Dar Ty-Nilo on Accepting Your Reality Before You Can Pivot, Plan, and Persist
Have we truly accepted our reality right now or are we just resigned to the reality?
This is the sobering question Dar Ty-Nilo, creator of the Belle de Jour Power Planner, asked during her talk at the 2021 #YouGotThis: Rewrite Your Story summit.
There’s a huge difference between being resignation and acceptance, explained Dar, and where we fall on the spectrum “will affect how we see and how we respond to the current pandemic.”
If you are simply resigned to the current reality, you feel like there’s nothing you can do about the situation. There's a loss of hope. And if you want to be able to thrive and move forward in this pandemic, Dar said, "you need to flip the word ‘resigned’ into ‘accepted.’”
So how can you come to acceptance and begin to pivot, plan and persist during this pandemic? Here are Dar’s 5 tips:
Face the ugly truths.
The first step is to accept the facts, and Dar reminded us that part of the truth is that the pandemic has caused us pain, “but part of the truth is also [that we still have] some blessings and gratitude actually makes things better.”
“What are the truths that you need to really face in this pandemic?” Dar asked. “Sometimes we just have to ground ourselves in what is real and what we have to face right now. When we deny what we are going through, all the more that we cannot move toward acceptance.”
Know where you are at.
Dar actually began her talk with a seemingly simple question: How are you?
How are you today? How have you been in the past year?
“You need to check in with yourself at least once a week, or if you can, once a day,” she said. “It’s just a simple check-in: you take a deep breath, you inhale and exhale, you close your eyes, you feel which part of your body hurts, if any, or you just feel where you are and how you are. Write it down in your journal in the morning, at night, or at the end of the week.”
The key is practicing answering the question "How are you?” (or more precisely, “How am I?” without judging ourselves.
Sometimes the facts become heavy because we attach judgment to them, said Dar. It’s important to understand, without judging yourself, where you are physically, emotionally, and psychologically.
Own your choice and take responsibility.
“We have a choice to get up, to show up, to survive, and even to thrive,” said Dar. “You have to own your choice and take responsibility for your thoughts, your actions, and your emotions.”
She added, “We have to own our situation and the options we have. You need to make a deliberate choice. Sometimes you need to choose to rest and give yourself permission to rest. Sometimes you need to whip your butt. It's part of the acceptance. When your choices are coming from acceptance, things will flow. Things will be easier.”
Dar also shared an encouraging quote that she loves: "On particularly rough days when I am sure I can’t possibly endure, I like to remind myself that my track record for getting through bad days so far is 100% and that is pretty good."
Ask yourself: What is your why? What are your values?
Whether you’re resigned to the situation or you have accepted it, there’s also a value behind it. You can explore this by asking yourself: Where is this feeling coming from? What is the value behind it? Some of your feelings come from scarcity, jealousy, or fear, for instance.
Dar talked about alignment versus attachment. “Sometimes there's attachment to certain specific outcomes that we want, [to results] we feel we need to have. We feel like, this is what should have happened—we're attached to it,” Dar said. “It's very different from alignment.”
According to Dar, alignment is going back to your core purpose, to your why, and to your values. The question is, how aligned are you?
Know that acceptance is a process.
You will come to different depths or levels of understanding of acceptance, said Dar. “It's definitely a process and sometimes a cycle. Today you're okay, tomorrow you might not be okay.”
She shared that her own experience of coming to acceptance during the pandemic has been a journey, and it only gets deeper and deeper.
You can watch Dar’s thought-provoking talk, titled "Pivot, Plan, and Persist: Showing Up and Growing Through Your Struggles," in full here. (You can start at the 25:20 mark.)
This is the sobering question Dar Ty-Nilo, creator of the Belle de Jour Power Planner, asked during her talk at the 2021 #YouGotThis: Rewrite Your Story summit.
There’s a huge difference between being resignation and acceptance, explained Dar, and where we fall on the spectrum “will affect how we see and how we respond to the current pandemic.”
If you are simply resigned to the current reality, you feel like there’s nothing you can do about the situation. There's a loss of hope. And if you want to be able to thrive and move forward in this pandemic, Dar said, "you need to flip the word ‘resigned’ into ‘accepted.’”
So how can you come to acceptance and begin to pivot, plan and persist during this pandemic? Here are Dar’s 5 tips:
Face the ugly truths.
The first step is to accept the facts, and Dar reminded us that part of the truth is that the pandemic has caused us pain, “but part of the truth is also [that we still have] some blessings and gratitude actually makes things better.”
“What are the truths that you need to really face in this pandemic?” Dar asked. “Sometimes we just have to ground ourselves in what is real and what we have to face right now. When we deny what we are going through, all the more that we cannot move toward acceptance.”
Know where you are at.
Dar actually began her talk with a seemingly simple question: How are you?
How are you today? How have you been in the past year?
“You need to check in with yourself at least once a week, or if you can, once a day,” she said. “It’s just a simple check-in: you take a deep breath, you inhale and exhale, you close your eyes, you feel which part of your body hurts, if any, or you just feel where you are and how you are. Write it down in your journal in the morning, at night, or at the end of the week.”
The key is practicing answering the question "How are you?” (or more precisely, “How am I?” without judging ourselves.
Sometimes the facts become heavy because we attach judgment to them, said Dar. It’s important to understand, without judging yourself, where you are physically, emotionally, and psychologically.
Own your choice and take responsibility.
“We have a choice to get up, to show up, to survive, and even to thrive,” said Dar. “You have to own your choice and take responsibility for your thoughts, your actions, and your emotions.”
She added, “We have to own our situation and the options we have. You need to make a deliberate choice. Sometimes you need to choose to rest and give yourself permission to rest. Sometimes you need to whip your butt. It's part of the acceptance. When your choices are coming from acceptance, things will flow. Things will be easier.”
Dar also shared an encouraging quote that she loves: "On particularly rough days when I am sure I can’t possibly endure, I like to remind myself that my track record for getting through bad days so far is 100% and that is pretty good."
Ask yourself: What is your why? What are your values?
Whether you’re resigned to the situation or you have accepted it, there’s also a value behind it. You can explore this by asking yourself: Where is this feeling coming from? What is the value behind it? Some of your feelings come from scarcity, jealousy, or fear, for instance.
Dar talked about alignment versus attachment. “Sometimes there's attachment to certain specific outcomes that we want, [to results] we feel we need to have. We feel like, this is what should have happened—we're attached to it,” Dar said. “It's very different from alignment.”
According to Dar, alignment is going back to your core purpose, to your why, and to your values. The question is, how aligned are you?
Know that acceptance is a process.
You will come to different depths or levels of understanding of acceptance, said Dar. “It's definitely a process and sometimes a cycle. Today you're okay, tomorrow you might not be okay.”
She shared that her own experience of coming to acceptance during the pandemic has been a journey, and it only gets deeper and deeper.
You can watch Dar’s thought-provoking talk, titled "Pivot, Plan, and Persist: Showing Up and Growing Through Your Struggles," in full here. (You can start at the 25:20 mark.)