Frustrated man with broken glass over head - Mindfully accepting non-acceptance

MINDFULLY ACCEPTING NON-ACCEPTANCE: Can we accept our failed attempts to be mindful?

Last updated: April 8th, 2019

Acceptance of “the way it is”

Human suffering is human.
Awareness is just aware of it all, without thought.
Awareness is not thought, nor is it pain, nor is it emotional, nor physical.

You don’t have to get it all out so that you can be in awareness and at peace.
You don’t have to make yourself feel it or speak it.
You don’t have any work to do.
You don’t have to release and purify yourself first.
You don’t have to wait for the realization of who you are to arrive.

Awareness is already aware of it all, and it accepts everything unconditionally.
Nothing has to go.
Nothing has to change.
You don’t have to wait for anything to dissipate or disappear.

You don’t have to find joy and gratitude for your painful feelings and negative thoughts.
You don’t have to “live in the moment.”
You don’t have to be on a journey, waiting for your arrival.
There is no final destination.
No Hollywood ending.
No completion to be found sometime in the future.

You can connect with the awareness that is the acceptance of, “it is the way it is.”
Or not.
The way it is, is the way you are.
You can be at peace with that; if not all the time, then at least sometimes.
Or not.

Acceptance of the way it is, is available for now.
The way it is includes your non-acceptance.
So don’t leave your non-acceptance out, or make it wrong, or reject it.
The acceptance of your non-acceptance is already here.
Available, right now.

It is only now that you can finally be at peace with what is.
There is no other time for you to be at peace with yourself.
When it happens, it will happen right now.
It will most probably not stay.
Not in a way that you would notice.

When you find that you’re not at peace, or joyous, or grateful for it all, can you be with that?
You regret your past, all those mistakes you made, and what they did to you.
You worry about the future: today, tomorrow, next week, next year.
What’s around the corner, and why did that happen to me?
But without focus on the past or future, how is it right now?

Wanting, waiting, and wishing

Can you stay with how it is right now, your present moment experience?
And just be with that, however it is, without wanting or trying to change it?
Can you be with your wanting it to change, wanting it to be different from how it is?
Wanting and wishing it would be different from how it is, is allowable.
However, anything actually being different from how it is right now is not allowed.
And going back and changing the past is never going to be allowed.

Wanting and waiting are allowed.
Wanting to feel better, to stop your mind’s racing.
Wanting the overwhelming emotions to dissipate.
Wanting peace, joy and gratitude.
Waiting for it.
Is all allowed.

You can want and wait forever, that is allowed.
Finally getting what you want may happen, at least sometimes.
Or not.
You may find you didn’t want it anyway.
It might happen to “them,” and not you.
Then, you can be with your “it’s not fair.”
It may come and go, it may not come at all.

Can you be with your wanting and the disappointment and frustration of not getting?
How it is, right now, has already manifested and can’t be changed.
It is already here.
And now it has already gone.
What is happening in this moment is unchangeable and, paradoxically, constantly changing.

You can’t change whatever you are thinking and feeling right now.
And you can’t change the changes that are already occurring.
And you can’t change what hasn’t yet changed.
Anything and everything comes and goes in this moment.
The beating heart of existence.

Can you be with your wanting, and your not wanting?
Your dislike and rejection of what is?
Can you be with your wandering, racing mind,
And allow it to be that?
Without judgement, without criticism, and without failure?

Can you be with your longing for you to become fully mindfully aware, permanently?
Can you find the realization that you can’t have that?
It’s not available to a human that thinks and feels.
And you think and you feel.

Can you see that you can’t stop thinking and feeling?
Can you be with and accept everything you think and feel unconditionally?
And if you can’t do that, can you accept that?
Can you be with your wanting and waiting for thinking to slow down, to just stop for a moment?

Can you be with the wanting of those “negative,” unwanted emotions to go away and not return?
Can you be with the coming and going of all of that?
Can you include a you that admits that you do not want it to be the way it is?
Can you allow all of your wanting this and not wanting that to be here?

Can you be with your mindfulness failures?
Your harsh self-judgments and criticisms?
Can you make peace with your internal war?
And allow the war to continue?

Can you stop pushing away your pain and suffering?
And allow it to be?
Can you allow it to stay?
And say it doesn’t have to go?

Can you just leave yourself alone, and be at peace with all that you are?
With all of it, just as it is.
Without wanting anything to change or be different.
Can you do this all of the time?
For all time?

Can you be with your wanting it to be different from how it is now?
Or how it was back then?
Or how you want it to be in the future?
Your wanting it to go away, and your wanting something else to come in its place, is real and valid.
For it is the human reality of your experience.

So can whatever it is you dislike about yourself, about “them,” about the world, stay?
Let it stay, for it has nowhere else to go.
It’s a refugee looking for a home, and you are its home.
You are already home, it all belongs with you and you belong with it.
It is all you.

Dealing with pain and perceived failure

Businesswoman ignoring distractions - Mindfully accepting non-acceptance

Is your presentation of your mindful self to the world a rejection and renunciation of some other part of you?
Can you curb your public enthusiasm for your mindfulness?
And your demonstration of how mindfully spiritual and accepting you are?

Can you humbly be with the worst of you?
The least liked part of you?
The most rejected?
Your non-acceptance, your rejection of yourself, others?

Can you accept the non-acceptance of your negativity?
Your pain, your suffering?
Your complaints, your protests?
All of this lives in your house anyway, so you might as well make it comfortable.
Welcome it and take care of it, because it’s not going anywhere.
It can’t be voted out.

So let what isn’t going away, stay.
It won’t leave you, it needs to be with you, it is you.
Can you welcome what you do not like or want?
Without trying to change it or make it all better?

Can you welcome a you that makes yourself wrong?
A you that makes “them” wrong?
Can you allow yourself to do that?
Can you be with a you that is not mindful enough, often enough?
Can you be with, “I try, but I’m not very good at this mindfulness”?

If you find that you can’t accept your disappointments and failures, can you be with that?
Can you accept your non-acceptance of your non-acceptance?
Can you be with your failure to be the unconditionally accepting self you dream to be?
Your failed attempts to become your ideal self.
The perfect you.

Can you be with “I don’t want that”?
Can you accept your resistance to what is?
Can your resistance stay with you?
Can your feeling bad about yourself, because you are not as accepting as you should be, be there?

Every negative thought you have.
Every unwanted emotion you feel.
About yourself, about “them,”
Can it all be there, free?
Let it breathe, let it live, let it be.
Or don’t.
It’s all allowable.

Awareness doesn’t suffer, it doesn’t feel pain or complain.
Awareness doesn’t experience loss, nor does it grieve.
And it doesn’t hate and want revenge.
Awareness isn’t furious with you, with “them,” or with itself.

Awareness isn’t waiting for change.
It isn’t waiting for a better world.
Or a better you.
It has no desire to become something else.

You ask yourself, “Where is my joyous, peaceful, wonderful life?
Why isn’t it here, what am I doing wrong?”
Can you allow yourself to do it wrong and fail?
I speak about myself, for I am a mindfulness failure.
Always have been and always will be.

Rejection, disappointment and non-acceptance are allowed and accepted.
They have already been given permission to exist, just as they are.
For they are already here, they have already arrived.
Can you and I be unconditionally accepting of our own non-acceptance?
Of our resistance to accepting the unacceptable?

Together we can be with our not wanting it to be like this.
Our not wanting it to be this way.
Can I do that?
Can you?
I don’t know if you can.
And I don’t know if I can.
But I do know that if you and I can’t do it,
Then it can’t be done.
For we are the pioneers.

Read more on the relationship between mindfulness and awareness in BEYOND MINDFULNESS: How to cultivate awareness without detachment»


image 1: Closeup portrait, goofy via Shutterstock; image 2: Stress free business woman via Shutterstock