why I don’t use the word “acceptance”

(At Least Not in the Way You Might Expect)

(Prefer to listen? Click the audio file below.)

There’s a word that rarely appears in my work.

Not because I don’t understand its meaning.
And not because I think there’s anything inherently wrong with it.

But because, for me, it has always felt a little… unsettled.

The word is acceptance.

I call it… the “A” word.

It’s one of those words we hear often — especially in conversations about pain, healing, grief, or personal growth. And on the surface, it sounds like something we’re meant to strive for. Something that signals peace. Resolution. Arrival.

But over time, I began to notice something in my own reaction to it.

It didn’t feel like arrival.
It felt like a kind of… ending.

Not always. Not for everyone. But for me, the word seemed to carry a subtle undertone — one that blurred the line between making peace with something and giving up on the possibility of living fully alongside it.

And that distinction began to matter.

Because the journey I found myself on didn’t feel like acceptance in the traditional sense.

It felt more active than that.
More engaged.
More… alive.

It felt like a process of adjusting, over and over.
Of renegotiating what was possible.
Of learning how to live in a body and a life that had changed, without stepping away from either.

Over time, I found myself drawn to other, different words.

Reconciliation.
Adjustment.
Acclimation.
Even negotiation.

And, in a more spiritual sense, surrender — not as a form of defeat, but as a way of meeting what is without turning away from it.

These words felt different in my body.

They implied movement.
Participation.
A relationship that was still unfolding.

Not something concluded.

In the same way, I noticed that I rarely used the phrase coping strategies.

Again, not because it’s wrong — but because it didn’t quite match the experience I was living.

Coping can sometimes feel like getting through.
Enduring.
Holding steady until something passes.

But what happens when it doesn’t pass?

What happens when the thing you’re coping with becomes part of the landscape of your life?

For me, the work became less about coping — and more about relating.

Relating differently.
Responding differently.
Finding ways to live within something, rather than simply managing it from the outside.

And language began to matter more than I expected.

Not in a rigid or prescriptive way — but in a subtle one.

The words I used shaped how I understood what I was going through.
They influenced how I met each day.
They helped determine whether I felt like I was enduring my life — or participating in it.

So, while you may still see the word acceptance from time to time, it’s not the word I naturally reach for.

Not because I reject it, or the idea of it.

But because I’ve found that other words bring me closer to the experience I’m trying to live.

An experience that isn’t about arriving at peace once and for all — but about continuing to find my way within what is.

And, perhaps, that’s its own kind of understanding.

With you on the journey,

Julie 🦋