Practicing The Art Of Acceptance | Confident Rider - Your Best Ride. Every Ride.
"I did a really intensive practice of non-judgement for a whole month," she said. "It was really hard, but at the end of the month, I felt amazing. It was like all of the energy that I spent sending out judging things was coming back to me in a positive way instead".
Being judgmental- or perhaps more to the point not being judgmental- is a really interesting topic. I've been throwing it around in my brainspace after having this conversation with my lovely friend Donna recently, and got to thinking, what's the opposing positive manifestation of that? What's the flip side of judgement? Because just "non-judgement" as a definition wasn't really cutting it for me.
The conclusion that I came to was acceptance. The opposite of non-judgment was glorious, effortless acceptance of what is.
Acceptance worked for me on a number of levels. For instance, one of the arguments that came up in my head was, well, isn't some form of judgement necessary? I mean we need to judge in order that we can evaluate things and make a decision about how to move forward, right?
Well, no. Because judgement isn't synonymous with a productive outcome. It's not linked together with objective evaluation. It's a critique, and often on areas of life, riding and horses that may not concern us at all.
Acceptance, on the other hand… just the idea of it feels liberating.
Acceptance is the objective observation of what is, before we add the layer of emotion. Before we get all judge-ey judge-ey.
Accepting something doesn't mean you necessarily condone it.
It doesn't mean that you won't do anything to change it.
But it does mean that you observe a situation and you… accept it. It's not good or bad. It's not right or wrong. It just… is.
I shared a post recently from my time with a group of ten year old children involved in an Equine Assisted Learning program. One of the beautiful things about horses, we told them, is that they are give you instant feedback that's non-judgmental. In other words, if you horse expresses to you concern or anxiety, they do so with clear, non-emotional intent.
Often, in our human to human interactions, our instructions or feedback to each other is not so unemotional. In fact, at the bare minimum, there's often an undercurrent of feeling that colours every interaction we have, for better or for worse.
At the end of our session together, we asked the kids to pick a word that summed up their experience. One of the little boys in my group choose honesty. He said that he liked that the horses were honest.
When I asked how that made him feel, I was really taken aback by his answer. He said that it made him feel safe.
Judgment, it seems, is the elixir that causes us give away our energy in subjective, emotionally-fueled evaluation that somehow allows us to feel "more right". More right in our opinion of others; more right in our assessment of our horses; more right in criticizing ourselves about how we should be if we weren't this, that or the other.
Acceptance liberates the energy that we would spend in asserting our self-asserted right-ness and allows us to channel it productively.
If there's a situation we can't change, judging it is a waste of energy.
Accepting allows us to keep moving.
If our horse shows concern or upset, judging makes us feel worse about the situation without moving us closer to the solution.
Acceptance gifts us with emotional distance, that allows us to invest in the solution, rather than the problem.
If there is something about ourselves that we wish were different, judging only causes us to fester and ruminate. In unchangeable situations, it will make us feel worse with no benefit. In changeable situations, it will prevent us from making it different.
Once I decided to invest some energy in actively cultivating acceptance, I felt my body and mind take a long exhale.
Fantastic blog Jane. I had a group o " at risk" teens working with horses and it was an amazing experience for them, but especially for me!
LOVE this! Sometimes I feel my whole life has been ruled by judgements, of mine and those of others, acceptance is my new goal!
Your write-up is so true. I have experienced this over the last couple of years and now that I have finally accepted that some things cannot be changed. Acceptance for me has given me a really good feeling of being at peace with myself. All inner conflict has disappeared, as you say its liberating. I am now happy to move on at my own pace and in my own way.
What does a person do when they are in a situation, where they cannot change it, and to accept it – is to go along with principals which one fines morally unacceptable?