How To Accept & Move On From Hardships & Trauma, From A Psychologist

I’ve heard many people tell me they have accepted something that’s happened, whether that’s a loss, a traumatic childhood, significant change in their health, or something else.

But what I’ve found is, just because you say something verbally or want to accept it, doesn’t mean that acceptance has actually happened—especially if you’re angry with yourself or are inundated by the sheer magnitude of your emotions. As well, just because you finally connected the dots as to how then led to now, doesn’t mean you are free of it. 

Because acceptance is— as clichéd as it sounds— a journey with multiple chapters and facets. It can be one of the most painful but also transformative things you’ll ever undertake. Think, metamorphosis. 

Just because you can articulate it logically doesn’t mean you are not in the 4Fs of fight, flight, freeze or fawn. Sometimes, we articulate because the verbal pathway bypasses the trauma re-experiencing pathways, and that feels better. But that doesn’t mean that we are okay, because emotions live in our body.

Acceptance isn’t caving in, letting yourself sabotage or self-destruct. It is not a free pass to hurt yourself by engaging in unsafe behaviors you’ll regret like impulsive shopping or risky sex, or to give up.

Acceptance is a messy process. Nestled within this mess is color and freedom. What that means is that you don’t have to go through a particular stage or kind of acceptance just because someone else has. In other words, you heal at your own time and targets.

When we wrestle with a situation we cannot accept, we are putting ourselves in a state of fight-or-flight, and it can feel incredibly toxic as our energy gets incinerated in droves. 

You will feel all sorts of emotions— good, bad, and neutral, and chances are, you might judge some or all of them. But emotions are just data telling us what we need more or less of in our lives. And the first step to working with our emotions is to acknowledge their presence, as allies that help us be wiser. If you’re anxious? That’s because you may need a plan in the face of hazy uncertainty. Depressed? Maybe your body is telling you to rest so you can conserve your energy. Angry? Perhaps there’s an injustice that’s happened to you, that you can protect yourself from. And if you’re feeling joyful? These are the things you can do to help yourself live this one precious life of yours deeply. 

And then, there is that part about “facing the world.” We exist as part of human society, and people have questions. So here’s where it gets exciting— you get to tell your own story. (Because if you don’t, someone else will do it for you, and you’re not gonna like it.)

So imagine yourself six months from now, when you have reached X% acceptance (the number could be anywhere from 60-100), what would your story be if someone asked?

Occasionally, stray vestiges might pop up, and you might feel uncomfortable. Perhaps you might see it as a repeated lesson, that you’re running into a particular situation or person. But people and situations will always exist, whether or not you have accepted what happened to you. And so maybe it isn’t about you, but rather, a fact of life. Or as Danielle LaPorte pens it so beautifully in her book How To Be Loving, “We can choose to let someone be who they are for us today, not a hologram of yesterday’s issue.”

And even then, it doesn’t mean you have to embrace such a person or situation to prove to yourself you’ve healed. Personally, I dislike people when they are high, rowdy, and drunk. I never liked putting myself in such situations prior to that, but they’ve made me feel especially unsafe in the aftermath of a previous narcissistic relationship. So aware of my needs for safety, I choose to disengage from people when I see them drink a bit too much, and I generally exit such situations anyway because I don’t like staying out too long to drink either.

Bottom line is, I don’t judge these people for what they do, nor myself for feeling and responding the way that I do. It’s the same way I prefer to sit on the aisle seat when flying and don’t judge myself for that. 

Sometimes, you may still feel retriggered, and that’s okay. In these situations, ask yourself, what’s going on in your environment? Is a place or thing tarred with a bad memory, and do you want to reclaim it? If so, you can start creating better memories with safe and good people, or with yourself.

Sometimes you may accept what’s happened to you, while still being exposed to triggers in your environment. For instance, you’re still navigating job search after being laid off, being embroiled in a court case with your toxic ex, or finding your new rhythm in a new country or overall health. 

And then one day you realize the background factors have changed, and you can breathe again. And maybe you’ve forgotten what it’s like to breathe. And you realize that from the ashes, a new person has been born.

The thing about acceptance is that there are multiple iterations, and when you feel disheartened, zoom out at the wider picture and honor your growth.

If I were to sum up acceptance in a phrase, it would be the biggest bit of wisdom I hold closest to my heart, the Chinese phrase 既来之则安之. Put simply, those six words mean, “Since I’ve already found myself here, what can I do to acknowledge I’m here now, and what can I do with this moving forward?”