WAY OF ACCEPTANCE

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

To accept is to find a place in your soul for something else.

Quite often in psychology and psychotherapy the topic "sounds" acceptance.

This general theme is embodied in specific topics that can be problematic for a person. Namely:

• Acceptance of your I as a whole and acceptance of individual qualities / parts of your I;
• Acceptance of the World as a whole and its individual manifestations;
• Acceptance of the Other and the specific Other (parent, spouse, child …)
• Acceptance by the therapist of the client and the client of the therapist …

This topic is important and far from simple. In this article, I will not argue for its importance. This has already become almost an axiom. Acceptance is a condition for finding harmony in relations with the World, with the Other and with oneself, another, makes the I whole and harmonious.

At the same time, the topic of acceptance “sounds”, as a rule, too popular, literally in the form of slogans-imperatives, following which can make a person more holistic, harmonious and happy: “Accept yourself”, “Accept your mother”, “Accept your father” - such messages are often heard in popular texts on psychology and psychotherapy.

These tips are as correct as they are useless. For all the correctness and relevance of these messages, they still remain beautiful slogans, which are not possible to use. Most often, a person who is faced with the psychological task of acceptance is clear that what should be done, but at the same time it is completely incomprehensible how to do it ?

I want to focus in this text on the difficulty of achieving this very acceptance in life and in therapy, and consider in more detail its mechanism. I believe that acceptance as a fact is only the end result of a rather complex process, in which a number of stages can be distinguished. And it is not always possible to achieve such an end result even in therapy. And sometimes this is not possible. And yet, even if you manage to walk a few steps along this path, then this is already not bad.

How to accept something (Peace, Another, Oneself), if it is something contradicts some already formed image (of the World, Other, Oneself)? If It different, not like that otherwise ?

Acceptance itself is always associated with the transformation of self-identity and a change in the picture of the World and the picture of the Other. It is not surprising that the acceptance process itself, as a rule, causes a strong resistance of the I-system - the stability is violated and the I needs additional efforts to "Assemble the mosaic into a new picture."

The former "picture" is protected / guarded, as a rule, by a number of strong feelings, such as fear, shame, hatred, resentment, disgust … And it is not possible to "slip through" them. In therapy, you have to "clear" the path to to another, working through, experiencing these feelings.

Consequently, first step towards acceptance other is the stage of meeting and living strong negative feelings towards the object of acceptance.

After the channels have been cleared from negative feelings (fear, resentment, disgust, shame), interest in to another … This will second step on the path of acceptance. Due to interest, curiosity, an opportunity arises touch to another, to meet him.

The third step along the way, in my opinion, is agreement.

Take something otherwise (Peace, Another, another Self) means agree with this otherwise. Admit herself possibility of being different … Admit that it is (different) may be. Be what it is.

Agree - means to find a place in this world for this other.

Agree with the very possibility of another to be different, the world to be different, oneself to be different.

And only the last step is actually Adoption … To accept is to find a place in your soul for this. other … And through this act to become more multifaceted, more integral, richer.

This is a general outline of the steps in the adoption process. Let's look at a specific example of how it works.

Let's say the client has rejection of the father … This rejection can manifest itself in different ways: from strong negative feelings towards him to complete indifference. The lack of feelings for the significant figures in a person's life significantly complicates the therapeutic task. If feelings are not where they should be (and how could it be otherwise?), Then this indicates a strong protection of a person. This means that the feelings are actually so strong and painful that it is impossible to meet them. And therefore, for I, in such a situation, it is more environmentally friendly anesthesia of the senses to this object: from "He is a stranger to me" to "I deleted him from my life."

In this kind of situation, it is quite difficult to convince the client of the importance of such a therapeutic procedure as working with acceptance. The client may be sincerely surprised: "Why do I need this?", "What will it give me?", "I lived somehow without it …"

Yes, indeed, somehow he lived … Somehow. But somehow it was not how I wanted it, how it could have been. Something was missing, something would not let me in, something prevented me from "breathing deeply", "feeling support under my feet", "flying, leaning on the air with two wings."

It is difficult to immediately detect the connection between specific, tangible problems and some kind of illusory reasons.

Indeed, a person can reason like this: "What does the rejection of my father have to do with the fact that …":

Female version

• "It's hard for me to trust men …"
• "I compete with all men …"
• "I don't need men …"
• "It's hard for me to be weak and stop controlling …"

Male version:

• "It's hard for me to compete with men …"
• "I cannot feel the core, the support in me …"
• "It's hard for me to make decisions, make choices …"
• "It's hard for me to defend my boundaries …"

Here are just a few of the problems that can lead to father rejection. If the client can accept the possibility of this kind of communication, then you can go along the path described above to accept. If not, we cannot force him. This is one of the leading principles of therapy.

But it is important to understand that without accepting the father, we cannot "include" his legacy (his territory) in the territory of your soul and, therefore, we cannot rely on it. This rejected territory remains a useless untapped resource, and it also takes a lot of effort to hide it from others and from yourself. If I do not accept my father's territory, his image is negatively loaded for me, I cannot rely on him in my life.

When I think of my father, the client argues, the first thing I get is shame. Shame for the way he looked, dressed, spoke. He was an intelligent person, an artist, a romantic at heart, he wore a beret. His intelligence and romanticism caused constant criticism and devaluation from my mother, a practical and down-to-earth woman. He spoke beautifully on smart topics, but often did ridiculous (according to his mother) actions. For example, he could bring her on March 8 a beautiful expensive bouquet of flowers, bought with the last money. I cannot speak beautifully, clearly and clearly structure everything. It is difficult for me to look and behave intelligently.

Father's territory turns out to be unacceptable. She is guarded by shame.

But let's say the client is still willing to explore this aspect with the therapist. Then we bounce back on The first stage is the stage of meeting and living feelings for the father.

If the child does not accept the parent (father), most often such feelings will be resentment, anger, hatred, disgust, shame. It is important that a person can not only name these feelings, but fill them with energy - experience them. For this, in therapy, the client is asked to recall specific situations in which such feelings arose. This is very important, since in practice there are often cases when it is difficult for a client to remember such situations, or he simply cannot remember them. For example, his father was simply absent at this time of his life.

Here we can meet the phenomenon "Infecting the child with feelings" mother. A child's relationship to a father is shaped by the mother … And if she has a negative attitude towards the father of the child, then the child, out of loyalty to the mother, will be in emotional merging with her. Therefore, in therapy, it is important to separate what is one's own and what is maternal in relation to the father. "If you take away everything that is maternal to your father, then what will be yours?" Often a client, after trying to remember something negative from his experience of interacting with his father, is forced to admit: "I cannot remember a single story where he offended me."

And the mother does not have to openly, publicly show her negativity towards the child's father. It is enough just to say something like a harmless phrase: "He did nothing wrong, except that he left you." And that's enough. If you translate it, you get something like “Your father is a good man. But he is a traitor! " Neither more nor less.

If there are cases of strong negative feelings in reality (the client remembers them), then it is important to work them out in the therapy situation, remembering these situations in as much detail as possible, immerse yourself in them and experience them as emotionally as possible. Sometimes these emotionally negative situations last for many hours of therapy. And sometimes the client is sincerely surprised that he himself cannot remember anything that would evoke such feelings in him, while they “live” in his soul for many years.

Carefully designed, i.e. differentiated and lived feelings cease to be an obstacle on the way to the object of rejection and then an opportunity opens up for the emergence of interest in him, curiosity.

In therapy, we move to Second stage in acceptance father.

The presence of interest allows you to approach the object, touch it, explore it, “touch” it. In therapy at this stage, it becomes relevant 1. Acquaintance with the father "without intermediaries", 2. The opportunity to see him through the eyes of other people.

In the first case, the client tries to collect various biographical information about his father. The main task here is to try again, and sometimes for the first time, to “get to know” the father, to find out “What kind of person is he?”:

What did he like?

What was it like as a child?

What did you dream about?

What was your hobby?

What did you want to become?

What were you afraid of?

How did you study?

How did you first fall in love? Etc.

The main thing is that behind the facts of his biography and life events the image of a living person with his experiences: fears, desires, hopes, dreams appears …

The second task of this stage is the task of talking about the father with other people who know him well in order to create a more complex, multifaceted image, to look at your father “through the eyes of other people,” and not just through the eyes of your mother.

At this stage of work, clients learn a lot of interesting and often unexpected things about their father: It turns out that my father: “wrote poetry,” “played in a school ensemble,” “was a reliable friend,” “swam a river that none of his peers could cross "," Was a metal worker "and much more. Acquaintance with the versions of other people about his departure from the family allows us to see this event as more complex and ambiguous, and not as unambiguously categorical as it was seen before.

All this makes it possible to move from the estimated polar position, which unambiguously determines "Who is right and who is wrong" in the position of understanding life and relationships as something more complex, ambiguous, multifaceted, multifactorial, where the question is "Who is to blame?" becomes not the main thing. If any other questions arise, these are questions from the category: "Why couldn't these two people live together?"

Carefully worked out tasks of the above stage allow you to move on to the next - The third stage in acceptance – consent stage.

For our story with the adoption of a father, this literally means the emergence of an opportunity for the client to treat his father without judgment, to admit that such a person had / has the right to be. To be what he is, to be with his life story like this - strange, ridiculous, "wrong" … Not to condemn, not to blame, but to agree.

Agree - is to say to yourself: "Something like this…"

To agree is to accept. Come to terms - means to treat in peace in my soul to this man here - his father. To agree is to recognize him as he is. Leave illusions, be disappointed in your beautiful, but unreal image of a father in order to meet a real person: something like that …

For many people, reaching this stage will be the limit of their ability. As they say - not in this life … But in fact, this is already very good. Agreeing with something means getting freedom from it, getting rid of its influence on yourself, your life. This influence often manifests itself indirectly, imperceptibly for consciousness: this is both counter-dependent behavior, and counter-scenarios, and unconscious following an unacceptable, rejected object. It is well written about this by representatives of the system-phenomenological approach (Bert Hellinger).

And only The last step here is actually Adoption … To accept a father means to find a place in your soul for this person. It means to accept the gift that he has for you, to accept that “territory” that rightfully belongs to you, but which you have rejected all this time. The territory, the presence of which you could not admit to yourself or to others, and therefore in every possible way "hid" it from yourself and others. The territory that you rejected because you were ashamed, afraid, hated … And through this act of accepting it, become richer, more multifaceted, more integral.

It seems to me that this sequence of working out the acceptance process is important: from emotional living (stage 1) through the work of the mind (second) to the work of the soul (third and fourth stages). Attempts to "skip" any of the stages highlighted and described above may lead to the appearance of "Illusion of acceptance" and change nothing in a person's life. Without deep emotional elaboration, acceptance will remain a mental construct, an intellectual surrogate, a mental ersatz that did not lead to the growth of the soul.