All posts tagged: acceptance

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 …

Trump ‘guts climate laws’ by abandoning acceptance that greenhouse gases endanger health | Science, Climate & Tech News

Trump ‘guts climate laws’ by abandoning acceptance that greenhouse gases endanger health | Science, Climate & Tech News

Published by skeptic

Donald Trump has just gone for the jugular of climate legislation. The US president has scrapped a scientific finding by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that greenhouse gas emissions endanger human health – the so-called “endangerment finding”. If you want to gut federal climate action in the US, this is the big one to go for, because it is the legal basis for many other rules. Accepting that greenhouse gas emissions harm health – and scientists are clear they do, by way of air pollution, and extreme weather like heavy flooding – is what has justified subsequent rules to clean up the sources of those emissions. He has also repealed rules on emissions standards for all vehicles and engines. Transport is the biggest polluting sector in the US, famously a nation of drivers. If US transport was a country, it would be the sixth biggest polluter in the world. More from Science, Climate & Tech That’s bigger than the entire economies of Brazil or Indonesia. The big motivation for these changes is to cut …

Bad Bunny’s powerful Grammys acceptance speech dedicated to immigrants — translated in full

Bad Bunny’s powerful Grammys acceptance speech dedicated to immigrants — translated in full

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the inside track from Roisin O’Connor with our free weekly music newsletter Now Hear This Get our free music newsletter Now Hear This Get our free music newsletter Now Hear This Bad Bunny made history at the 2026 Grammy Awards on Sunday with his album, Debí Tirar Más Fotos, becoming the first-ever Spanish-language Album of the Year. It was an emotional night for the Puerto Rican rapper and singer, whose career continues to soar ahead of his Super Bowl Halftime Show in Santa Clara, California, on February 8. After breaking down in tears at his table, Bad Bunny (real name Benito Martínez Ocasio) began his Album of the Year acceptance speech in Spanish. “Believe me when I tell you that we are much bigger than just 100 by 35,” he began, referring to the length and width of Puerto Rico in miles. “And there is nothing that we cannot achieve. Thank God, thank the academy, thank all the people who have believed in me throughout my entire career.” He continued: “To all the people …

Bad Bunny Makes Anti-ICE Acceptance Speech at the Grammys 2026

Bad Bunny Makes Anti-ICE Acceptance Speech at the Grammys 2026

Published by Sam Flores

Before the Grammys 2026 handed out a single statue, Bad Bunny had already made history at the awards show. Bad Bunny, who had three US Grammys on his shelf already, is the first Spanish-language artist ever to be nominated in the three biggest categories of the night: album of the year, record of the year, and song of the year. He scooped up five total nominations this year. In his first televised win of the night, for best música urbana album (before the show, he was also announced as the winner of best global music performance), Bad Bunny delivered a heartfelt speech criticizing ICE’s anti-immigration activities. “Before I say thanks to God, I gotta say ICE out,” he began. “We’re not savage, we’re not animals, we’re not aliens. We are humans, and we are Americans. Also, I will say to people, I know it’s tough to know not to hate on these days and I was thinking sometimes, we get contaminados [contaminated], I don’t know how to say that in English. Hate gets more powerful …

5 Simple Habits People With Soul-Deep Happiness Keep Even On Their Hardest Days | Polly Wirum

5 Simple Habits People With Soul-Deep Happiness Keep Even On Their Hardest Days | Polly Wirum

Published by Jenni Sidey

Life can feel overwhelming when you’re constantly pulled in different directions. The good news is that finding soul-deep happiness is all about making small, intentional shifts in how you approach your days, which can create profound changes in how you feel. Wherever you are on your life journey, creating balance in your life is a fundamental part of experiencing peace and expansion in your awareness. Balance is the key to happiness as well as your true potential. Keep reading and discovering five simple habits that create balance and find joy in your life while expanding your conscious awareness at the same time.  Here are 5 simple habits people with soul-deep happiness keep on even their hardest days: 1. They set realistic goals Challenges are thrilling, but there is a need to pause and check in on the balance of your life. Is there something in your life that is no longer healthy? Are you setting goals that are in no way realistic or achievable?  Research shows that setting personal goals significantly improves happiness and life satisfaction. …