How to accept a situation you can't change

How to accept a situation that you cannot change? In the life of every person there are situations that are difficult to come to terms with, accept and start life over with a new leaf.

The betrayal of a loved one , the betrayal of a friend, the illness of relatives, the passing of a loved one, this is not a complete list of what can happen in life, and you cannot influence what is happening in any way. Even simple everyday problems that happen to us include irritation and take away peace of mind.

Yes, life loves to present us with surprises, and unfortunately, not always pleasant ones.

What to do in such situations when you just can’t accept, you can’t agree with what’s happening and move on?

Of course, you need to work with your thoughts, emotional reactions, affect your beliefs, become more aware and learn to be an adult.

In this article, you will find a detailed analysis of the reasons for not accepting situations, and techniques that will help you easily cope with all life’s adversities.

The simplest technique for accepting a situation that you cannot change

I will share with you my way of accepting situations when I cannot do anything.

But before I describe the technique, I want to say a few words about myself.

I have been working with awareness for a long time, and therefore I can manage my emotions. I often ask myself questions and answer them, so for me this process has already been adjusted to automaticity. And if you also begin to practice a more conscious attitude towards events, then this technique will work out well for you too.

Something happened, and I obviously don’t like it, it doesn’t suit me, I’m upset or furious. I immediately notice that I am angry and resisting some event.

I’ve been in this state for some time, literally ordering myself to worry and be indignant.
When the initial emotions subside and I feel slightly relieved, I ask myself the most important question:

“Can I somehow influence or do something to change this situation?”

What does this question do? He reorganizes my thoughts from experiences and emotions to actions.

- “Can I do something?”

And the honest answer is: “No, I can’t.”

The next question is: “Does it make sense to be angry and worry?”

Answer: “No, it does not”

If my emotions don’t calm down, then I ask myself: “How much time do I need to worry about what happened?”
And I give myself some time - 20 minutes or 1 day, depending on the severity of the event. By the way, if I give it 20 minutes, then after 10 minutes I’m already calm.
Second answer: “Yes, I have the power to change the situation”
Question: “What do I need to do? What actions should I take?
But I always write down actions on paper, in this case I think through all the details, and the mental chewing stops.

Watch the video in which I talked in more detail about this technique, and about 2 more techniques that will help you learn to accept situations that you cannot change.

And now, I suggest you approach this issue of accepting situations more deeply.

Experience the loss of a father, mother, child, friend

Any loss is a difficult ordeal with almost the same emotions. But the experience of the death of those closest to you is incomparable.

“When parents lose a son or daughter who is not yet out of the bloom of youth, or a loving husband loses his wife, or a wife loses her husband in the prime of life, all the philosophies and religions in the world, whether they promise immortality or not, cannot eliminate the impact of this cruel tragedy on loved ones..."
Lamont Corliss

Mom passed away . How so?! You always thought that you would not be there, but she would always be there. But she left. And you weren’t there, or you offended her and didn’t have time to apologize, or you didn’t say words of love and gratitude. You never know. But she’s no longer there.

How to cope with the loss of your mother? You must go through all the stages of grief. Go through it correctly without deceiving yourself. It is important to cry, admit and correct your mistakes, come to terms with the fact that mom will no longer be in this world, but she will forever remain in our hearts, and pray for the repose of her soul.

Fathers die too . How to survive death? You can’t do without grief (all stages!), because a loved one, a loved one, has passed away. But life goes on. And your dad would definitely be upset to see his wife, son or daughter killed for him in this way. Not only work, prayer, the belief that we were good children help, but also close people, their support and advice.

Several years will pass, and the severity of the loss will decrease. Humility will come - there are no parents, nowhere, and never will be. Maybe you should treat them well while they are alive, so you don’t regret it later?

It’s terrible to lose your father and mother, there are no words. But another loss is more ridiculous, incomparable to anything - when children leave .

In theory, parents should be united by adversity, and the strong should support the weak. But, and this is quite natural, everyone experiences grief differently.

After the acute stage of loss, the couple feels emptiness and hopelessness.

At the same time, some may become depressed, begin to move away from each other, and even blame their significant other for the misfortune that has happened. Alas, often such tandems, if nothing else unites the spouses, fall apart.

And in other situations, people, wanting to survive grief and fill the void from the loss of a dear child, remain able to love, stay together and continue to support each other, strengthening the union.

What to do, how to come to terms with the death of a loved one, your child, what to do with his things, room, should you give birth to a second baby?

If you want this, save some of the child’s things (not just the baby, but also the adult son or daughter), and equip the room for other needs. If desired, a young couple can decide to conceive another child.

Taking care of others - your loved ones who need it, or children from an orphanage or orphanage - can help you avoid depression and find the meaning of life.

Many of us have lost friends. The degree of loss of a friend, humility and stages of further adaptation depend on how dear he was to you.

How to deal with this? Participation in life saves. Work, team, family can help you get away from grief. God is finally faith.

How to accept a situation that you cannot change?

Why does a person become fixated on a problem or situation?

Because the event that happened does not suit him, he doesn’t like it, it infuriates him, irritates him, makes him angry, etc.

You don't want this to happen, and it happened against your wishes. This is the main reason why you cannot let go of the situation.

Let's think a little, and then you will understand why you just need to stop resisting what has ALREADY happened?

The moment of acceptance of the situation, the most important, it is this process in the psyche that will launch other processes with the help of which you will find a solution to the problem. Now that you are focused on rejection, all your resources are directed towards resistance and denial.

Eisenhower Matrix

It will come in handy if you need to make several decisions, but it’s too hard to think about them all at once; you’re ready to go around in circles. The Eisenhower Matrix helps you prioritize tasks by dividing them into four groups.

urgent and important (need to decide immediately);
important, but not urgent (the decision can be postponed);
urgent, but not important (can be delegated);
not urgent and not important (can be left to chance).

The Eisenhower Matrix does not help answer questions. But at least it gives you the opportunity to free up your brain a little so that you can properly think about urgent tasks and put aside non-urgent ones.

What do you need to do to accept a situation that you cannot change?

First of all, feel like an adult, responsible for your behavior, actions, thinking and emotions.

When you resist what is already in your life, you end up like a little child who throws tantrums and rolls on the floor in order to get what he wants.

Only your behavior now is not rolling on the floor, but emotions and nerves.

In order to get out of the child’s state, try to distance yourself from the problem and look at what is happening as if from the outside, like a movie.

Your task is to calm your emotions that do not allow your head to think sensibly.

What prevents you from accepting the situation?

Thoughts and questions constantly arise in your head to which you have no answer.

Why did this happen?
This shouldn't have happened.
This can't be true.
I can't come to terms with this.
I do not believe in that.
I can't accept this.
He (she) should not have acted like that.
This is not fair, it shouldn't be this way.
Why did this happen to me?

Any of these questions and thoughts put you in a position of resistance.

Let's look at a few thoughts that trigger the thought process over and over again.

It should not be. It turns out that a certain event happened in spite of something. And this is something, your own assessment of what is happening.

You somehow put yourself in God's position and believe that there has been a mistake or misunderstanding. Those. You completely deny the laws of cause and effect. The event that happened to you is a consequence of some specific processes.

For example, a plane crashed, there were many victims, a lot of grief. It goes without saying that there will be mourners for their relatives who will deny what happened, blame everyone and everything and ask different questions. But one of the main thoughts will be the thought that this should not have happened .

But planes don’t just fall, there are many factors why a plane can crash - human error, breakdown, bad weather conditions, birds, hurricanes, turbulence, etc.

It turns out that there is a reason why the plane crashed.

This means that it had to fall because there was an objective reason, for example, engine failure + weather conditions. It turns out that miracles do not happen; every consequence (event) has its own cause.

I hope you understand my point. What happened was what had to happen because there were prerequisites and there was a reason.

And just because you resist, nothing will change.

It turns out that you are emotionally “stuck” in the situation. Time moves forward, but you seem to be in the past, and you are trying to persistently fight what is already there. The problem is that you don't recognize that you've ALREADY been in what happened for a long time.

Exercise for accepting the situation you are stuck in

Your situation or problem is the end result of some processes.

Write 5 to 10 reasons or reasons why what happened happened.

If you don't know the reasons, then dream up.

Now, when you don’t know why, this happened, your brain is working “idle”, and is constantly loading the question - why? But, you did not think in the direction of the reasons and prerequisites, therefore, your brain cannot put an end to these thoughts.
Make a detailed analysis of your situation, it is better to do this on a piece of paper.
Draw a circle in the middle of the piece of paper in which write your situation;
Below or above write the reasons that provoked your situation.
Connect each cause and central event with arrows.
Concentrate your gaze on your drawing for 20-30 seconds, trying not to think about anything.

Now say the following words:

This happened (your situation) because... (one of the reasons)
I accept (your situation) because there is a reason for what happened (one of the reasons)

You need to say these 2 phrases with all your prerequisites and reasons for your unpleasant situation.

How many times should I say it? Until you feel your body relax, the tension goes away, and you feel calm.

I assure you that these phrases will work great.

Why? The key word in these phrases is “because.”

Psychological research shows that the human brain responds very well to the phrase “because,” especially to those words that are said after saying “because.”

Act if the situation can still be influenced

Perhaps you have articulated your real fears and discovered that you are not powerless. As in the example with the global crisis: you have no control over the economy of the planet, but you can lay out a straw for yourself.

The unknown is scary. Once the enemy becomes familiar, it will be much easier to fight him.

Concrete measures must be taken immediately when possible. As a result, this will allow you to stop panicking, as your thoughts will switch to finding a way out of difficult circumstances. At the same time, if actions are sufficiently balanced, the risks of developing a negative scenario are reduced.

Svetlana Beloded

Head of HR Department QBF

The second component that prevents you from accepting a situation is your emotions.

What emotions arise when a person doesn’t like something?

Anger, rage, resentment, rage, disappointment, etc. A person is designed in such a way that when emotions rage in him, mental activity decreases. Mistakes are made that a person will later regret, and in general, the level of reasonableness of actions is zero.

Therefore, in order to accept the situation, and subsequently let go and not worry, you need to deal with your emotions.

Look, if your experiences last a long time, and some time has passed since the event, then this means that your emotional reaction to the event was very violent, and you generated a huge amount of energy.

Now, your task is to free yourself from this emotional energy, which triggers again and again your thoughts and state of frustration. In addition, any strong emotional reaction is stress for the body.

Lots of exercises and techniques to relieve stress - follow this link

An exercise to accept a situation that you cannot change

Be alone with yourself;
Think about the situation that worries you and put it aside mentally;
Start breathing slowly - inhale and exhale very slowly, focusing all your attention on the body;
Breathing should be slow, and it is advisable to count out loud during inhalations and exhalations 1...2...3....4.
You breathe in 4 counts during exhalation and inhalation;
Breathe until you feel that you have calmed down, and all emotions have subsided, there is serenity within you;
And when you feel that you are calm, you begin to think about your situation and also continue to breathe slowly.
Imagine a picture of your situation and breathe.

In order to “breathe out” an unaccepted situation and remove the emotional background, it will take 15-20 minutes.

The mechanism of operation of this technique.

When you think about a situation that you cannot change, you have many emotions. And the body automatically goes into stress mode, stress hormones are released - cortisol and adrenaline.

During quiet breathing, the parasympathetic nervous system is activated and hormones are released.

At the moment of imagining the situation and breathing slowly, the body continues to remove hormones from the body. And at the same time, the significance of the situation decreases, it becomes less important.

The neural connections through which the excitation associated with this situation was transmitted begin to slow down, i.e. calm down.

If the situation is everyday, simple, then 1-2 times will be enough for you to calmly react to this case.

If something is complex, more traumatic, then more time is needed.

About the time factor and self-honesty

What can and should be done to still survive the death of a loved one?

It is very important to “correctly” (that means, everyone in their own way) to experience the stages of grief, without creating illusions for yourself. Otherwise, no matter how hard you try, nothing will work. The main thing is not to get hung up, not to get stuck at any stage.

Just gather yourself and wait. After all, the moment will come when you realize that this person is no longer there. Then peace will come to the soul and agreement with what happened

After all, time heals (though only by erasing the severity, and not the pain itself - it will not disappear!). But this only happens when we want it ourselves and are honest with ourselves.

Time also helps you see how a person influenced you. It's always a good idea to look around and try to understand what your deceased loved one brought to your life. What's good? What's bad?

Maybe he sowed seeds inside you? Are they sprouting? Are they helping you? Or do they interfere?

There is nothing wrong with getting rid of grains that you don't need. And let those you really need flourish. Or, perhaps, before this you did not notice some grains that were worth paying attention to?

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The third reason that prevents you from accepting the situation is your habit of worrying.

Excessive worries can be called a character trait, or even a habit. What is the habit of worrying? Let's not go deep into the mental mechanism, in a nutshell, your neural connections in the brain are “trained” to be in an excited state due to various events happening in life.

If you say to yourself that I take everything to heart, I get nervous and worry about trifles, then you have developed the habit of unnecessary worries.

Good news! You can get rid of unnecessary worries if you approach it more consciously and direct your attention in this direction.

When a person has developed a certain pattern of behavior, then he considers his behavior normal and justified. And if suddenly they say to him: “Why are you thinking and worrying about this?

This is nonsense, nonsense,” then for such a person, these words will mean that he needs to be cold and heartless. Indeed, for many people, the very fact of worrying about something or someone is a factor of love and care.

But I’ll return to how the habit of worrying is a stumbling block to accepting a situation that cannot be changed.

Somewhere deep inside there is a thought or feeling that if I don’t worry, I will do a bad thing, and I simply have to and must react that way.

It’s as if you are forcing yourself from within to resist the situation, and you feel that you are obligated and must do this. Several reasons may contribute to this resistance:

- you took someone else’s pattern of behavior from close people - mom, dad, etc. They always behaved this way when something happened, and you sincerely believe that resistance and not accepting events is normal.

- you are not used to being conscious, there are always a lot of thoughts in your head and they jump like a kangaroo, and it is difficult for you to analyze the causes and consequences of what is happening.

- you are overly emotional. It is difficult for you to manage your emotions, and any strong emotion covers you like a tsunami.

— you are a pessimist by nature and are accustomed to concentrating on negative events. Your thinking and consciousness are aimed at looking for problems, and when you find a problem, the resistance program is activated in order to further prove to yourself and others how unfair the world is, and you are a victim in it.

What is humility, what does it mean to come to terms with death

The concept of the Russian word "reconcile" is quite interesting. After all, it is associated with the polysemantic word “mir”, which is used in different senses, and historically goes back to another Russian word - “mera”. What do they both mean?

Peace ( a word that gave us another word - “humility”

) is associated with:

absence of war;
a calm life, good relationships with relatives and friends;
the global human community;
what we call the Universe;
silence (harmony) in the soul, etc.

Over time, the word “humility” has acquired a slightly different connotation. A person should not elevate himself above others, and he should be reconciled with everything that happens around him.

The word “measure” previously meant that a person should moderate his claims in relation to anything. In fact, we still use it in this meaning today.

One way or another, both words personify harmony, order and arrangement. And if so, then the meaning of the phrase “come to terms with the death of a loved one” becomes quite clear to us. It means:

absence of rebellion, because loved ones have no choice, which means there is no point in persisting, resisting what happened;
submission, signified unity with the world (after all, it is not only your loved one who dies);
accepting the fact of a person’s death in peace (with oneself) in the soul as a given;
understanding that nothing depends on you, etc.

Yes, sometimes it is simply impossible to come to terms with the fact of death. Your whole nature is against... At the same time, everyone will have their own arguments. But you can change your attitude towards the situation through the “correct” experience of grief and acceptance of the sad fact.

Psychologist Mikhail Khasminsky expressed a very wise thought, saying that to fully experience grief, that is, to accept the fact of loss, “this means turning black grief into a bright memory”...

What to do with the habit of worrying, how to correct your own thinking and perception?

Learn to manage your emotions, and we are not talking about control and suppression at all. Management is a choice, and a conscious one, and not an automatic one, as it is now.

Now... the event happened and an automatic program of emotional response to the situation worked inside you.

The brain is lazy, and it doesn’t want to develop a new model of behavior every time, if, once in the past, there was a proven model of behavior, and it doesn’t matter how effective it was, the brain will use it again and again.

If you are in a conscious state, then you are in the position of an adult. And as we said above, the position of an adult automatically removes resistance and transfers the situation to a state of acceptance.

This is where I end, and I hope that I was able to convey to you information about how to accept a situation that you cannot change.

Of course, the next step is to let go of the situation, because if you accepted it, then you need to leave it and move on. For information on how to let go of situations, read the article “3 techniques: how to let go of a situation and not worry.”

Be loved and happy!

Sincerely, family psychologist Natalia Gnezdilova

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The author of the article is Natalia Gnezdilova , family psychologist with 15 years of experience. I help women 35+ regain love, respect and trust in relationships with men. I consult online in any of the messengers - Skype, WhatsApp, Viber. Subscribe: my Instagram YouTube channel VK page

Two chairs

This method is quite successfully used in psychology. For example, he was advised by an expert in an article about readiness for the birth of a child.

You need to sit on the first chair and imagine that you have made one of the decisions. Think about how events will develop next and how you feel about it. Are you comfortable, do you feel happy? Then the same thing must be repeated with the second chair and another choice.

It's like you're taking two mini-trips into the future. It is clear that they do not construct real events and are intended only to help you understand yourself. But this is what is needed.

Stage four. Depression

When reality finally sinks in, virtually all patients experience some degree of depression. Huge unresolved questions remain about plans for the future, about relationships with others, about changes in status in the family and at work. The need for constant treatment often radically changes the usual way of life, starting with the daily routine. Many people at this stage just want to crawl their heads under the covers and hide from the whole world.

How to cope. First of all, you need to understand that this is a temporary period. Feelings of hopelessness and gloomy pictures of the future are chimeras, which in essence are nothing more than symptoms of depression. Once you experience it, you will see your life completely differently. A diagnosis is not a reason to give up plans and hopes. Moreover, for each serious disease, new treatment methods are constantly being developed that help maintain capacity for a long time. However, there are diseases that provoke depression at the biochemical level. In this case, you need to seek help from a psychiatrist who will prescribe you treatment with antidepressants.