level must have dropped. When it flopped back in, the level rose. “Thank you, crocodile,” called out
the little bird as it turned back toward the jar.
Arriving at the jar, the bird picked up a pebble and dropped it in. The water level rose a little,
just like when the crocodile had fallen back in the pond. The bird found another pebble and dropped
that in, too. Gradually it kept adding pebble by pebble into the glass jar, and gradually the water level
rose. As each pebble was patiently added the water got closer and closer to the bird’s beak; it wasn’t
long before its patient efforts were rewarded. The water had risen high enough for the bird to drink
its fill... and fly on, happily.
STORY 76
ACCEPTANCETherapeutic Characteristics
Problems Addressed
■ Lack of self-acceptance
■ Unhappiness
■ Wanting to change what cannot be changed
■ Inappropriate role models
■ Unattainable goalsResources Developed
■ Learning from experience
■ Seeking what might be helpful
■ Learning to dispense with what does not work
■ Setting achievable goals
■ Learning what can be changed and what cannot
■ Changing what can be changed
■ Accepting your strengthsOutcomes Offered
■ Self-acceptance
■ Ability to modify attitudes
■ Enjoyment of your attributes
■ Happiness
Once there was a very short man—so short, in fact, that he had often been an actor, playing one
of the dwarfs in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The problem wasn’t that he was small but that
he was unhappy about being small. Sometimes, some people don’t like to feel different from others.
He began to think about what he might do to become tall. Maybe he needed to do what some-
one tall did, so he went to the zoo to ask Mrs. Ostrich, the tallest bird in the world, “What do you
do to be tall?”
182 Healing Stories, Teaching Stories