~~Do not see acceptance as a weakness. Accepting a situation does not mean you are giving up. Acceptance simply means that you recognize and understand your current situation. Acceptance allows you to be free from the shackles of denial and move forward in life, creating anew path and a new life for yourself.~~ Unknown
~~Understanding is acceptance, only with acceptance comes recovery. The best thing one can do when it is raining is let it rain.~~ Unknown
Sometimes when people decide to quit smoking, they gear up for a battle. They tense, they get their weapons ready, and they dig in for the duration. They hear that quitting is difficult. They hear that some people 'fail'. They may have failed at past attempts themselves. So quitting, to them, means war.
I found that by accepting my quit, I didn't have the battles. That didn't mean that I didn't have cravings and that didn't mean that I didn't feel stress. I did. It just meant that by accepting that cravings and stress are part of recovery, I didn't try to change them. I worked with them instead.
So when you hear people here talk about acceptance, understand what that means. Understand what recovery means, understand what your quit means. And allow recovery to happen. Allow the cravings. Allow the nervousness. Allow it. Because when you battle cravings, you are only fighting yourself. When you accept that cravings are going to happen, you no longer need to fight them, you just acknowledge them instead.
If you don't understand this, think of it this way. It's raining outside. You can't stop the rain because you want to work in your garden. You can't stop the rain because you want to go swimming. So you allow it to rain and wait for it to stop before venturing out. Simple as that. You can't stop recovery by wanting to bypass the uncomfortable aspects.
Acceptance means you are working with what's happening, not against it. And that makes all the difference.
Sheri
