Embodiment · “Being Precedes Having”
Accept What You Want
Stop merely wanting a desired condition and begin mentally accepting it as already yours — then discipline the day’s thinking to stay consistent with that acceptance, treating consciousness as something one directs rather than lets wander.
Accept what you want: Choose a definite good. Then stop wanting it and start accepting it — this is mine now. Re-set that acceptance each morning, and through the day watch your thinking: whenever it slips into lack or fear, direct it back. Carry yourself as the person who already has it, and act accordingly. You get what you accept, not what you merely want.
What it is
This is Raymond Charles Barker’s teaching that wanting is not enough — you must accept. He drew a sharp line between desire (which keeps the good at arm’s length, in the future, as a lack) and acceptance (which takes it as already true now).
For Barker, consciousness is not a passive stream to be observed but a faculty to be directed: the disciplined person decides what to accept and then keeps the day’s thinking consistent with that acceptance, refusing to entertain the inner talk that contradicts it.
It is the lived, all-day extension of his five-step treatment and his Power of Decision: having decided and declared, you now live from the decision — you carry yourself, think, and respond as the person for whom the chosen good is simply a present fact.
The practice is the steady governance of one’s own consciousness in line with what one has accepted.
The Method
Faithfully described from Barker’s teaching (attributed paraphrase, short quotation only):
- Choose what you will accept. Decide the specific good — health, sufficiency, a steady disposition, a relationship. Barker insists this be definite, not a vague “more / better.” → links to his Power of Decision.
- Shift from wanting to accepting. Stop the inner stance of “I want / I lack / someday” and take the stance of acceptance: this is mine; I accept it now. Barker: you do not get what you want, you get what you mentally accept. Acceptance is the felt conviction that it is already so.
- Set the acceptance each day. Briefly, deliberately, re-establish the accepted condition in mind — present tense, settled, unhurried. This is the morning “tone-setting” of consciousness.
- Watch the day’s thinking and govern it. Through the day, notice when your self-talk slips back into lack, fear, or “it’ll never happen,” and direct the mind back to the accepted state. This is the disciplined direction of consciousness — not suppression, but refusing to keep feeding the contradiction. → operationalizes The Inner Creates the Outer (re-impressing the deeper mind by what you consistently hold).
- Carry yourself as the one who already has it. Let posture, decisions, and responses follow from the acceptance — act as the person for whom this is normal. → operationalizes The Inner Creates the Outer (identity precedes circumstance).
- Don’t re-open the want. As with his decision work, dropping back into anxious wanting undoes the acceptance. Hold the accepted state steadily rather than re-deciding to want it. (Sourcing note: Barker’s books are in print; the above is attributed paraphrase and short quotation, not reproduction.)
Source & Lineage
Barker (1911-1988), Religious Science minister and close associate of Ernest Holmes, developed the acceptance teaching across Treat Yourself to Life (1954) and The Science of Successful Living (1957).
It stands in the Holmesian mental-causation tradition but is distinctly Barker’s in tying acceptance to his decision emphasis and to the active governance of consciousness rather than mere affirmation.
The Traditions' versions
The move assume the wished-for state as already real and live from it recurs; Barker’s accent is on acceptance as a decided discipline rather than feeling or imagery: - Acting “as if” / acting as if it were impossible to fail — behavioural assumption of the desired state.
- Choosing your state first (Dodson) — deciding the inner state before the outer changes.
- Identity shifting — adopting the self-concept of the person who already has it (Barker’s “carry yourself as the one who has it”).
- Barker’s own five-step treatment — the discrete sitting; this practice is its all-day continuation.
- Murphy — subconscious as servant — impressing the deeper mind by what is consistently accepted.
Common refinements
Confusing acceptance with denial. Accepting a chosen good does not mean pretending real problems (debt, symptoms, danger) aren’t there. Hold the direction and deal with the facts.
- Slipping back into wanting. Anxious “I really want this” is the very stance Barker says blocks acceptance. The correction is to return to the settled “it is so,” not to want harder.
- Letting the mind wander unattended. The discipline is the watch on the day’s thinking. Without step 4 this becomes a nice morning feeling that the day erases.
- Accepting what you cannot believe at all. Pitch acceptance at the edge of believability; build it up rather than forcing a statement that triggers inner argument.
- Acceptance without action. Carrying yourself as the one who has it includes doing what that person would do. It is a stance plus behaviour, not a substitute for it.