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Our distrust and fear have produced a heightened anxiety within us.

Self-acceptance increases your chances of being accepted by others.

When you accept your emotions and the reality in which you are living, you access your capacity for change.

Acceptance is worth your time, for the inner peace and social connections it enables.

“We just can’t continue like this,” a friend told me the other day. His six words succinctly encapsulate what many people around the world are feeling right now.

No matter which side of the political fence you hang your hat on, let me take a wild guess: You almost never speak to those on the other side.

In fact, political polarization is at its worst since the Civil War. “A man hears what he wants to hear,” noted Simon & Garfunkel in their classic song “The Boxer,” “and disregards the rest.” The resulting distrust and fear have produced a heightened anxiety—an emotion associated with an existential threat that’s challenging to identify while you are experiencing it—in regular citizens that’s compromising their health.

How does this happen? In high doses, the anxiety emerging within you........

© Psychology Today