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THE
STEPS TO STRESS REDUCTION I. Steps to Stress Reduction: Graphic II. Steps to Stress Reduction: Text IV. Exercises to Increase Awareness
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| Chapter 13. The Secret is Acceptance
After recognizing your feelings, which takes acceptance, you are faced with only two options:
The key word is ACCEPTANCE. All the way through Stress Reduction Through Honesty in Communication, you will confront the concept of ACCEPTANCE. Remember,
Don't lose that ACCEPTANCE! At any point, if you allow your ACCEPTANCE OF FEELINGS to erode, then REJECTION OF FEELINGS enters the picture and prevents both the willingness to express and the actual expression of the feelings and you default to the Starting Point. You've Got to Find It Somewhere If you find yourself defaulting to the Starting Point, it's probably because there was little, if any, acceptance of your feelings while growing up. What you need is more acceptance from without so that you can begin to develop acceptance from within!
There's a big difference between ACCEPTANCE and APPROVAL!!! Please avoid making the mistake of thinking that just because your Heavenly Father can ACCEPT your feelings, need for affection and sexuality, that this gives you the license to express these human attributes just any way you want including ways that can't possibly warrant his APPROVAL! You can understand how this works. As a parent, you can and should ACCEPT your children's feelings but you can and should DISAPPROVE of some of the ways they choose to express them!
I'll never forget a counseling session where I concentrated on helping a client ACCEPT their feelings, desire for affection and sexuality. Apparently I didn't make it clear that along with the PRIVILEGE OF ACCEPTANCE comes the RESPONSIBILITY OF EXPRESSING these human attributes WISELY (that is, Group 1 "fun" and Group 2 "rewarding" stress symptoms) and NOT in ways that increase stress levels (that is, Group 3 "seems like fun" and Group 4 "neither fun nor rewarding nor seems like fun" stress symptoms) [see Four Kinds of Stress Symptoms]. The next session, my client expressed their deep appreciation for the help received ... then went on to tell me how much better their Group 4 Stress Symptoms were going now without the previous guilt felt before. Needless to say, that day I became more aware of the need not only to work on increasing "Emotional Intelligence" but more importantly, the need to work concurrently on increasing "Emotional Wisdom". Thus, we introduce the subject of GUILT, a very unique entity. It doesn't seem to be a pure emotion, like mad, glad, sad and afraid. Neither does it seem to be a pure thought since it definitely carries an emotional charge. It seems you have to have brains to "feel guilty", that is, know the difference between right and wrong. However, much of what we think "right" is actually wrong (like going to bed angry), and much of what we think "wrong" is actually right (like anger). In my opinion, the human being is incapable of resolving the guilt question alone. "Do whatever you feel like doing, just don't feel guilty" certainly doesn't work since "whatever" may actually increase stress levels and thus the possibility of going in for more Class 3 and Class 4 Stress Symptoms! This could generate even more guilt which would increase the need for more denial and repression ... but the emotional energy required could be quite a drain on the body which could result in even higher stress levels. In my opinion, the only resolution for guilt must come, not from within, nor from others (who are in the same boat we are), but from above, that is, a living faith in God and his provision for our human condition.
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