual assault counselling. Again the acceptance came from the recovery phrase, "I had to go through what I went through to get to where I am in today."

Even in today, fibromyalgia affects so many aspects of my life, I still have to find acceptance on a daily basis.

With my son in active addiction, I have to accept his choices, I don't have to like them. I am as powerless over his disease as I was over my own, prior to coming into recovery and surrendering to the program.

Through the program I learned to accept a Higher Power into my life. I was very angry at my God. I had to make an amend to Him and I had to go on a spiritual journey to find out who God was to me. I had to make God personal. I couldn't accept other people's God, because I felt if I did, I would stop looking for God, then where would I be. I had to find my own God and build a relationship with Him/Her.

There is a lot in my own life, like growing older, swollen feet, sores on my feet that don't want to heal because of my diabetes, my five types of arthritis, and lately, I have this feeling that I have bands around my ankles like prisoners wear. Maybe it means I am a prisoner of my own making or of my own mind.

The program is applicable to all areas of my life, and for that I am so grateful.

[MajestyJo]

“Defiant individuals will always persecute others, yet will
always consider themselves persecuted.” - - Alfred Adler

Learned long ago, that fighting acceptance only prolongs the agony. Defiance was one of the reasons I kept on using for many years, don't tell me, watch me. That didn't get me too far. Not only do I need to accept my disease, but when I accept the pain that goes along with it, that much faster, the solution appears.

"When you blame others, you give up your power to change."
- - Unknown

In early recovery, I didn't think I had any faults after I quit using. After all, I was raised to be a good Christian girl.

It took me awhile to recognize that to err is human. I didn't want to admit to being human let alone the error. When I heard people say, "Well I am only human you know," I would get a resentment. I felt as though they used the saying as a cop out. They use their humanness to not change.

In today, I tell it as it is. What you see is what you get. As a friend said to me on Messenger the other night, "g/f you are just 2 2 funny. I never know what is going to come out of your mouth next."

Before recovery, it was all about the blame game. It was every one else's fault and the world owed me a favor as I was so hard done by.

Today I embrace change. I don't want to be that person any more. She was not very likable. She still has a lot of work to do on herself. God and I work on it one day at a time.

Before recovery, I thought I was the best. I thought I was being the best me I could be. I also learned that you can't know what you were never taught. I was very isolated on the farm growing up and didn't have a lot of people skills. I didn't have a best friend until I was 17. When I met her, I was the follower. As my disease progressed, I became the leading authority.

So glad that it is progress not perfection.

[MajestyJo]

Accepting my defects of character.


Tonight I was remembering that the ego (Easing God Out), kept track of how many times I had shared my story. I stopped counting somewhere between 50 and 60, so needless to say I had a big ego.

I got up at my group, speaking for a 3 year anniversary and shared, "I thought it was only men had egos, I found out that I have one too.

I had thought that I kept count because it was how many times I had been honoured by having someone ask me and reminded me that I was being of service, not sure if I was expecting a reward, I don't think so, but I think it was a way of patting myself on the back for being such a good girl.

It isn't about what I did, it is about what I am doing now. It is rewarding to go back to old post, that originated on my sites and posted to another one. That again sounds like ego. Not sure, the sites were places to put all the material that was sent to me over the years in recovery. The sad thing is that I have bowed out of that and seldom go to Facebook and to my in box. Most of the people on my mailing list don't correspond but there are a few special ones who do, when I reach out. I try, but hope to try harder in the future.

I have found many times over the years that I thought I was doing good, only to find I was tripping over my ego. So glad that I can take it to my God and ask for health and well being and have the ego taken from me.

[MajestyJo]

Was just talking to my friend Pam a few minutes ago and the words acceptance and ego came up in our conversation. Of course the ego was someone elses. LOL!

[MajestyJo]

"Accepting God's Gifts"

"It is necessary for all of us to accept whatever positive gifts we receive with a deep humility, always bearing in mind that our negative attitudes were first necessary as a means of reducing us to such a state that we would be ready for a gift of the positive ones via the conversion experience. Your own alcoholism and the immense deflation that finally resulted are indeed the foundation upon which your spiritual experience rests."

© 1967, As Bill Sees It, page 168

Acceptance is one of the spiritual principles of Step One. I was told that I had to do the first half of this step 100%, and I was warned that the second half was conditional to my spiritual connection, one day at a time.

When I accepted my disease, surrendered my day to my Higher Power, got honest with me, then my life would be manageable. If I didn't have these spiritual principles, and tried to manage my own life, then it certainly would become unmanageable, and would stay so until such a time, as I could find the honest, surrender and acceptance I need to bring myself back to my center and connected to the God of my understanding.

Had this thought in 2004 and ten years later, it is still applicable I today. This is why I love this program, it is one day at a time program. God is as He reveals Himself to me I today. The program is applicable as it unfolds in today.

The program is applicable to all areas of my life. When in doubt, go back to Step One. My life is unmanageable when managed by me. I think my lesson in all this is to take some quiet time and not try to fill up my day with busy. I haven't been doing as much meditation as I normal do the last few weeks. It has been more about asking and not being open to receiving. I need to accept where I am at and where my son is at in his life and allow things to unfold as they should, not as I would like them to be.

[MajestyJo]

Acceptance & Burned Biscuits
Burned Biscuits


I haven't seen this story for a while. Thought you would like it.

When I was a kid, my mom liked to make breakfast food for dinner every now and then. And I remember one night in particular when she had made breakfast after a long, hard day at work. On that evening so long ago, my mom placed a plate of eggs, sausage and extremely burned biscuits in front of my dad. I remember waiting to see if anyone noticed! Yet all my dad did was reach for his biscuit, smile at my mom and ask me how my day was at school. I don't remember what I told him that night,
but I do remember watching him smear butter and jelly on that biscuit and eat every bite!

When I got up from the table that evening, I remember hearing my mom apologize to my dad for burning the biscuits. And I'll never forget what he said: "Honey, I love burned biscuits."

Later that night, I went to kiss Daddy good night and I asked him if he really liked his biscuits burned. He wrapped me in his arms and said, "Your Momma put in a hard day at work today and she's real tired. And besides - a little burnt biscuit never hurt anyone!"

You know, life is full of imperfect things.....and imperfect people.
I'm not the best at hardly anything, and I forget birthdays and
anniversaries just like everyone else.

What I've learned over the years is that learning to accept each
others faults - and choosing to celebrate each others differences - is one of the most important keys to creating a healthy, growing, and lasting relationship.

And that's my prayer for you today. That you will learn to take the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of your life and lay them at the feet of God. Because in the end, He's the only One who will be able to give you a relationship where a burnt biscuit isn't a deal-breaker!

We could extend this to any relationship. In fact, understanding is
the base of any relationship, be it a husband-wife or parent-child or friendship!

"Don't put the key to your happiness in someone else's pocket - keep it in your own."

God Bless You

This is a quote that BW made 5 years ago on another site, not sure if it is posted here or not. A good reminder, recovery isn't about the other person, it begins with me.

[dwmoeller]

Thanks for sharing the Acceptance and Burnt Biscuits. I copied it and printed it out to share it with my AA meeting tonight.

[MajestyJo]

Acceptance is one of the key ingredients of recovery.

Acceptance that my addiction is a disease.

Acceptance of the disease itself, and that I can only have dail reprieve, dependent on my daily spiritual connection.

Acceptance of the program and it's totality, because half-measures availed me nothing. If they had said, "Sit on a telephone pole for "X" number of hours a day, seven days a week, twelve months a year, from now to whenever, I would do it' if it was what was necessary to stay clean and sober.

Acceptance of the fact that I needed to work and learn to live the steps.

Acceptance that I needed a sponsor and a support group that I couldn't do this recovery thing alone.

Acceptance for myself and others, has only come over "working" the program, one day at a time, since I came into recovery.

Today, I can still have "fat and ugly days" after twelve years of recovery.

Acceptance that this isn't a "fix me" program but a healing program, which allows me to grow and develp as a person, one day at a time.

Acceptance of the fact that I may falter and make mistakes, yet knowing that if I pick myself up, dust myself off, I can start all over again, one day at a time.

Acceptance that it isn't always a physical relapse, but often a mental, emotional and spiritual one.

Acceptance that without you, there is no me! Yet without me, I have nothing!