In our last instalment, we looked at how anger can push us into choices we later regret. This time, we’re focusing on a practical antidote: accepting what we feel without letting those feelings run the show.
First, a simple truth: we can’t control everything. And it’s completely human to feel angry, frustrated, or sad—especially when life isn’t playing nice. As psychiatrist Theodore Rubin observed, anger is as basic a human experience as hunger or fatigue. We’re not aiming to suppress anything; we’re learning to acknowledge what’s there. It’s okay to feel angry, annoyed, or heartbroken. It’s not okay to hand the steering wheel to those emotions.
Even the Dalai Lama has noted that never showing anger would be unnatural. The point isn’t to become emotionless—it’s to keep our responses grounded and intentional. That takes practice, and the best time to study anger is when you’re calm. When you’re in the heat of the moment, the impulse might be to lash out or break something. That nearly always makes things worse. Emotions also tend to cascade—greed can breed jealousy, which turns into frustration, which erupts as anger. Most of us can recall choices we regret from inside that chain reaction.
Life offers endless choices but no instruction manual. Preparation helps. We can’t prevent every hard thing, but we can decide in advance how we’ll respond. What trips us up most often is blame—aimed at others, ourselves, or some vague sense of fate. Blame can feel soothing for a moment, but it’s like throwing a towel over a spill and pretending the stain will disappear. Until we clean the mess, the problem—and the smell—lingers.
Sometimes there truly is nothing we can do. That’s our cue to accept reality and move forward. Every situation contains options: we can deny, minimize, or blame, which is easy, or we can face what’s happened and do the hard work of repair. Acceptance starts with naming the issue. Hiding, pretending, and ignoring only deepen the rut.
Consider grief. When we lose someone dear, we may rage at our powerlessness. Step one is accepting the loss. Step two is acknowledging that the future will be different. No one can reverse what’s occurred, and recognizing that truth—painful as it is—softens our anguish over time. Nothing is permanent, not even pain. Acceptance brings clarity, which helps us find our footing in a changed reality. The longer we resist, the heavier it all becomes. Life does go on, but to notice its fragrance again, we have to clear what’s festering.
Acceptance is what allows healing to begin. Keep picking at a wound and it won’t close. Acceptance isn’t “I did nothing wrong.” It’s “This is real. Now what?” It might include, “I should or shouldn’t have done X, and I can’t change that now. My job is to make the best of this moment and not make it worse.”
Acceptance is not the same as suppressing anger—sometimes anger, rightly understood, points us toward necessary change. And it’s not mere tolerance. Tolerance is putting up with things we dislike. Acceptance is seeing reality clearly, choosing responsibility over blame, and taking the next wise step.
Try this when emotions surge:
– Pause and name the feeling: “I’m angry,” “I’m hurt,” “I’m scared.”
– Normalize it: “This is a human response.”
– Separate what you can control from what you can’t.
– Ask, “Now what?” Then take the smallest constructive action.
– Later, reflect and prepare one safeguard for next time.
Practiced consistently, acceptance is a life-changing habit—a steady tool for a more harmonious, resilient life. Feel everything. Don’t feed the spiral. Choose what you do next.
