Acceptance is another powerful practice related to empathy.
Acceptance is acknowledging the reality of a situation without judging or trying to change it. This is a powerful practice that many of us resist. When we do get there, it almost always leads to gratitude.
For most people, this is the hardest part of empathy. Naturally, much of the time, we have a tendency to want things to be different from how they are right now. The world is far from perfect.
Acceptance is not just an empathetic practice but a mindfulness practice. It requires us to be aware of the push and pull of our own mind. Ultimately we have to recognize that our wants and desires very often have little to do with reality. When we are being mindful or empathetic, the focus is on right now, this person right here. Any effort on our part to remember things in the past or plan for things in the future are distractions from the present situation.
John Kabat-Zinn, the great mindfulness expert, actually defines healing as acceptance: “coming to terms with things as they are.”
This may sound odd to many people. I know people who are constantly trying to “fix” other people. But the people they want to “fix” are not broken. Usually, this is a euphemistic expression of trying to control other people. That is the opposite of empathy and frankly, the opposite of healing.
Sometimes, it’s hard to accept our own feelings, much less those of another person. Mindfulness teaches us that if you are angry with someone right now, you are angry. Accept it. If you feel exhausted, you feel exhausted. Accept it. How you are feeling right now is simply how you are feeling right now, neither more nor less than that.
With grief and many other strong mind-states, acceptance is what we are left with after long agonizing emotional periods of anger and denial. Usually the anger, denial, bargaining, and wishing states make people feel worse without affecting the outcome. These feelings may even incline people to ignore important duties or relationships while they are in the process of coming to terms with things as they are. For example, in the case of a death, no amount of emotional anguish is going to change the fact of the loss. The same is true when someone is diagnosed with a serious illness.
This is not to underestimate the power of mourning or grief in any way. We all have to get to acceptance in our own time, and grief or mourning often changes us in the process. Some people call this process wisdom.
Every great religion and mindfulness practice advocates for acceptance sooner rather than later. Accepting things as they are right now is really a true act of empathy, for yourself and for others, saving you often hours, days, months, or years of anguish.
Accepting how you feel is an act of grace and healing. It is an act of self-compassion to accept what you are feeling, your own situation, however dire or difficult.
Accepting how someone else feels is an even greater act of grace and healing. They feel validated. That sense of being seen and accepted frees them up from making the effort to be seen, understood and acknowledged. In the end, you will both be grateful you did.
This post is part of my Gratitude Project 2025: The Magic of Empathy — a 30-day exploration of empathy and gratitude. Visit the hub to follow along or catch up on past reflections.
If you’d like to explore the science behind gratitude, visit the Greater Good Science Center’s Gratitude Resources.
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