All posts tagged: acceptance

People Who Are Fine Being The Villain In Someone’s Story Do 10 Things Way Differently

People Who Are Fine Being The Villain In Someone’s Story Do 10 Things Way Differently

Published by Jenni Sidey

Some people tend to spend much of their energy wanting to be liked by others, even if it means having to shrink parts of themselves so others feel more comfortable in their presence. They think being a good person means being universally liked, but happy people choose not to live their life trying to appease everyone because they know it’s fruitless. Just because they are that way doesn’t mean they aren’t content in their lives. In fact, happy people who are perfectly fine being the villain in someone else’s story do certain things way differently than everyone else, usually because they care more about their own peace. They aren’t trying to people-please and ruin their own sense of self, or worse, have to deal with feeling constantly emotionally exhausted. 1. They set boundaries without over-explaining LightField Studios | Shutterstock These individuals are good at being able to put their foot down and not have to justify the boundaries they set. They don’t believe in having to provide some lengthy explanation as to why they want …

3 Phrases People Who Seem Totally Unbothered Say Pretty Much Every Day

3 Phrases People Who Seem Totally Unbothered Say Pretty Much Every Day

Published by Jenni Sidey

If you have ever been caught in the worry of the moment and felt like there’s no way out, you know how valuable it can be to have a phrase to help accept when a situation is beyond your control. Unbothered people know better than to look for external validation when life gets challenging or when people become too much to deal with.  Research has shown how stress directly impacts our ability to make decisions, while being able to remain calm and unbothered generates security from within by tapping into rational thinking. People who seem unbothered by everything can see how A connects to Z. They know whether it is worth even going there, and if it isn’t worth the emotional journey, they use a couple of phrases to say as much.  Here 3 phrases people who seem totally unbothered say pretty much every day: 1. ‘It is what it is’ Psychologist Dr. Tarra Bates-Duford explains how this phrase helps people accept situations they can’t control instead of wasting energy resisting them. Repeating it can …

If You Never Received Your Hogwarts Acceptance Letter You Can Learn Magic At Harvard Instead

If You Never Received Your Hogwarts Acceptance Letter You Can Learn Magic At Harvard Instead

Published by Jenni Sidey

I think my Hogwarts letter got lost in the mail when I was 11. And, although a whole army of owls showed up with extra letters for Harry Potter when his Uncle Vernon destroyed his original copy, that never happened for me. Magic may sound a bit sketchy to rational thinkers, but there’s something wonderful about believing the impossible could actually happen. About one-third of Americans believe that the power of magic is a real thing. Now, one of the most legendary universities in the country is offering an alternative to Hogwarts, so it’s time to pull out your wands. A class called ‘Omens, Oracles, and Prophecies’ is available to take online through Harvard University. Unfortunately, it probably won’t give you quite as well-rounded of a magical education as you would receive from Hogwarts. The course is entirely virtual and only lasts a week, so there’s no enchanted castle ambience included. However, you can sign up for the class anytime that you feel interested in doing so, and it’s completely free, unless you want to …

Gaza: Doctors Under Attack maker calls out BBC for shelving his film in Bafta acceptance speech

Gaza: Doctors Under Attack maker calls out BBC for shelving his film in Bafta acceptance speech

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter The executive producer of Bafta TV Awards acceptance speech, questioning whether the broadcaster would acknowledge the documentary’s win. This comes after the BBC initially commissioned the one-off film but later shelved it over impartiality concerns, leading to its eventual broadcast by Channel 4. The award-winning documentary features firsthand accounts from Palestinian health workers on the frontline, detailing attacks on hospitals and clinics within the territory. Following its victory in the current affairs category at London’s Royal Festival Hall on Sunday, executive producer Ben De Pear used his platform to directly criticise the BBC. De Pear, 55, thanked the journalists who made the film, before he asked: “Finally, just a question for the BBC: given you dropped our film, will you drop us from the Bafta screening later tonight?” The TV coverage of the awards was screened on BBC One from 7pm, …

The Fine Line Between Resignation and Acceptance

The Fine Line Between Resignation and Acceptance

Published by Jenni Sidey

Maybe it’s about your relationship, which essentially died long ago but still barely lives on life support from habit and familiarity. Or maybe you’re recently retired, and your sense of purpose and passion has evaporated. Or maybe it’s about a dead-end job that’s like a prison, or a serious medical diagnosis that is now consuming your life and your sense of the future. Do you resign yourself to what your life is giving you in that moment, or do you accept it? Resignation versus acceptance Resignation, an old French word for giving up—résignatio—is essentially about feeling like a victim. It carries with it a why-bother, it’s-never-going-to-change attitude. Retirement is an endless landscape of nothingness; the relationship is a desert of emotion and connection; the job feels like being at the bottom of a well with no way out; the diagnosis is a series of things to be done to you by white-coated professionals. Life has decided to screw you over. There’s an understandable passivity, a powerlessness. Acceptance, in contrast, replaces this one-down, can’t-do position with …

Acceptance and Rejection Are Universal

Acceptance and Rejection Are Universal

Published by Jenni Sidey

Relationships are voluntary. Acceptance or rejection are self-chosen personal processes that generate affect states such as liking or disliking, trust or distrust, sincerity or insincerity, and the potential for voluntary relational engagement or disengagement. None of these can be externally coerced. This is not a limitation of individuals or societies but a universal feature of human consciousness and the structure of all relationships (Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Deci & Ryan, 2000; Heinämaa, 2020; Korsgaard, 1989; Pietromonaco & Barrett, 1997). This universality begins before consciousness emerges. Human beings are born with biological, neurobiological, and neuromuscular systems that develop to discriminate among survival-relevant stimuli. Newborns show unlearned reactions to sweetness and bitterness (visible in facial expressions and physiological changes), demonstrating sensory evaluation at birth. Early sensory judgements are biologically established and active from the first moments of life. These innate responses are part of holistic, biologically developing systems that guide early orientation towards comfort, safety, and caregiving, long before consciousness and complex cognitive learning are established (Blass & Watt, 1999; Bowlby, 1982; Rosenstein & Oster, 1988). Ongoing …

Parental acceptance and trauma resilience are linked to faster brain development in 9-13-year-olds

Parental acceptance and trauma resilience are linked to faster brain development in 9-13-year-olds

Published by José Betancourt

An analysis of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study data showed that children accepted by their parents and more resilient to trauma tend to have an accelerated pace of cortical thinning, an indicator of brain development. In contrast, children exposed to household abuse tended to show slower microstructural development of the brain. The paper was published in Psychological Medicine. As children grow, the cerebral cortex undergoes major structural and physiological changes that support increasingly complex thinking and behavior. In early childhood**,** the brain produces a very large number of synaptic connections between neurons, a process known as synaptogenesis. This overproduction makes the young brain highly plastic and responsive to environmental experiences and learning. As development progresses, many of these connections are gradually removed through synaptic pruning, strengthening frequently used neural pathways while eliminating less efficient ones. One visible consequence of this process is cortical thinning, where the thickness of the gray matter in the cortex decreases as redundant synapses are pruned and neural circuits become more efficient. At the same time, axons become increasingly wrapped …

Gay Muslim influencer hosts inclusive Ramadan meal and calls for acceptance across faiths

Gay Muslim influencer hosts inclusive Ramadan meal and calls for acceptance across faiths

Published by Sam Flores

BERLIN (AP) — Ali Darwich, a gay Muslim influencer in Berlin, picks up a date from his plate, takes a sip of water, and addresses the 15 friends sitting around the table and breaking the Ramadan fast with him. The 33-year-old German with Palestinian and Lebanese roots — who goes by @alifragt or “Ali asks” on Instagram — has a quickly growing following on Instagram, where he draws attention to the difficulties of living as a young, queer Muslim and calls for more tolerance and inclusiveness. “Tonight we want to send a message that no matter where a person comes from, no matter who that person loves, no matter how queer that person is, they cannot be too queer … because they are exactly as they should be,” Darwich says, smiling at the diverse group of Muslims and Christians, Germans and immigrants, gay and straight people sharing this meal with him as the sun sets over Berlin. “I am a believer, I believe in God, and I find Islam beautiful, just like Christianity or Judaism and many …

Can Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Help With OCD?

Can Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Help With OCD?

Published by Jenni Sidey

OCD is an exhausting mental illness that is characterized by intrusive thoughts often followed by physical and/or mental compulsions. Some individuals who are struggling may rationally understand that their fears are illogical, yet feel completely controlled by them. Fighting and engaging with the intrusive thoughts often backfires. Exposure and response is largely seen as the gold standard when it comes to the treatment of OCD, however dropout rates can be real barriers when it comes to treatment. Enter acceptance and commitment therapy as a great adjunctive treatment for ERP. Acceptance and commitment therapy helps individuals with OCD change their relationship to their intrusive thoughts and anxiety. Rather than a focus on eliminating intrusive thoughts, acceptance and commitment therapy has a lens of changing our relationship to unhelpful thinking. One of the core treatment aims of acceptance and commitment therapy is psychological flexibility. Additionally, acceptance and commitment therapy focuses on cognitive defusion strategies (Assaz et al., 2023). Some cognitive defusion strategies include the following: Creating separation between yourself and the thought by telling yourself “I am …

Quintessential Secrets of Psychotherapy: The Role of Acceptance

Quintessential Secrets of Psychotherapy: The Role of Acceptance

Published by Jenni Sidey

Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche proposed in his famous Stoic aphorism of amor fati (“love of one’s fate”) that we should not only seek to accept but willingly embrace all that happens to us in life as necessary—the good, the bad, and the ugly. The concept of acceptance is particularly prominent in Eastern philosophy and religion, as well as in Christianity and other great religious systems. For instance, acceptance is central to so-called spiritual enlightenment, as illustrated repeatedly in timeless texts like the Old Testament’s Book of Job, the Hindu Bhagavad Gita, the noble teachings of Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha), and the Tao Te Ching. But even practicing Buddhists, Hindus, Taoists, and other spiritual seekers can sometimes lose sight of the primacy of acceptance. Consider, for instance, this frustrated cry of one Buddhist devotee of meditation: “I’ve been meditating for thirty years—and I’m still angry!” In this case, the meditator evidently erroneously sought to change, eradicate, or transcend rather than accept, experience, and constructively express, redirect, or channel his angry feelings. (For more on dealing constructively or creatively …