I guess we should start by defining acceptance. Sometimes in your life, and I know this has happened already, you'll find yourself reflecting on a situation or an outcome and dwelling on it. Acceptance is understand that this is reality and moving on. No focusing on what happened nor linger on the process of what happened. 

Still confused?

Acceptance is reality. It's the way things are and not the way you think things should be. A better example is water. Fill the bath tub up and step in. Regardless of whether you want your body to remain dry it's going to get wet. That's acceptance.

Real life example?

You want to star in the high school musical and you try out. You stink at singing, dancing and your voice cracks. Acceptance is knowing that this is true and that's why you weren't selected. It gets tougher from there.

A big part of acceptance is control, a fact glossed over by many self-help books and freak self-improvement gurus. You have to give up control to accept things. This is hard for most people, and it will be for you. When you try to control a situation you really don't accept the reality of the situation. Only when you accept the reality can you establish any control. Control over yourself.

Sometimes acceptance is forced upon you, such as at work. You have to accept the work rules. You have to accept the co-workers. (Well, not entirely true, but I think you know what I mean.)

There's one caveat on acceptance that each person has to navigate themselves and that is death. We'll address that in the months ahead, but understand that accepting death is the hardest thing for humans to do. We can accept job loss, divorce, car wrecks and dropping food on the kitchen floor, but death is a whammy.

So, how do you develop acceptance? When you find yourself in a situation that is stressing step back and review it. You have to understand what is happening and not put a filter on it based on how you think it should be. Look at it starkly. When you do this you can accept what is happening. Don't let your inner voice tell you "I think it should be ..." or "If only ..." These are roadblocks to acceptance. 

Here is a key point .. you don't have to like the situation. Accepting something as reality doesn't mean you condone it, agree with it or even like it. The only thing it means is that internally you understand what is happening. When you do this you can start to work on the situation. 

Your focus, once you accept something, is to deal with it. Take a deep breath and get out your pick axe. Most of the time it's going to take some digging for your inner thought process to understand reality. You'll do fine, because your inner through process is based on your upbringing, which was stellar. Right? <grin>