Accepting Things in Life

Description

On request, Rebecca and I did a video on accepting one's current circumstances, but urge everyone to combine acceptance with a conscious plan to make positive change.

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Music is "The Woods" by Silent Partner.

Tags: Kenton Whitman,ReWild University,Human Rewilding,personal rewilding,mindfulness,how to,bushcraft,survival,wilderness survival skills,how to survive in the woods

Video Transcription

[Music]

greetings everybody I'm here with my wife Rebecca today and we wanted to talk about acceptance this is something that was posed by one of our regular Watchers and and he asked could you do a video on acceptance and his question had to do with when you find yourself kind of stuck someplace in life hmm well I think when we feel stuck in life and we're trying to accept the stuck place that we're in I can see the value of that but I also feel like we need to investigate a little bit and use that as a warning sign for okay I'm unhappy or I'm uncomfortable or there's something going on that I don't like and I wish that I could accept it and and in the first phase whether or not you think that it's a good thing to accept or II think you should change it but we just notice okay there's something here and I need to investigate it yeah that's really important because I feel like in our culture we often just taught to accept in the sense of settling for often less than who we are you know get it get a job that makes sense don't get a job that's really going to stir your passions or utilize your highest skills and so if we're gonna be saying I want to learn about acceptance one of the first things we have to do is say why are we accepting we're finding ourselves in some sort of resistance to our current situation that we feel like we have to shift or transform sometimes I can just be that our situation is good but our culture teaches us always to want more

so that's I think the key question we just stuck in the grass is greener on the other side of the fence or are we genuinely in a place where our gifts are not being utilized or given to the world personally my opinion is that it's really good to ask ourselves that question we take a little deeper

am I just settling or what is it that's going on here and once you've identified that then you might say yes it's appropriate for me to develop some acceptance skills so that I can be a Content where I am I feel often when we say acceptance what we're really looking for is how can I be happy where I am and if that's your outcome of that question is I I'm just stuck in grass is greener on the other side then all we have to do is develop acceptance appreciation gratitude for what we already have if however we're asking that question you know we're saying okay what I'm really saying here is I want to be able to accept that I'm stuck in this job but for the next three years because I have a plan to pay things off or whatever and I want to be able to be present in this for the duration about three years but that's the key is that we have a plan we have developed motivation we know that we are not settling in this case but that we are committing to something because we have seen the good in committing to it for a certain amount of time but that we've committed to something beyond that and you know this doesn't have to be something we hold on to we want to be open to change but to say I'm gonna work at this job for three years I'm gonna save up the money because I really want to open that ice cream stand so I can move sustainably or it could be a diet or a lifestyle change that's more healthy for you but boy is it really

right now to give up your Froot Loops or whatever it is but you realize I've made this commitment I need to stick with it how can I accept and be happy where I am right now be present so I feel like if I could jump in and start the ball rolling one thing to me about when we start to ask that question is that when our life has routine and when we get into a habit we kind of begin to form a rut and we can form a rut with our activities by taking the same route to work stopping the same coffee shop or doing the same thing every morning and then that also puts our brain in a rut used to make the same judgments we look at the same person and go oh over and over again so I feel like the first thing to do is to give ourselves a boost of subscribe to make life feel exciting and that way what I feel that it's been shown that we really crave novelty as human beings and that's why a lot of times you know you can endlessly surf the internet I've seen that I've seen that I've seen that looking for that new thing what is new what is interesting when you think about seeing something that you've never seen before your brain just doesn't know what to do with it so I'm here to say break your routine break the routine of your life it doesn't have to be crazy it could just be like you said I know I'm just gonna stick with this job for the next three years I have a plan I'm gonna build a tiny house I'm gonna live in the country whatever it is that's your plan take a different route to work order something different at the coffee shop try a new food try cooking something for the first time by yourself get outside into nature and decide to notice that for a moment nature is different all the time it gives us different clouds different light plants and birds we don't know break the routine because then at least you have the senses you never know what might happen and that gives us a little bit of stuff of savoring of life yeah that's I think I've spoken about this in videos in the past of stepping just a little bit off of your path and that's I mean then is it so much of the time when we're saying I want to accept where I am really saying is that we are our mind is just dulled into oblivion by the kind of stuff that our culture dishes out which is you come to work and you do the same thing for you know eight nine hours each day and and often there's no varieties there's nothing to stimulate that novelty sense but there is that that person right across over there that everybody thinks is a jerk that you could go over and talk to him see if you can open them up and find out who that person really is there's that little cafe that looks strange that you're gonna go there for lunch whatever it is something that just stepped you off that that rut that paths and gets you into novelty mode because there is literally novelty just inches off of our path usually in either direction but we're usually so scared and so constrained in our actions that we don't even look over at that person say hi because we deem them too attractive to talk to or something like that yeah I feel that seeing things with those lenses of newness is a skill you have to teach yourself yes it is miss trinket a camera keeps the words if we want to know you never know what's gonna happen and you want it to be good you don't want to believe that everything is laid out just the way you think it is right we always think we know but we really don't and you can cultivate that you can cultivate that as a way of seeing things with new eyes yeah I think another thing for just kind of getting outside of our own paradigm that we were locked into is to step outside of ourselves right because we can be humdrum okay here's the routine I do this every day I'm never gonna get out of it

or I'm gonna get out of it in three years but oh and if we keep talking like that that self-talk is gonna bring us down if we start looking things we don't like and we're focused self self self what do I have it's not so great so that's where I think volunteering stepping out to go for a walk run for a terry that you believe in or helping your neighbor next door carry her groceries in or stopping to help somebody get their dog that's run away from them and might go out into the street any of those little tiny things they can even be bigger things you can volunteer on an organization that you believe in a Big Brother Big Sister or walking dogs for the Humane Society there's thousands of places out there little ways that you can step outside yourself for a moment to see that you have value that who you are is is a value to the world and it gets you out of that like inward focus where you're saying I can't handle this there you go hey this isn't so bad cuz when I get off of work today I'm gonna go on and help so-and-so

it feels so good some of the biggest virtues it's often missing in our mainstream culture is this idea that of going outside yourself volunteering helping others and it's you know they've shown over and over again this actually develops happiness in us much more so than getting things for ourselves well we can give to others so you know in a strange way you're actually making yourself more hungry by reaching out and doing this and it's everybody win-win right yeah yeah well then that makes me think about something that's really important whenever we're in a situation that we feel we can't change or that we've accepted for a while and it's maybe not our favorite thing a cultivation of an attitude of gratitude if we can stop pointing out all the things we don't like and hey once in a while we need to vent you're just gonna go for me like I am so grumpy today and can I sit down with you dear friend and tell you all the things I just do not like you got to get that off your chest sometimes but I feel that cultivating the things you appreciate and sometimes you were talking about this instead of feeling that you have to do something feeling that sense of oh I'm able to do this Wow check it out oh I have to do this is versus well I have hands I can see I'm well I have warm running water even those basic little tiny things let alone

Wow I live in this great house and I'm gonna go out and a little while to go for a hike focusing on the things that were grateful for that's oh these are great because it's see this is my this is the source of all night gratitude gratitude gratitude and that but the dishes is just such a perfect example because in all these things we do these mundane tasks we have that choice in each one like I gotta do this again or I'm able to do this you know this is something that even going to the bathroom I remember reading about this woman and she had I don't know if it's cancer or something and she couldn't go to the bathroom anymore and she was saying oh if only I could go to the bathroom

how much gratitude I would have for that simple Wow yeah and I think our forest monks when they come out here they're kind of grateful for a team didn't being able to go to the bathroom and discover squatting and and being out in nature and they're like hey pooping is awesome a lot of them say that yeah yeah yeah I think the important thing to remember is that we can in every moment make a choice about how we want to see something and how we want to encounter life

are we going to choose to follow that routine pattern are we gonna choose to find an excuse not to engage with someone not to volunteer our help and our gifts to the world are we going to choose to be grateful for something what is the choice that we're going to make because and sometimes the choices are hard we won't always oh yeah do the choice that we want to but taking notice of that and saying what if I do this how will I feel and then trying it versus just the same thing the time we can choose we can choose our life that's yeah in that you know be careful with this because this can become a self-punishment oh yeah can ism you know oh so why am i choosing this for that realize that we have habits of choice that we have made in the past and those habits they've worn rooms in our in our minds so that it is difficult to step outside of that we have to give ourselves a break and say you know I'm gonna I'm gonna start making an effort but realize it's not gonna be that easy and those times when you find yourself failing just step back onto track we don't have to use any energy in self-punishment it's just come back to realizing I have a choice in each each situation I can see this as novel and amazing I can see this as humdrum but I fell into seeing it as humdrum and then I went home and binge done an ice cream and in movies because my day was so boring step back on the train the next day we're human beings realize hey how would you treat a friend of yours who said that you could say hey bud it's okay you know it's alright once in a while you just got to do that and you know start again no big deal yeah have fun with it if you can have fun with it make it an experiment and wonder have that curiosity and don't be too hard on yourself that's not amazing things for me is I got gone through so many ups and downs and trying to be something and then finding myself failing at it over and over if we can let go

yourselves then this amazing growth can happen the moment you're in right now it can be amazing it can be mind-blowing ly amazing and whatever it is whether it's work it's a relationship we have this choice in every moment to let it become or to be engaged and to see the wonder of the moment that we're in right so get conscious about that make that choice to be living in this moment I think you can start small take easy different things it just be grateful for one thing when you wake up the one thing when you go to bed and start from there pick one of the things from this video and say okay I'm gonna volunteer my gift somehow today and I'm gonna I'm gonna think outside myself so yeah start developing those average yeah times of yourself the question am I just settling you know start with that initial what is this about and then with the acceptance thing break the routine step outside yourself cultivate gratitude and then make the choice yeah perfect let us know in the comments your experiences with this have you had to find acceptance with certain things in your life how did you do it was it mental techniques was the meditation was it religion what what brought that you to a sense of peace and wonder in life if you're struggling share those struggles can't wait to hear from you in the comments [Music]