Forging Resilience

59 Aaron Hill: What We Resist, Persists, Until Acceptance

• Aaron Hill • Season 2 • Episode 59

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Have you ever noticed how resistance to uncomfortable feelings can keep you stuck in patterns that no longer serve you? 

Prompted by feedback from mentors and colleagues, I explore the transformative power of acceptance - not as passive resignation, but as an active choice to create space for honest self-awareness. 

Through the lens of my own public speaking journey, which started with a splash when in childhood I experienced wetting myself on stage at nine years old, I reveal how avoiding our discomfort often prevents growth more effectively than any external obstacle.

The real transformation comes through a simple but powerful framework: awareness forms the foundation, acceptance builds the middle, and action completes the pyramid. Most of us instinctively jump from awareness straight to action, missing the crucial acceptance step that allows for grounded, intentional response rather than reactivity. This missing piece explains why we often find ourselves stuck in loops of frustration, anger, and avoidance.

Whether you're facing challenges in your career, relationships, or personal growth, this episode offers practical questions to develop greater acceptance: "What's happening for me right now?", "What aspects are within my control?", and "What small, aligned step can I take forward?" Join me in exploring how accepting our reality - without necessarily liking it - creates the foundation for meaningful change and authentic leadership.

Ready to transform your relationship with discomfort? 

Listen now, and if this resonates with your experience, I'd love to connect and continue the conversation.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to Fortune Resilience. Exploring for a different perspective on strength and leadership. Join me as we discuss experiences and stories with guests to help gain fresh insights around challenge, success and leadership. Welcome to a new edition on the Fortune Resilience podcast. Recently, I've been given some feedback by some friends, by some mentors and by some colleagues about how, potentially, there's a missing part to this podcast, and it's my voice, my story. Initially, I completely dismissed this. I didn't accept that this podcast was an opportunity for other people, not for me. However, after I sit and reflected with it, my gut instinct tells me that they're right, and the fact that I feel resistance and fear or potential judgment means it's definitely something that I can step into. So, interdispersed with the interviews that I normally do, I'm releasing these short monologues on different themes that have impacted myself, my clients, all that come up through everyday life or indeed through coaching. So this first official monologue is going to be around acceptance.

Speaker 1:

Acceptance is a really interesting subject For me. The great example, the one most clear in my mind right at this moment, is exactly this speaking to you on my own, in a normal podcast, there's somebody to bounce ideas off. All I have to do is be present and curious, and it's about them, not me. On the other hand, here there's nowhere to hide. It's my voice, for a few minutes, talking about my story or what's relevant, and that feels new and edgy. Acceptance of how I feel is the first stage in taking me closer towards the outcome that I want, in this case to be able to record that podcast. If I can't accept how I feel, I will really quickly be able to dismiss the advice from these experienced friends, colleagues and coaches. I'll be able to find excuses not to start. I can procrastinate. There's a million and one different things. So acceptance has been key for me again just nudging the comfort well levels up in terms of what I am seeking and trying to achieve with this podcast and on my own journey.

Speaker 1:

So what is acceptance then? Acceptance isn't passive, it's. It's being able to create the space and awareness to really recognise, or start to recognise, what is going on within ourselves. Acceptance doesn't necessarily have to mean that we like what is going on or the situation in front of us. We like what is going on or the situation in front of us. It's not forgetting, but respecting what is going on for us and taking aligned, grounded steps rather than potentially just avoiding something that our brain anticipates is dangerous because of the fear or the judgment that we have associated with it.

Speaker 1:

A really powerful example from my own life is public speaking. For a long time it's something that I completely avoided. I've mentioned briefly on other episodes that as a youngster, as nine years old, in a school hall with the whole school behind me, stood on stage with the floodlight coming down onto the stage, onto me, with all the school parents sat in front of me, I wet myself. I was nine years age, by the way, not 16. The point is, for a long time I couldn't accept what I felt around public speaking, so I completely avoided it. I used to really quickly clam up and I can even sometimes, when I tell that story, feel that tension in my throat as my body starts to relive that experience. So I quite quickly recognised that public speaking is something I wanted to do. But I had this thing to deal with, this thing to learn about. Until I could accept what had happened and what I felt as that young nine-year-old, then I was never going to be able to move beyond that or learn from it. I was only going to be able to act in response to it.

Speaker 1:

After lots of coaching, lots of soul searching around lots of different things, I found myself able to stand up straighter and walk gently towards these challenges, to be able to accept them for what they were and process the emotions that were behind them. The reality is, I didn't really want to feel the humiliation of what I assumed came from that moment or the embarrassment of that nine-year-old boy. But once I allowed it, once I accepted and processed it, I could learn to move on. It doesn't mean that I don't get nervous when I speak in public. I'm now part of a public speaking group called Toastmasters, here, just outside of Barcelona, every single week I get up and I speak in some way, shape or form, even if it's just for 30 seconds. Those emotions are very, very real, as my brain reminds me. I have evidence to keep me away from public speaking, but I can accept that. It's just a protection mechanism. There's no danger. I'm reminded that I go to the toilet before I speak and I can continue to practice this art of public speaking.

Speaker 1:

So if we imagine a pyramid, at the base of the pyramid is awareness. We can't accept what we're not aware of, and that comes from creating space, reflecting and being asked questions. Acceptance is really just the starting point. It's about naming our reality without judgment, without trying to fix anything. It's just saying this is what happened or this is how I feel or this is what I did, and it's a connection to the emotional intelligence or logic before we take action. Rather than reacting, we're able to respond. It helps us waste less energy or, in my case, put off years of avoiding public speaking when really it's something that I wanted to do. I wanted to be able to share my story or talk about, talk about my work. So acceptance is the foundation. Awareness is the foundation.

Speaker 1:

Then we move into acceptance and, like I said, we don't have to like it. It's not forgetting or denying what was going on for us or what physically happened, but it's learning to take that and separate ourselves from that. It's a response that's going on within us in lots of different situations, be that after an argument with our boss or partner, be that through feeling stuck at work or in our relationship, or after an emotional response in terms of fear or anger. Acceptance allows us to step into ownership and say this is mine and within my control and this is not, and we can ask ourselves what our part, what part we play in this, we can get to gently see the stories that we're telling ourselves, that are shaping our response. It's honesty a lot of the time. And then from acceptance if that was the middle part of the triangle, awareness being the base, acceptance being the middle, and then action at the top.

Speaker 1:

Action is taking grounded or intentional steps, and the smallest ones at that, to start ourselves off.

Speaker 1:

So many of us go straight to action, which can be a sense of avoidance, avoidance of what we're feeling, avoidance of the conversation, basically avoidance of discomfort, as, once again, our brain predicts that that might be dangerous, when the reality in modern day life, 99% of the time, that's not the case.

Speaker 1:

So if you find yourself stuck, if you find yourself in that loop of frustration and anger, potentially there's something there may be, there's something that you can learn to accept in a different way. So if that is, you, then remember this basic framework of awareness at the bottom and acceptance and then action. And a great way to help develop that is asking questions along the lines of what's going on for me right now, what am I experiencing, what am I feeling? And then to move into acceptance what is within my control. Can I influence this? Before moving on to action, what's the smallest aligned step I might take? So if any of that's resonated with you, if anything has landed there, then please let me know, and if you want help or support, then get in touch and let's start a conversation. Thanks for listening and thanks for being you.