SHA #3: Role of Acceptance & Validation

Tagging a few friends to share their experiences. Please feel free to tag and encourage others to share as well <3 

@I1am1trying @sadrobot101 @Birchtreebird11 @Finny17 @CloudCola @communicativePond1728 @TheGentlesoul @theboymoana @lolasun24 @Slayer22 @Vagi @unassumingEyes @Starlight73 @Apeatrice @Slipveil @slayy1 @Orihara @Vara3112 @sympatheticFriend1916 @jason7127 @Enchanted2024 @TheSunIsUpTheSkyIsBlue

@ASilentObserver TW just incase

I agree with alot said on here. Cups has helped me alot in feeling validated and getting my self esteem out of the trash. Earlier I mentioned to some friends on here on how this has happened. When I came on here, i was in denial of my own sh. I could not accept that what i did was sh despite it hurting me. I was too confused, and I felt like my situations were not worthy of sh. As though i was not hurt enough to be allowed to hurt myself. When I tested the waters here, and quietly admitted the truth, that I am of those who sh, I was not treated with the expected disgust, fear or disapproval. My friendships did not change. I was listened to as before i “confessed”, i was treated the same, except for anything I wanted to change. And slowly, slowly, admitting what I was doing and not being rejected for it had another outcome: i started doing it less. I come here now when the urge is there, and more often than before cups, the urge leaves without any harm. I apologize if i went too much into detail, but this is my experience so far.

@unassumingEyes

*hugs eyes buddy if okay* awwe friend this really warmed my heart 🥺 this was truly so sweet to read 💜 i’m so freaking proud of you eyes buddy and you mean so much to me 💜🥺💕 i’m vv happy cups has been a safe space for you 💜 i hope you know you’ve made cups (especially teenie land) a better, warmer, brighter, kinder place too - just by being you 💜 we love you 💜

@LoveMyMoonflowers *hugss* i love you all too 🥺❤️ cups does alot for me so if i can give even a teeny bit of that back, im glad ❤️ and im proud of you too flowers ❤️ and v.v.v grateful to have you around ❤️

@unassumingEyes

awwe you don’t give just a teeny bit of it back 🥺 nuuuu friend, just by being youuu, you’ve brought so much back 💜 and i mean that friend 🥺💕 *huggle wuggles vvv tight* 💜

@unassumingEyes Thank you for sharing your story with us, Eyes. It takes courage to confront our struggles and seek support. I am glad you are here with us on 7 Cups and good to hear opening up has helped you feel validated and work through difficult emotions. Your experience shows that accepting ourselves, even with our flaws, can lead to growth and healing. You got this eyes. We believe in you and here for you. 

My experiences with acceptance and validation:

Acceptance:

For me, acceptance took the form of self-acceptance through shadow work that happened automatically during the lowest low of my life.

I had experience after experience of facing painful things buried inside, of all kinds. Some were about me and the mistakes I had made throughout life. Some were about people I was still attached to who hurt me. Some where about people in general and life itself. And each time I found a deeper layer of acceptance to the truth about life, people, and myself.

Most of all, acceptance of myself.

In this acceptance, which came from within, in the privacy of my own mind and body and heart, the whole system, I found my sense of self-worth, and self-love, self-compassion, self-esteem, self-confidence, self-respect. You could say I found myself, as it were, in all its facets, good and bad, beautiful and ugly. And I knew I was loved, because my entire system could feel it, intensely. And I knew that everyone, literally every person is also loved in the same way, if only their heart could open up to it.

What closes our hearts is the many accumulated traumatic and painful experiences we encounter through life. And each experience produces a kind of scab, that closes off one more aspect of our ability to feel.

In a way, we may actually start to equate maturity and adulthood with the lack of feeling. And this lack of feeling robs us of all the simple and endless joys of life all around. And we become very depressed, or very angry, or very dysfunctional.

When by some means, we are opened up to the pain that is hiding behind the scabs covering our heart, it's temporarily very emotionally painful, and uncomfortable, but by feeling it completely, from it's root to it's end, it gets integrated (incorporated, combined) into you mind body and heart. Your system. The scab covering it up goes away. And that aspect of your ability to feel, which was concealed by that scab, opens back up to you.

Now, you not only have the ability to feel that aspect again, like when you were an innocent child, but, when life inevitably bring more experiences which hurt you in that place inside your heart, you've already processed it before. So it doesn't scar you the way it once did.

When this kind of healing happens over and over, your heart becomes so open, that you become grateful and happy to be alive, and in some cases, you may even find yourself grateful for some of the pain you experienced. It's that significant.

Validation:

Validation during this period also came from within. What happened was I learned how to really cry. I had cried before, sometimes when intoxicated and having a meltdown. But this time it was a real sober, and intense silent weeping, that would take over my whole system.

I wouldn't be able to do anything but lay on the floor or sit in a chair, completely still and relaxed, and just exhale very deeply and slowly, until there was no more air to exhale, and then I would inhale very deeply and slowly, naturally, automatically, and do more of the same. Each time, with an open mouth, the air would pour out of my face carrying all of the emotional pain that I couldn't have even fathomed was burried inside there.

Each time, the air moving through my throat felt like a very intense, almost cosmic, silent wail.

And each time, the energy gushing through my chest, felt like I was almost being electrocuted in a way that wasn't traumatic. But rather, an invisible, felt expression of all the feelings that had been burried over years and years of emotional pain.

In that silent wail to the cosmos, and buckets of snot and tears, my pain found all it's validation.

I didn't anymore need someone to believe me.

I didn't anymore need to prove it.

I didn't anymore need to prove it with physical pain.

I didn't anymore need to prove it with physical scars.

The experience of feeling it so deeply and completely, in stillness, was proof enough.

Thanks for reading.

@TalkingSloth Thank you for sharing such a powerful and emotional experience with us, Sloth. I am sorry you are going through that difficult period of your life led you to discover new aspects of yourself and find inner strength. How has your life changed since then?

@ASilentObserver 

Thank you for this useful info. Idk much about this but yeah I know we do seek acceptance and validation and if doesn't get validated we feel terrible and confused. 

Even in small things... So I can imagine the effect of these larger things which causes self harm. 

People who feel relief after SH this is for you🙌

You are equally important, if you don't get treasure somewhere it doesn't mean that it is not there... Yes there are many people don't understand you and therefore you feel the urge for SH but here are many people whom you can talk and feel better. You are the universe creation and you know that it is not without a reason. More power to you, you are brave for managing these all things alone. ❤

@Vagi Thank you Vagi, tt sounds like you have some understanding of how validation can impact our feelings. What do you think are some ways we can find validation?

@ASilentObserver 

7 cups haha.. and yeah definitely talk to yourself, mentors, people who support you

@Vagi those are some good ones Vagi. you got this. 

I don't think acceptance and validation matter much. If it is did many would be a lot more stable and feel better about their situations and don't. This is a broken society and systems we're attempting to heal something already borderline impossible to do so within, and yet we're supposed to ignore how unfair and unfortunate it is and remain passive or under a guide of false positivity. I don't think that makes a single ounce of sense and in fact I find it disgusting and beyond upsetting.

@communicativePond1728 "...and yet we're supposed to ignore how unfair and unfortunate it is and remain passive or under a guide of false positivity."

If you read what I'm expressing very slowly, word for word, and look at this very carefully, with an open mind, (because I'm sincere and I'm not judging you), you might see that you are actually rejecting the notion of acceptance, because you have misunderstood is as false-positivity, and, because you are also unknowingly seeking validation, about how unfair and unfortunate life is.

And you're definitely right about how unfair and unfortunate life and society is, and the state of things, including our systems. Things are not ok, I agree.

But back to the point, this means you are demonstrating, how important validation is, and what happens if we don't get validation. We get stuck at a kind of initial stage or barrier to healing and growth. Which I think everyone gets stuck at for some period of time or other. I know I was for a long time, and probably even way more resentful than you are now. So thank you for speaking true to yourself and what you perceive, it takes courage.

You've also inadvertently pointed out a very common misconception about what acceptance, or it's cousin concept surrender, is about. Because many people confuse those two with false-positivity. It has nothing to do with being biased towards positive thoughts and feelings, or with any kind of falsehood.

Validation comes first.

Acceptance comes second.

Validation means, having your feelings and your pain seen, acknowledged, and validated as real and significant. Until we find this validation of our hurt, we remain stuck here in a state of bitterness and resentment, and reject anything to do with healing or moving forward in any way, because we are still trying to get some kind of an appraisal on the damage that has been done, and we haven't got that yet.

Acceptance means, you coming to terms with whatever pain and loss you've experienced, or observe in others. The validation is an opening of door. Acceptance is walking through the door. The real work. And anything but positive. Acceptance doesn't mean that what happened, was good. It just means we are accepting on every level of our human system, mind body and whatever else there is, the reality of it.

To explain why, you would really have to explain how we unknowingly reject and resist the reality of the bad aspects of life, and our own experience. Even when we think we are doing the opposite.

For example, we may fixate on something, and protest about it, with a lot of charged emotion, and vehemently appose any attempt to gloss over it, or construe it into some kind of false positivity perspective. And that all sound very much like you are accepting the reality of the bad thing. But it's actually the opposite.

By doing all of that, although they can be useful, most of the time, it's just an unconscious attempt to cover up feelings, thoughts, possible truths and verifiable truths, that are still too painful to process. To keep those things at bay, you need very powerful emotions to do the job of concealing them. And anger is the go to emotion for this, for several reasons.

So on the surface we think we are "accepting" the reality of the bad thing, but actually, emotionally we are running away from that reality constantly. Behind the anger, are a range of other emotions, thoughts, feelings and possibilities which unfold, but haven't yet had the chance to, and can be even more intense and painful than the resentment we feel initially.

All the people who tout acceptance and surrender do so because they've experienced it. Lot of the time, it's not because someone told them to do so and they listened, but because life forced them to one day, and they had an aha moment.

About a fundamental concept that undercuts off these other concepts, and it is called internal resistance.

@sadrobot101 if you actually slowly and carefully read what I wrote and used effective empathy you wouldn't find it necessary to write some TED talk I'll never read at me.

@communicativePond1728 I read it at least three times over, and then a bit more. Sorry it wasn't to your standards, or too much.

@TalkingSloth Thank you for sharing your insights about acceptance and validation, Sloth. I appreciate your deep understanding of the importance of acknowledging and accepting our experiences, rather than resisting or pretending they didn't happen. 

@communicativePond1728 sounds like you have been through a lot and have really thought deeply about what matters most, Pond. What feelings come up for you when you consider all of this?

@ASilentObserver

💙*hugs tight if ok*

Thank you for tagging me here, obs. 

Tw; (just in case)

Real, the power of being accepted as we are on Cups really help me to stop doing sh.(I am struggling a bit, I really wanna to slip, but everytime my friends words pop up in my head'' we are here for you'' ''think abt your sisters and future'' they are the reasons I haven't relapsed. Because I know, I am not alone, I am embraced here, I am going to make it…if I do it, I will let them down …)

I think it should be called the power of friendship, the realisation that we have people behind us, supporting us, journey alongside us made us wanna do good so as not to let our friends down. This does not only apply to sh, but to other things too(alcohol, drug…)

 Please be gentle with yourself, we are here to embrace you, to support you, to told you how proud we are of you. When things gets too heavy and life seems real massy… Please don't lose hope. Let us take up the burden without those unhealthy actions, let's take them up together. 

@FaithfulZareia. 

💙❤️🤍

@Apeatrice Hugs back Apea and thank you for sharing your experiences. I am glad you have found comfort in knowing that you are not alone in this journey and that your friends are there to support you. The realization that having people by your side can make a difference is powerful. Please remember, you are not alone in feeling this way. You are doing your best, and that's something to be proud of. We are all here with you to listen to and to support.