Accepting Your Unhappiness to Be Happy | Eckhart Tolle
What this covers
It can be hard to accept your unhappiness (or, as the Buddha calls it, suffering) and not resist the present moment. Fortunately, when you accept this moment as it is, unhappiness does not last long in you. In this video, Eckhart discusses the importance of inner awareness and acceptance of the now, and goes on to explain how 95% of human suffering could be eliminated by simply allowing our current experience to be as it is.
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Eckhart Tolle is widely recognized as one of the most inspiring and visionary spiritual teachers in the world today. With his international bestsellers, _The Power of Now_ and _A New Earth_ —translated into more than 50 languages—he has introduced millions to the joy and freedom of living life in the present moment. The New York Times has described him as “the most popular spiritual author in the United States,” and in 2011, Watkins Review (now Watkins Mind Body Spirit) named him “the most spiritually influential person in the world.”
Eckhart’s profound yet simple teachings have helped countless people around the globe experience a state of vibrantly alive inner peace in their daily lives. His teachings focus on the significance and power of Presence, the awakened state of consciousness, which transcends ego and discursive thinking. Eckhart sees this awakening as the essential next step in human evolution.
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Tolle argues that suffering arises primarily from internal resistance to present experience, and that cultivating acceptance and awareness of one's inner state through presence—rather than identification with thought narratives—dissolves unhappiness and enables awakening.
- Accepting the present moment as it is removes approximately 95% of suffering from life
- Unhappiness cannot coexist with genuine acceptance; it dissolves when fully acknowledged rather than resisted
- Identification with recurring thought narratives and emotional reactions prevents awareness of suffering, trapping people in unconscious patterns; disidentification through presence enables freedom
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External events and people are not the primary factor determining how you experience life; your response to them—which depends on your inner state—is the primary factor, making inner state your primary responsibility.
“so whatever it is your primary responsibility is to be aware of what goes on inside you and that means whatever arises in your life is actually to be used in your practice so that you do not become dependent on what's going on externally in your life”
The body cannot distinguish between what is actually happening externally and what is happening in the mind; it treats thoughts and narratives as absolute reality and generates emotions accordingly.
“the body thinks the narrative in your mind is reality that is the reality that you're experiencing”
The primary factor in any situation is your inner state, because your inner state determines how you respond to external events and circumstances.
“realize that the primary factor in any situation is your inner state”
Allowing your experience of this moment to be the way it is—ceasing internal resistance to present reality—would remove approximately 95 percent of suffering from your life.
“allowing your experience of this moment to be the way it is just this little thing would remove well it's hard to put it in percentage terms let's say 95 percent of the suffering from your life”
Acceptance of unhappiness presupposes an awareness—a dimension of consciousness distinct from thought—that can observe and witness the unhappiness without being identified with it.
“the acceptance of unhappiness it presupposes that there's an awareness there that knows that you're unhappy”
The practice for the next six months and beyond is to be aware of your inner states in all situations—whether little challenges, big challenges, difficult people, or problems—so that your inner state is no longer completely determined by external events and you develop freedom.
“for the next six months and hopefully beyond because it's a much more pleasant way to live uh you make it your practice to be aware of your inner states and meaning no matter what situation arises in your life whether it's little things big things difficult situations difficult people challenges problems because the next six months are not going to be free of challenges and problems so whatever it is realize that the primary factor in any situation is your inner state”
Most unhappy people are deeply identified with their unhappiness through a combination of recurring thought narratives and emotional patterns, making them unable to recognize unhappiness as a separate phenomenon they can observe.
“the really unhappy people are so identified with the unhappiness which is a combination of certain recurring thoughts in your head a certain narrative that is not pleasant”
The most unhappy people are not necessarily those with the objectively worst circumstances, but rather those who have become completely identified with unhappiness as their core identity.
“it's not necessarily the people who you'd think would have the most powerful reasons for being unhappy it's often those who you would think well they there are many millions you have it worse than they but these are more happy than those”
People in deep unconscious suffering often have an unconscious resistance to transformation and healing because they are afraid of losing their identity, even though this identity is based on unhappiness.
“there's a huge resistance very often because the person is afraid of losing a very important piece of their identity and sometimes it's the most important part of their identity if they have lived with an unhappy sense of self for years and perhaps even decades they don't want to let go”
The moment you recognize and become aware of your inner state (unhappiness, suffering), a deeper dimension of consciousness has emerged—called awareness, presence, or unconditioned consciousness—which is distinct from conditioned thinking.
“the moment you know you recognize your inner state that means there is an awareness which is a there is another dimension of consciousness that has emerged in you through you a deeper dimension of consciousness that is not the conditioned thinking that's what we can call it awareness we can call it presence you can call it the unconditioned consciousness”
Awakening is characterized by disidentification from the movement of thought and fluctuating emotions, maintained through awareness that allows but does not repress emotional experience.
“that's awakening so there's a disidentification from the movement of thought and the fluctuating emotions yesterdays are stepping back you're not repressing anything you're allowing it but you can only allow it because there's an awareness”
There are two dimensions of the 'I': the surface 'I' which is the conditioned person/ego, and the deep 'I' which is the deeper dimension of consciousness or awareness that witnesses the surface self.
“i sometimes call the deep eye as opposed to the surface i the certain i meaning i not this eye because but that eye is interesting too it's an analogy for consciousness the eye of awareness but now i'm talking about the pronoun i first the there's the surface i which is the conditioned person the entity that you are for a while and there is the deep eye which is the consciousness”
The ego prefers other beings to be as 'other' as possible—maximally separate and different—because this serves the ego's identification with a separate, bounded self.
“and always we have to be very careful with the others and the ego actually likes the others to be as other as possible”
When the ripple stops thinking about its ripple existence and thinking subsides, something else remains: a presence with no form, something very deep.
“the moment it stops thinking about its ripple existence and that there's a thinking subsides and something else remains something else that is very deep has no form it's just a presence if we can't even call it anything a presence”
When you completely accept unhappiness rather than resist it, the unhappiness cannot survive very long because acceptance and unhappiness cannot coexist.
“see you accept the unhappiness and the weird thing with unhappiness is when you completely accept the unhappiness it cannot survive very long it doesn't like it cannot actually coexist with acceptance”
Once awareness of unhappiness emerges, you stop feeding unhappiness with thought narratives, breaking the vicious cycle where narrative creates unhappiness and unhappiness creates more thought.
“the moment you become aware of suffering on happiness in you you're no longer feeding it with your thoughts as long as you're not aware you're feeding it there's this vicious circle you're feeding it with your thoughts with your narrative and you're trapped in that so for the next six months and hopefully beyond because it's a much more pleasant way to live uh you make it your practice to be aware of your inner states”
If you cannot be grateful for your experience, at minimum allow it to be as it is without internal resistance, since the reality of the moment already is regardless of your acceptance of it.
“and if you cannot be grateful at least allow it to be because it already is you might as well now”
The unawakened state is characterized by lack of awareness and lack of presence; it is a state in which humans remain trapped in unconscious patterns without knowing that they are trapped.
“lack of awareness lack of presence that is the unawakened state that still unfortunately millions of humans are trapped in”
An analogy for the relationship between the surface self and deeper consciousness is the ocean and its surface waves: the ripple is the surface identity, the ocean is the deeper consciousness; awakening is when the ripple recognizes its identity with the ocean.
“my usual analogy which probably you've heard me say mentioned quite a few times the ocean the surface of the ocean the way for the ripple is the surface eye and the ocean the depth of the ocean is the deep eye”
An unawakened human identifies entirely with their ripple existence on the horizontal dimension of the surface, viewing all other beings as separate 'others' rather than recognizing deeper unity.
“an awakening human is a ripple on the surface of the ocean that until recently had been completely identified with its ripple existence on the horizontal dimension of the surface of the ocean looking at every other ripple as another other another another ripple not me it's another”
The practice of being grateful for your present experience, even difficult experience, is itself a form of acceptance that removes resistance to what is happening.
“now all of you here luckily have escaped the polar vortex especially if you're from places like chicago you'll be very grateful to be here however if you are in chicago or similar places be grateful that you're experiencing a one one in a lifetime weather phenomenon but don't forget to dress up warm enough when you go out be grateful for whatever you experience of this moment”
Acceptance of unhappiness does not mean indulging in unhappiness; it means maintaining awareness that you are unhappy while not resisting the unhappiness.
“not indulging in unhappiness but the acceptance of unhappiness”
Unhappiness narratives typically take one of several forms: narratives about one's own life being dreadful or failed, narratives about others' wrongdoing, or narratives about feared future events or distant past events; all share the pattern of recurring thoughts generating corresponding emotional frequencies.
“whether it is about my life whether the narrative says my life or dreadful thing my life why did it all go so wrong...or whether the narrative is about somebody else...or whether the narrative may be about something that hasn't happened yet and it goes on and on or something that happened in the distant past”
The moment you realize you have forgotten to accept your present experience, that realization itself is the return of acceptance; you then accept the unhappiness that arose from forgetting acceptance.
“now of course many times possibly you'll forget that and that's fine the moment you realize that you forgot it it's there again and then you can accept the experience of this moment as the unhappiness that is arising in you because you forgot to accept your experience of this moment”