The ONE thing that keep ppl unhappy
The power of acceptance— how to stop struggling & start living
Free Your Mind(fulness).
Life is filled with pleasant moments. Can you agree? 👀
See if you can take a moment right now to just think of some of the pleasant things life has to offer you. For instance, getting a text or email from someone you’ve been awaiting to hear back from, receiving a compliment, or even having a nice conversation with someone. Aren’t those moments wonderful?
And just like there are pleasant moments, our lives also have unpleasant moments too. Some examples can be seen as waking up late for work & while on the way being stuck in a traffic jam, having an argument with someone, and even more relevant instances like having to wear a mask every single place you go because there’s a virus floating around in the air...pretty unpleasant....am I right?
Both (pleasant/unpleasant moments) are inevitable parts of our lives. We cannot have one over the other.
It’s interesting though how we choose to experience these moments. Mostly, we deal with them in completely different ways...
We tend to embrace positive & pleasant things, & try to hold on to them. On the other hand, we tend to resist or fight negative & unpleasant things & try to run away from them.
The reason ofcourse is obvious.
We don’t want to experience “bad” things. We just want what good life has to offer.
And while this is a normal “want,” as I mentioned earlier, both experiences are inevitable. Unpleasant experiences WILL occur at some point in our lives, if not already. It’s just the way life is. It’s the yin & the yang.
The PROBLEM:
Many of us haven’t come to terms with this idea though and so we continue to resist the unpleasant experiences. This triggers thoughts & behaviors to try & get rid of the thing that’s not making us feel good. This is how we tend to deal with unpleasant things which only causes conflict.
Why tho?
What’s happening here is we’re trying to run. We’re trying to get rid of the bad to get back to the good without taking the time to even sit with our feelings to better understand why we feel the way we do in the first place.
So if we’re feeling sad, we just want to feel happy. If we’re feeling fear, we want to experience no fear, if we’re in pain, we want to feel no pain.
A conflict arises between what’s happening right now (current emotional state) & what our mind is telling us should be happening right now (desired emotional state).
We suppress the feeling, or distract ourselves, reframe our thoughts, or engage in positive thinking without really allowing ourselves to feel the feeling first, which can be dangerous.
So like I said, we tend to run away from ourselves. 🏃🏽♂️💨
So what is acceptance and how does mindfulness apply to this? This email will explain what you need to know about acceptance & how to practice more of it in your life, as well as other mindful goodness.
So let’s get into it. 💫
Here’s the LOC breakdown for you to PREVIEW what you’re getting in this email (at a glance):
Mindful Insights
(1) Not another meditation (meditation) —3 minute breathing space (2) Unwanted Guest Metaphor is a document I put together sharing practical insight to what acceptance truly is. (3)A short video I posted a few months back on social media that shows a good depiction of what acceptance looks like in a real life scenario. (4)Another (short 5min) video sharing Kevin Hines suicide attempt story & how feeling as if you are not accepted can lead to your demise.
Mindful Weekly Challenge
Control your thoughts—A challenge you can take on any day of the week at any time. It’s a thought controlling challenge to help you identify what it feels like to try and get rid of something you don’t want to experience.
Mindful Approach
This week is all about something many of us struggle with—acceptance. I share insight to what acceptance is, why acceptance is important if you’re looking to lead a happier life, and I provide a bunch of practical ways you can try to cultivate more acceptance in your life TODAY.
Mindful Reflection
Here I share some thoughts I have about suicide & why I feel non acceptance can have something to do with it.
Mindful Insights
1) Not Another Meditation (Meditation)
I named this Not another meditation, meditation because while it’s technically a meditation, it can be also be done anytime, anywhere, standing, sitting, and even laying down. It’s informal so it doesn’t require much work.
The aim is to help you integrate meditation practice into your daily life.
It involves 3 steps—
The first step is to ask yourself: “Where am I?”, “How am I?”, “What am I thinking?” This is to help us step outside of our daily “doing” mode for a moment, disrupt our habitual patterns & introduce awareness of the current experience.
The second step involves a single focus of attention. Attention is directed away from thinking and focused on the breath.
During the third and last step, attention is expanded so that it also includes awareness of body sensations. The focus here is on the body as a whole.
Listen to the audio I recorded below for guidance on what this looks like. Try & see if you can practice along with it.
2) Unwanted Guest Metaphor
Here is a document I put together that you can read at your own leisure that talks about acceptance/non acceptance in a very pragmatic way. And attached are a couple of questions you can go over and answer with yourself to reflect on. You can absolutely share your responses with me by replying to the email or welcome your response to the private fb group I created for us — zen space.
[click the picture above to view]
3) Cultivating Acceptance (IRL scenario)
This is a video I posted onto social a few months back when we were first informed about the pandemic and when the media was telling us how to handle it. While many ppl responded reactively, here I share a much healthier more effective way to respond—finding acceptance & responding the way you choose too. Hope you enjoy!
4) Kevin Hines Suicide Attempt (His Story)
Mindful Challenge
“This is a challenge that is asking of you to control your thoughts for just 2 minutes. You are allowed to think of everything you want, except a white bear. Every time you do think of a white bear, & you notice it’s happening, try your hardest to suppress every thought of the white bear.”
So when you are ready, set a timer for 2 minutes and give yourself this moment to take on this challenge. Afterwards, reflect on your experience. How did it go? Was it easy? Hard?
Reflection—
If you’re like most ppl who do this challenge, you may have noticed that it’s very difficult to suppress the thoughts of the white bear. This is called rebound effect. We want to get rid of the thoughts and what ends up happening is we think about it more.
Mindful Approach
“Acceptance means perceiving your experience and simply acknowledging it rather than judging it as good or bad.”
By acknowledging the feeling, thought or sensation and going into it, the experience changes. Even with physical pain, try experimenting by actually feeling it.
Did you give the 2 minute challenge mentioned earlier a try? If so, did you notice how difficult it was to suppress the thoughts of the white bear?
The same concept applies to very serious (dramatic or negative) thoughts. Like for instance, when we are feeling an emotion that’s not joy or happiness—we try to get rid of the feelings but we quickly come to find that they don’t quite go away that easily.
This also happens in other situations too. Ever tried your hardest to fall asleep? You find that you instead end up staying awake for many hours. Also, if you ever tried really hard to lose weight, you may notice that it tends to go the opposite direction and you instead gain weight.
This is where acceptance comes in.
Acceptance is the opposite of avoidance. It’s the willingness to experience what is happening in the present moment. Applying mindfulness into this is allowing yourself to fully experience what you are going through right here, right now without judging it or trying to change it or make it go away.
And now this idea of acceptance isn’t always as easy as it sounds, right?
If you’ve ever tried to sit with your feelings, you may notice how difficult it can seem to be sometimes. You may notice that your feelings can sometimes intensify. And so when that happens, what we do is we try to control the situation and get ourselves away from the feeling.
Mindfulness is telling us to instead work through it. Allow the feelings to be there. Accept the feelings to be there. Allow them to rise & watch as they soon fade away.
Resisting Pleasant Moments
Now let’s get back to those pleasant moments we experience because those too can be dealt with non acceptance and create problems for ourselves.
Ofcourse during pleasant situations, it’s less difficult to deal with. The conflict though often comes up when we try to hold on to the situation because we don’t want the moment to pass. We attach ourselves to it because we feel like it won’t last forever. We get in our head & start thinking all sorts of things like how upsetting it is that this won’t last forever. Or we may find ourselves caught up in thoughts, wishing we can feel this type of happiness forever. This behavior keeps us trapped in thinking mode, which ironically takes us away from the moment.
Back To Mindfulness
Mindfulness helps us to see & accept that nothing in life lasts forever. Everything fades. And so when we come to realize & accept this, we are able to experience everything instead of avoiding. We end up flowing with life.
All in all, you need to know and accept where you are right here, right now before you can begin working out how to get to where you want to be. If you don’t acknowledge where you are and what’s currently happening, you can’t move on appropriately from that point. Choose acceptance & then you free yourself.
Here are some ways you can try to cultivate acceptance:
Gently state the label of the experience you aren’t accepting. For example, if you’re not accepting that you’re sad, state in your mind, to yourself, ‘I’m feeling sad at the moment… I’m feeling sad.’ In this way, you begin to acknowledge your feeling.
Notice which part of your body feels tense and imagine your breath going into and out of the area of tightness. As you breathe in and out, say to yourself, ‘It’s okay. It’s already here… It’s already here.’
Consider how much you accept or acknowledge your current thoughts/feelings/sensation on a scale of 1 to 10. Ask yourself what you need to do to increase your acceptance by 1, and then do it as best you can.
Become really curious about your experience. Consider: ‘Where did this feeling come from? Where do I feel it? What’s interesting about it?’ In this way, the curiosity leads you to a little more acceptance.
**Next week I’ll share how mindfulness plays a role with GOALS. The default mode for many people is a “doing mode,” and we’ll see how mindfulness can be introduced as they key for finding balance between being in the present moment and planning for the future.**
Mindful Reflection
First, thank you again for signing up for this newsletter and accepting the insights I share into your life. It’s truly such an amazing feeling to know you care about mindfulness and what it entails, & I’m just so happy to have you here. So thank you!!!
So these past couple of weeks, I’ve been educating myself more about suicide. Not only because it’s suicide awareness month, but because I’m actually interested in learning more about the topic.
In doing my research, I’m learning so much. One of the things I’ve come to find out when it comes to suicide is that loneliness & non acceptance play a major role when it comes to suicide.
One website that provided me with great insight on this ideology was from The Trevor Project. (An American advocacy non profit organization focused on suicide prevention efforts among the LGBTQ community).
There have been several studies that highlight the high rates of adverse mental health concerns among the LGBTQ community, including increased depressive symptoms, increased rates of seriously considering suicide, and increased rates of attempted suicide. It has been founded that this results from increased experiences of discrimination & rejection (non acceptance) from others.
According to an article I read from the thetrevorproject.org, it states that, “research has shown increased support from others can serve as a protective factor, decreasing the risk for negative mental health outcomes among LGBTQ youth. Previous research has found a link between support from others and reduced suicide attempts among lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth.” So not only can non-judgmental acceptance support ones mental health but it can also decrease the instances of suicide attempts.
Mindfulness my friend, mindfulness—Allowing ourselves to be present enough to observe all that is taking place around us and within us & doing so, finding acceptance for everything with non judgemental eyes. When we allow ourselves to live this way, we can readily take in when we notice someone around us crying for support. When we allow ourselves to live this way, we can readily take in when someone is in pain. When we allow ourselves to live this way, we can readily take in when there’s a situation occurring around us that requires us to intervene. We can literally save someone’s life right? It just requires some mindful awareness of whats going on in the present moment.
If you’re interested in learning more about suicide and obtaining more information on the mentioned article above, you can find it here at—THE TREVOR PROJECT
Thank you for reading. Hope you have a fantastic week.
Namaste.
** BTW if you ever have any questions or feedback, you can always REPLY to these emails directly. Im always down to chat & go over anything I covered, any mindfulness or meditation questions, or simply just connect & get to know you more. If that’s something you’d like to do, feel FREE and just respond to the email(s).
***ALSO, if you haven’t already you can join the private group on FB where we can get conversations going & talk about important & meaningful topics or ideas as it relates to us or the world. Plus, I’d rather talk too you, not at you.
So come talk to me.
I’m Victor.
Or the mindfulness guy.
I aim to find calm & balance in my life through inspirations between alternative Eastern traditional Buddhism styles of meditation & mindfulness, as well as modern secular styles too.
I believe that we ALL have the capacity to create greatness for ourselves & I’m willing to show you how.
you can find me hanging out on:
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~I’m here to hold space for you because you deserve it.~
Victor Padilla