A short excerpt from Hal Elrod's YouTube video 'How I Beat Cancer' in which Elrod explains that resisting reality (after events like cancer or divorce) creates and prolongs emotional pain. He argues that acceptance — not condoning wrongdoing but acknowledging reality — is the key to inner peace and emotional freedom.
Chapters
When something happens in our life, whether it's cancer or divorce or you name it, human nature is to immediately resist reality. I wish this didn't happen. I'm so frustrated. Ah. Why did this happen? Right. I'm so angry. And as we resist reality, we literally are creating and perpetuating emotional pain, inner turmoil. And to the degree that we resist reality determines the degree of emotional pain that we create. Resisting reality, rarely, if ever, and I'm going to say it's very close to never resisting reality, very rarely, if ever serves us. But accepting reality exactly as it is, it doesn't mean you condone something someone did that's bad. It means you just give yourself the gift of inner peace through the power of acceptance, which is the key that unlocks the door to inner peace and emotional freedom.