#87 Acceptance vs. Tolerance

Read the full episode transcript

Hey, this is Melissa Parsons, and you are listening to the Your Favorite You Podcast. I'm a certified life coach with an advanced certification in deep dive coaching. The purpose of this podcast is to help brilliant women like you with beautiful brains create the life you've been dreaming of with intentions. My goal is to help you find your favorite version of you by teaching you how to treat yourself as your own best friend.

If this sounds incredible to you and you want practical tips on changing up how you treat yourself, then you're in the right place. Just so you know, I'm a huge fan of using all of the words available to me in the English language, so please proceed with caution if young ears are around.

Hi everyone! Welcome back to Your Favorite You! I want to celebrate the fact that you guys keep coming back every week on your quest to your favorite version of yourself! I am honored to be here with all of you.

I was coaching one of my incredible clients recently and we were noodling on the differences between acceptance and tolerance.

Now, to be clear - The tolerance that I am not talking about here is the idea of tolerance as a willingness to coexist peacefully and respect the rights and dignity of others, even if their views or behaviors differ from one's own. We definitely need more tolerance in this sense of the word in our world.

The tolerance we were discussing on the call had more to do with my client trying to talk herself into putting up with something she did not agree with, something that did not make her happy, and her people-pleasing and pretending with the people she loved in order to tolerate her life.

So, let’s explore the nuanced differences between acceptance and tolerance. These concepts can carry significant implications for our well-being and overall happiness. Understanding these differences can empower us to embrace the things we love about our lives AND to have the courage to make changes to the things we don’t love. Let's talk about acceptance first.

Acceptance is about acknowledging reality as it is, without judgment or resistance - without trying to change it… without trying to argue for why things should be any different. It involves embracing the present moment, understanding our emotions - understanding that our emotions are coming from our present thoughts and/or that they are coming from some stored trauma in our body. Acceptance involves finding peace within ourselves in the best of life’s circumstances and in the shittiest of life's circumstances. Acceptance helps us make peace with circumstances that are beyond our control, allowing us to focus on our own personal growth and well-being. Acceptance helps us recognize that our thoughts and feelings and actions are the only ones that we have control over… that we cannot control other people… that we cannot control the universe.

However, it's important to recognize that acceptance should never be mistaken for tolerating a life we don't love. Tolerance, in this sense, refers to enduring circumstances or situations that don't align with our true or deepest desires and values. It's about tolerating a mediocre life, or tolerating unfulfilling or frankly long-dead relationships, or staying in an environment that might have made sense for us in the past, but no longer makes sense to us in the present.

So, how can we shift from tolerating a life we don't love to embracing acceptance and making the changes we might be afraid to make? Here are a few strategies:

1. Self-Reflection: Take an honest inventory of your life. Identify the areas that are causing dissatisfaction or unhappiness. Acknowledge that you deserve a life that aligns with your dreams. The key here is that first you have to re-start daydreaming about a life you love… I will again quote Roy Kent to Rebecca in Ted Lasso… “Don’t you dare settle for fine!” That goes for your life too.

2. Define Your Values: Clarify maybe 3 core values and that align with what truly matters to you. Use these chosen values as a compass to guide your decisions and your actions. When you live in alignment with your values, you create a life that feels authentic and amazing.

3. Set Your Course: So you want to set a destination. Identify the changes you want to make and work toward that destination. If you take consistent action, you can move closer to the life you are dreaming about.

4. Seek Support: Surround yourself with a supportive network of other women doing the same work - they can encourage and guide you on your journey. They can provide valuable insights, examples of other badass women doing works that’s similar to yours. They can also provide some emotional support. Of course, I am biased and think that the coaching group I lead is the best place to do this work on your way to living in to your favorite version of yourself! 

Remember, accepting your current reality doesn't mean settling for a life you don't love. It's about acknowledging where you are and using that awareness as a catalyst for change, if you decide you want it. I want to empower you to embrace acceptance as a stepping stone toward creating a life that aligns with your desires and values.

I did a whole episode about accepting yourself, way back at episode 54 - we can link that in the show notes… And I want to help you see how accepting yourself can lead to helping you change your life for the better!

1. First, accepting yourself helps you understand yourself… Accepting yourself fully - this includes your strengths, your weaknesses, and even (or maybe especially) your past mistakes. This allows for greater self-awareness and self-reflection. This understanding becomes a foundation for personal growth.

2. Next is accepting yourself leads to improved Emotional health and wealth: Accepting and embracing our emotions, both positive and negative, without judgment or suppression, promotes emotional health. It allows us to navigate challenging emotions - remember, for some of us, the challenging emotions can be what others would call the positive emotions… so we can navigate whatever emotion we might find challenging with compassion and perhaps develop some healthier coping strategies.

3. The third thing that accepting ourselves helps us with is our Adaptability: Accepting the inevitability of change and the total inevitability of uncertainty equips us with adaptability. By accepting that life is dynamic and that we can't control everything, we can better respond to challenges and find new opportunities to grow and change.

4. For sure, accepting ourselves helps us Improve our Relationships with other people we choose to spend time with AND with other people we have no choice but to spend time with - so maybe your work colleagues. Accepting ourselves as we are helps us to see that it is also possible to accept others as they are, with their unique perspectives and differences. It fosters empathy, understanding, and healthier relationships. Accepting ourselves and others allows us to engage in open communication, to more easily resolve conflicts, and to build deeper connections.

5. Next,  Accepting ourselves empowers us to embrace our true selves and express our authentic thoughts, feelings, and dreams. This authenticity that you now have attracts like-minded individuals and enables us to create more fulfilling relationships and helps us pursue a life that aligns with our values.

6. Accepting ourselves helps us to Let Go of the Past: Accepting and making peace with past experiences, traumas, or regrets frees up mental and emotional space for personal growth and new possibilities. It allows us to focus on the present and future rather than being held back by what has already happened. I have said it before and I will say it again… in fact, I just had to be coached on this myself! Our past does not have to determine our future!

7. Accepting ourselves as we are increases our Self-Compassion: This way we can treat ourselves with kindness, understanding, and forgiveness. Self-compassion helps us to overcome self-criticism.

Remember, acceptance is not about giving up on ourselves or becoming complacent or tolerating a life we don’t love, but about acknowledging the truth of our present moment. By embracing acceptance, we can create a solid foundation for building a life that actually makes us going around saying incredulously, “I can’t believe this is my real life!” in the best way possible! My friends and I say this to each other all the time.

Ok folks - thanks so much for tuning in… If you want practical tips for HOW to practice acceptance, come back next week, and I will share my tips with you in that episode! See you next week.

Hey! It’s still me. I’m thrilled to let you know that you have time to sign up for a consult to join our group coaching program. We start May 30th and we will meet every Thursday at 12:30pm Eastern Time for 6 months. 

If you did not get the chance to come to the webinar on May 8th and you would like to learn how to figure out what the fuck you want, and then learn about the benefits and the values of coaching with me, you can email melissa@melissaparsonscoaching.com.

If you're on the fence about whether or not to join us, just book a consult with me. We can spend some time and I can help you make your decision. “Yes” and “no” are perfectly acceptable answers. To book your consult, go to melissaparsons.com/group and book your call right there. Have a great week!