One of the often quoted, somewhat grandiose term from mindfulness is that of Acceptance. You’re supposed to “accept the current moment” for what it is.
I was under the impression that I was doing this already and that I had pretty much figured it out. I’m a pretty chill guy who usually does not worry too much about future developments. I am good at being ok with any way things turn out, and tend not to get too stressed. Although I have my limits and there have been situations in the past when I found myself very stressed and anxious. But these situations were far and few in-between, and most of the days I’m stress-free and anxiety-free (but somehow still depressed). And so I thought that I was being “accepting” of the present moment, but apparently not.
The last few months have been extremely busy for me. I have had to work more or less 6 days a week and I did not handle it elegantly. Now I’m feeling pretty burned out. I feel like shit AND I do not want to continue feeling like shit. But then I’m supposed to just accept this and be ok with it. The rationale being that this is just the way things are at the current moment and there is literally nothing I can do right now to change it. This is not saying that I should suck it up and not feel pain or frustration. I should feel frustrated and tired and exhausted and burned out, but I should also “accept” these feelings for what they are.
I realize now that I’m good at being accepting of things when life is going fine but not so accepting of adversity, which is exactly when you need to be more diligent about it.
Which raises the question - if you’re not supposed to change how you’re feeling and keep feeling bad when the situation is bad - then what does it mean to accept a situation? Is this bordering on nihilism? I’m not sure if I fully know the answer to this conundrum, but my guess is the following: We have an automatic drive to want to change things whenever they’re unpleasant. Because the present is already here, trying to get rid of unpleasant things in the present is meaningless if not outright stupid. Accepting things as they are is then the act of stopping this struggle to change the present circumstances. This is not a statement about the future at all. We should still strive, if so desired, to better the future, but as far as the present is concerned we should relinquish any wishful thoughts of changing it.
Secondly, pain and frustration and feeling burned out is an appearance in the consciousness, just like any other. It, too, can become the subject of consciousness. Instead of being subsumed by these emotions and feelings and losing the clarity of mind, we can treat them as objects for observation, with the possible goal of mitigating and anticipating if not avoiding them in the future, but in the present, focusing on them with the sole purpose of observing them.
To summarize, to accept the present moment means two things:
- Relinquishing any attempts to change (even subconsciously) what has already happened.
- Treating the current state of mind and body, however unpleasant, as objects of observation and not the losing clarity of mind.