Acceptance and integration

I have written much here about acceptance – including particularly Tara Brach’s concept of radical acceptance – and it seems to me one of the keystones of any contemplative practice. To accept the circumstances of our life, the time and place of our birth, our age and our state of health, the changing seasons… this is a way of being that underlies whatever peace and stillness we uncover. Integration, the goal of so much psychotherapeutic theory and practice – most obviously in the Jungian tradition – is the core process of individuation, where hidden, unconscious parts of the mind – the shadow, the anima or animus, repressed or concealed complexes – are brought into conscious awareness to create a unified, whole self: the endpoint of healing. Acceptance is key to integration, also: it is not possible to bring into open awareness these intensely charged unconscious materials without acceptance. To accept oneself, all of oneself, as at its heart given (see Martin Heidegger’s…