As my chronic mental illness has become increasingly treatment-resistant, I’ve done a lot of work on accepting the hand that life has dealt me. Acceptance isn’t about resignation or embracing unpleasant things; it’s about recognizing that what’s here right now is here, and trying to resist it will only increase suffering. Here are some acceptance quotes that I hope will inspire you.
“We don’t have to wait until we are on our deathbed to realize what a waste of our precious lives it is to carry the belief that something is wrong with us.“
Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance
“When you learn to accept fear, you cease making a catastrophe of it. Then it ceases to be your master.“
Nathaniel Branden
“Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.“
Brené Brown, Daring Greatly
“When I accept myself as a fallible human being capable of being liked and disliked, I will be concerned but not anxious if there is a possibility that new people may dislike me.“
Windy Dryden, Reason to Change: A Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) Workbook
“The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.“
Carl Jung
“Acceptance doesn’t mean resignation; it means understanding that something is what it is and that there’s got to be a way through it.”
Michael J. Fox
“My happiness grows in direct proportion to my acceptance, and in inverse proportion to my expectations.”
Michael J. Fox
“Acceptance of one’s life has nothing to do with resignation; it does not mean running away from the struggle. On the contrary, it means accepting it as it comes, with all the handicaps of heredity, of suffering, of psychological complexes and injustices.”
Paul Tournier
“You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.”
Commonly attributed (possibly misattributed) to C.S. Lewis
“You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”
Jon Kabat-Zinn
“To let go means to give up coercing, resisting, or struggling, in exchange for something more powerful and wholesome which comes out of allowing things to be as they are without getting caught up in your attraction to or rejection of them, in the intrinsic stickiness of wanting, of liking and disliking.”
Jon Kabat-Zinn, Wherever You Go, There You Are
I love this quote