How To Use The Power of the 4 A's: Awareness, Acceptance, Appreciation & Action

In this episode -- well, solo-sode, as I recently hear it brilliantly called -- I dive into the transformative power of what are known as "The 4 A's." These four guiding principles can shift the way you show up in your everyday life, helping you reclaim your voice, your worth, and your energy. 

We'll explore how applying these 4 A's can support you in living unapologetically, setting boundaries with confidence, accepting and making aligned choices, and stepping fully into your power. Whether you're navigating relationships, parenthood, career shifts, or simply trying to reconnect with yourself, these tools are here to help you embody your truth with clarity and courage. 

The 4 A's Include: 

Awareness 

Acceptance 

Appreciation

Aligned Action (if needed) 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 1:17

Welcome back to today's episode of Unapologetic Living. I am Elizabeth Elliott and I am your hostess. And today it is just me. So I'm grateful to have you here. I wanted to talk a little bit about something that came up this past weekend with a client. She is... a very active member in the Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon community. And if you've never been to an AA meeting or an Al-Anon meeting, whether anybody in your life is struggling with addiction or not, There is always a nugget of wisdom every time I've been to a meeting. A friend of mine suggested I go to a meeting years ago when I was talking about a relationship in my life. And although that person did not drink at all, it tends to be that some of the characteristics that one might be living with... discontent or malcontent, irritability and restlessness. Whether it's, you know, your narcissist or whether it's an addict, a substance abuser, or just someone in your life that leans towards those character traits, Al-Anon is great for. And, you know, I'm so grateful I went. This was like, I don't know, 15, 18 years ago. And, you know, this can show up in many relationships, whether it's one of your parents, whether it's your loved ones, whether it's a spouse or even your children. Relationships where Al-Anon can be beneficial are just about any relationship that you might have. So this weekend, she was talking about how she attended a... an Al-Anon meditation. And the gentleman leading the morning meditation brought up the four A's. And so, of course, I was curious. I love learning and I love digging a little bit deeper into understanding like who I am and how I operate in the world within the relationships that I participate. And the four A's are, so I asked her, what are the four A's? And she said to me, the four A's are awareness, acceptance, appreciation, and action if needed. So, I mean, these are four things that could be applied to many areas of our lives. And so I'm just going to bring it back to something that's very relatable for me, that's very simple, but you might think of something else that is bothering you or an issue that you are having or a circumstance that you are in, even a relationship. But I'm going to connect it with my experience with scoliosis and a crooked back. So the first step of that is becoming aware that I have a crooked back and I am asymmetrical. So, you know, that means my right shoulder blade juts out. I've got a little extra fat on top of my left hip. let me think, a little bit more extra fat, right? Because I can be really self-critical having struggled with body image issues around my right armpit. So there's all these things taking place. And then when I look in the mirror, especially if I'm looking at my back, things look very crooked. My back is extra bony. You can see the asymmetry very clearly, especially if I have no clothes on. And You know, all of these messages come flooding in about how I don't like the way that it looks. And that is okay. And I sit with that for a moment. But I... And which is one of the reasons I wrote my book is to learn to love myself and my body and who I am just as I am, right? And part of that begins with acceptance, acceptance for what is. And what is, is that I do have a crooked back and I don't love it. And I am accepting, right? So then we're moving into acceptance and I am accepting. Accepting the journey I am on to learn to love the body that I am in. So the first part is awareness. That's action step. I mean, that's action step. That's the first A. Then you have acceptance. So acceptance of this is my reality. And acceptance. what can I love about it, right? I accept the fact that I have a crooked back. It has given me an incredible journey and a lot of opportunity for growth, right? So that's when we're like instantly moving into appreciation. We go from awareness to acceptance to appreciation. So what has my crooked back allowed me to learn in my 47 years being here? 32 of those with scoliosis and 35 of those, no, not 32, let's see, 35-ish, 36 of those with a scoliosis diagnosis and 35 of those with a spinal fusion. So awareness of the situation, acceptance, this is what is, appreciation, so finding the gratitude for the experience or the situation, what are you learning, How are you going to, and then we kind of like merge right into the final one, action if needed. What are you going to do about it? What was I going to do about it? And I was going to stay active and do what I can to, you know, maintain my health. And then now, after the last three years, the action has grown more specific in that I am learning corrective exercises to help my spine stay strong into my older years and potentially bring my body back as much back into symmetry as possible, knowing that it never will be perfect, right? It's going to be very difficult at 47 to bring my spine completely back into alignment. So this is just one example of using and implementing and reflecting on the four A's. It could be about chronic pain. So the acceptance of chronic pain, right? Because oftentimes that does come with something like scoliosis is potentially chronic pain. You are aware of the pain spot. You know it's there and you're So you have to accept, right? If we just keep fighting it, we're just having a battle in our mind, which just brings down, I know it brings down my energy. And then I go down an entirely different rabbit hole of, you know, quit being so hard on yourself. And oh, then maybe I'll never get better. Maybe I'll never feel pain free, whatever it is. You know, when we And I want to give you permission to go down the rabbit hole, but I also want you to consider climbing back out of that rabbit hole with this acceptance piece. You know, it could be... So then, okay, so then we've got the chronic pain. We're aware of it. We've accepted, okay, I have a chronic pain in my right hip and appreciation for the pain. So what might that look like? Well, I am appreciative of this pain because it's giving me information into my body to know that something is potentially out of alignment. And in my case, with some of my chronic pain spots, my spine is actually out of alignment. It could be something else. It could be, right? Or it literally could be a hitch in your bitty up in your hip, or maybe there's a tight quadricep muscle. Who knows? I'm just throwing out examples, but you're gaining appreciation, right? So you have the awareness of the pain, the acceptance of the pain, and then you have the appreciation of the pain. It's sending my body information that something is not correct so that I can take action if needed. So what does that look like? It might be going to see a doctor or a physical therapist. It might be implementing a exercise program. It's going to vary based on, that action is going to vary based on the circumstance or situation. Let's say it's more of a character-based trait. Like, Let's just use restlessness or impatience. So, okay, I am very aware that I am impatient with, let's say, my kids. So the awareness is clear, right? Okay, I was very impatient with my kids today. I want to work on my patience. I am... Aware that I'm impatient, first A. The second one is acceptance. Okay, I am impatient and I need to accept the fact that this is the reality right now. And then you move into appreciation. And the appreciation would be, okay, I'm grateful for my impatience because it is giving me an opportunity to learn patience or to calm down or to slow down or potentially become more mindful or to Look at my diet. Maybe the foods that I'm eating are triggering more impatience or disruption in the way my brain chemistry is acting. And so then that gives me room for action. So you have awareness, acceptance, appreciation, and then action if needed. So I want you to just think about these. Maybe I invite you to reflect on these over the next, you know, several days. I loved... this because it's so applicable in almost everyone's day-to-day life, whether you are living with somebody who has a substance abuse issue or not. I, you know, I didn't grow up with an alcoholic. I did grow up with dysfunction. And, you know, dysfunction is When you when you have gone to programs or if you've gone to meetings like AA. And you read some of their literature, you know, alcoholism or the ism is a family disease. Now, I hate the word disease. But let's just break that down in to disadvantage. It's a dis-ease in the family unit. If you are diagnosed with a disease, you have dis-ease in the body, whether it's cancer or heart disease, diabetes, there is dis-ease. ease within the body. So alcoholism is a dis-ease in the family unit. It's a dis-ease in the substance abuser. There's typically a codependent. There's a dis-ease in the one living with the substance abuser. And we want to work on bringing that back to balance, but this disease affects everyone in the home and all the people around them. And so when, whether or not that's the intended goal of the human, right? It impacts the way a spouse might behave, or take care of things in the home, and then this impacts the way the children behave, and it impacts the way the parents relate to the children, et cetera. And so the first time I actually went to AA, an Al-Anon meeting, the thing I took away, the lesson that I learned was to not give unsolicited advice. Because as a people pleaser, or what I would lean towards as a codependent, it's easy for me to throw in advice without you know, being asked. I want to fix. Fix, manage, and control the thing. And what I realized was that I had learned some of this behavior because my mother had implemented some of this behavior. It's an easy place to get into realizing that you think you're helping, but sometimes in the process, everyone is getting hurt, yourself included, and then those around you. So I remember my mom would come into my home when I had little kids and we were homeschooling and we spent the bulk of our day you know, in and out of our house, taking adventures, going on field trips, playing outside. We were not gone. And then I would go to work at night so that I did have the freedom and flexibility to be home with my kids during the day and take them to story time at the library or to the zoo or various activities around town and in the community. And she would come over to the house and she would just start ranting about how she couldn't believe I could live in such filth and this, that, and the other. And to me, it wasn't filthy. You know, I just didn't, you know, we had a dog. I wasn't necessarily vacuum every day. I definitely don't get any housekeeper awards. That's for sure. Anybody can tell you that. But she would come in and make these comments and give this unsolicited advice. And after going to this Al-Anon meeting, I realized that's her stuff. That is completely her stuff. And I had to set a boundary with her. Look, you're welcome to come over here, but I don't need you. And you're not allowed to come in and critique and criticize and tell me how I need to manage my home any longer. When I look back, she was very fortunate to have at least two days worth of help almost every week when we were small. And not everybody is that fortunate. And we also went away to school during the day. My kids were home with me. And so the experience and the journey that my kids and I were living when my kids were small was very different than what her experience was. But the point being is that, you know, The messages and the nuggets of wisdom that one can gain from Al-Anon are fantastic. So if you've never checked out Al-Anon meeting, and this isn't an advertisement for Al-Anon, but if you are struggling or trying to figure out like, okay, how can I like free up my thinking and I don't want to fix, manage, control anything anymore, it's a great place to go. But really the message is on Al-Anon. awareness, acceptance, appreciation, and action if needed. And so, you know, from like even a lack of being an awesome housekeeper, right? The awareness is, okay, I'm not an awesome housekeeper. The acceptance of, okay, this is all I have time for. And this is what I'm willing to give. The appreciation of the fact that I can accept this as a way to live. Or let's see, what would the other appreciation be? Okay, the appreciation of, for the moments when my house is actually clean. And then action if needed, if it's really beginning to bother me, then what would the action step I would be to take to tidy up the home? So those are just some different ways or situations, circumstances that you could take a look through this four A's lens on how to create a better life for yourself. So I just wanna invite you to kind of reflect on that again, A part of my book is all about self-love and acceptance and appreciation and taking action. Like there are 29 steps in this book, 29 daily things. They're not profound. They are literally things I do every day. They're just built into my day and it doesn't feel like that I'm working hard to... take these little action steps of self-love. So if you haven't had a chance to check that out, definitely check it out because they are very manageable and doable. And in every page, And all those days, of course, you could keep it up, but you'd have to start your own journal. There is what is called the Daily Leap, where you have opportunities to write down various gratitudes for different areas of your life. So I call it the Daily Leap page. But I invite you again. Think about some situations or circumstances or character traits through the four A's, awareness, acceptance, appreciation, and action if needed. And then if you're still struggling and want a little bit of help, my self-love 29 days, the self-love leap is sort of journal. It could also really support that work. I hope you all have a great week and I look forward to another episode.