The First Step To Healing Is Always Acceptance

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Accept Reality
- Ch: 3.2 of How To Get Your Sh!t Together -

“Suffering is basically the mind’s refusal to accept reality as it is.” – Marcus Thomas

Before you can properly address a problem, you first need to accept that the problem exists.

This is true for all aspects of life, but in my experience, particularly true for addressing the impact of past trauma, and dealing with mental afflictions.

I want to make this very clear from the onset of this chapter, I did not ask for or want to live through a lot of what I had to growing up. But the fact is that I did.

For years I would play an internal denial game with myself, telling myself that it didn’t happen, or it wasn’t that bad, or that I wasn’t impacted by it at all. I persisted with similar forms of self-deception well into my twenties.

However my continuous battles with a variety of mental afflictions including depression, anxiety, self-harm, suicidal ideation and addictive behaviors soon revealed that I was indeed suffering from hangovers from my past. As time went on, this fact became more and more apparent as my functionality began to slowly decline.

I didn’t have much luck with therapy because I wasn’t willing to address the reality of my past. I would talk about the symptoms I felt, but never really discuss the potential causes. When asked, I would give an emotionless recount of the past and insist that it wasn’t impacting me. More self-deception. This situation of course couldn’t last.

In order to recover from the past, I first had to accept it.

With continued therapy, and writing, I was slowly able start to accept the reality of my past.

I had to admit to myself that I was struggling to deal with the trauma of my past. I had to acknowledge that my father did a terrible job of raising me and that although I didn’t ask for it, I now have to deal with the consequences of his actions. I had to accept that the process of healing would be painful and long, but that it ultimately needed to happen if I wanted to reclaim any part of myself back.

Acceptance of reality can be a very hard pill to swallow. It means that you are actively seeking the truth and not hiding from it. This is a difficult process and one that I am still moving through. I know that there is more that I need to accept, more issues from my past that I need to address. But I will get there, I am open to it. Acceptance of reality is not a single step process, it takes time to uncover all the layers, to heal and to grow enough to be ready to accept deeper levels of the truth.

My hope is that this chapter will help give you the courage to take that first step.

To be clear, this is not victim blaming or mental illness shaming, just an acknowledgement that when it comes down to it, you have to be the one to take action to recover.

I didn’t ask for what happened to me, you didn’t either. Yet I have to accept that my past happened, and from that place of acceptance take action to move on - in whatever form that needs to be.

While I still hold a lot of anger towards the people and events in my past, they can’t change my present state, only I can.

The simple fact is that in order to best guard my mental state, I first have to accept the realities of my mental state. I may not be able to control my depression for example, but I can choose to accept that I have it, along with everything that comes with it. From that place of acceptance, I can take action to best handle living with it.

Facing Reality.
This is how it is.
Not how it was, might have been, or should have been.
Not how I want it to be, hoped it would be, or planned it would be.
I accept that this is how it is. Now I will get on with my life in a positive way.
- Anonymous 

Accepting reality is neither positive nor negative; it simply is. Other chapters throughout this book will help you to make the best of your current situation, to grow and to look at the world in a positive manner. But there is no denying the simple truth, you first have to accept reality before you can change it.

Frequently Asked Questions
Q) Isn’t acceptance of reality akin to not wanting to make a change?

A) No. I am not advocating that things should stay as they are now, rather that you need to accept that things are as they are now. I want to make as much positive change in my life as possible, but in order to do that, I must first accept where I am starting from. Then I can make change.

You may have suffered from trauma, have a disability, lost a loved one, or have been fired from a job. You need to accept those truths and what they may mean for your life moving forward.

Q) But I don’t want to accept reality, I don’t like my reality.

A) Yet it is still your reality, and it likely won’t change on its own accord. If you are truly unhappy, yet pretend that you are not, you will forever stay in that state of emotional limbo. This is not ideal at all.

Resources
The Happiness Trap, Russ Harris
Reality Slap, Russ Harris
Sex At Dawn, Cecilda Jetha & Christopher Ryan

Summary

You can’t change what happened in the past, or the impact that those events have had on your life. But by accepting the reality of the situation you are now in, you can start to move on.