The Lexicon
The heart qualities
Acceptance
Acceptance is the inner gesture of saying yes to what already is. It is not approval and not resignation, but the laying down of the argument with reality, the moment the clenched hand opens and meets the present exactly as it arrives. The traditions teach that this surrender is not weakness but the doorway to power: only what is fully met can be transformed.
Carried by 8 teachers · across 4 traditions · 4 quotes
In the Stoic stream it is amor fati, the willing embrace of fate as the order of nature; in the Tao it is the soft yielding that overcomes the hard; in the contemplative way it is the welcoming of each moment as it is given. To accept is to stop fighting the wave and to float, and in that floating to discover that the ocean was always holding you.
In their words
If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present.Lao Tzu
Suffering is not holding you. You are holding suffering.Osho
Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.William James
Don't seek for everything to happen as you wish it would, but rather wish that everything happens as it actually does happen, and your life will be serene.Epictetus