Practicing acceptance when life isn't what you expected

Acceptance & Stage of Life: When Milestone Moments Look Different Than You Expected

Published On: July 7, 2021

Categories: Wellness

On Friday, June 4th, I celebrated another birthday in lockdown. But this one was a big one. Yup, a milestone birthday. I turned the big 4-0.

And to say the birthday turned out unlike how I had expected it to would be an understatement.

See, I had envisioned what my 40th birthday would look like.

There would be a rose gold 4 and 0 balloons. I would have people over at my place and because it’s me there would be plenty of photos for the ‘gram. 😂😂

Lockdown and stay-at-home orders had a different idea, though.

And this is where acceptance comes in…

Practicing Acceptance – What it is & Why we do it

Ah, acceptance. Honestly, it’s probably one of the most important mindfulness ideas to practice but it’s also the hardest to do.

Now, do you see why it’s hard to do?

The thing about acceptance is that it’s something that we often have to do over and over again.

Sometimes you might think that you’ve accepted the reality of a situation and then you realize that there is another little piece that you still need to accept.

It’s also a choice…

Take my birthday for example.

I had an idea in my head about how I wanted to celebrate it but life (and lockdown) had other ideas.

So I could have:

Clung to my vision of how I wanted to celebrate and if I couldn’t do that I wouldn’t do anything
Change up my plans based on what’s allowed under lockdown while continuing to cling to my vision and being upset because this version doesn’t “live up” to what I wanted
Let go of my original vision for my birthday, come up with a new plan that fits the reality of this moment and continue to accept and come to terms with the new plan.

Can you guess which one I did???

If you guessed #3 you would be correct.

Was it the birthday I had envisioned? No. Was it still a fun and enjoyable day? Absolutely.

Now, I’m talking about a birthday, but this idea and practice of acceptance can apply to anything.

Anytime life throws you a curveball and things don’t go the way that you expected them to, it’s time to turn to mindfulness and the practice of acceptance.