Acceptance And Action

We’ve probably all heard about the story of the frog and the pan. So the story goes, if a frog jumps into a pan of hot water it will leap out as fast as it can because the water is so uncomfortably hot. However, if a frog sits in a pan of cold water that gradually heats, the frog won’t know to leap out until the water nears boiling. 

We’re not so very different from the frog in that respect. We can often recognise a crisis when we’re plunged into it, but it's harder for us to be aware that the waters around us are getting hotter and hotter. 

Pause for a moment, and slowly take a deep breath. How often during the day do you pause to really take a proper breath? As we rush headlong through our day, our breathing tends to become shallower and shallower, without us even realising it. 

As a result, this frog-in-the-pan state becomes our new normal and subconsciously we find ways to justify it…

“I work better when I’m stressed.”

“I’m more motivated when I’m under pressure.”

“I get bored if I don’t have work to do.”

Now, how did it feel when you took those deep breaths a moment ago? The tension was reduced, right? You felt a little bit better, right? Those deep breaths were a release valve for emotional tension, stress and anxiety. So we need to get better at recognising that the waters around us are getting hotter, and we need to build some release valves to help us vent those accumulating pressures. 

The first step to achieving this requires us to accept that sometimes the waters around us get too hot. It is only through acceptance we’ll be able to change our circumstances.

Regularly keeping a journal is a great release valve. Frequent journaling allows us to track our worries and concerns from day to day or week to week. It allows us to unpack our problems and prioritise them. It helps us discover our triggers and to think of ways to manage them. Journaling can also help us remember great experiences and pull those positive memories and feelings into our daily life.

There are some barriers to effective journaling. Probably the biggest is our tendency towards reference bias. We struggle to accept how we feel because we can always see someone else worse off than us. We then end up feeling guilty that we’re not feeling grateful for the things we have. We’ve looked at the transformative power of gratitude. But it is ok for both you and someone else to feel however it is that you feel. We can also look around us and find someone seemingly thriving without any stress or being more productive than us every day. So we end up feeling inadequate and fail to give ourselves permission to feel the way we do. There’s no need to compare how you’re feeling with anyone else.  

If you find yourself struggling to accept your own circumstances and how you feel about them, remember to treat yourself like you would treat someone you love. What advice would you give a person you love? Give it to yourself now. As Dr Tal Ben Sahar puts it “give yourself permission to be human”. 

Another barrier to journaling effectively is writing too briefly and without detail or getting stuck on specific details without acknowledging the context. Journaling has the biggest positive impact when you give yourself time and space to really zoom in on the details and then zoom out into the bigger picture. Don’t worry about grammar, spelling, or even structure. Journaling is not formal writing. Provide yourself with the platform to dive deeply into what’s going on and how you feel about it.

Here are three journaling prompts. Over the next week, practice all three. Spend at least 20 minutes continuously writing.

1. How was your day today? - what happened to you and how did you feel about it? What didn’t happen and how do you feel about that?

2. What’s the worst experience that you’ve ever had? - what happened to you and how did you feel about it? What didn’t happen and how do you feel about that?

3. What’s the best experience that you’ve ever had? what happened to you and how did you feel about it? What didn’t happen and how do you feel about that?

Shortly after you have written your journals, read through them and see if you can copy and complete the tables below.