inhale. exhale. Accept.

How are you being asked to grow?

Photo by Francesco Gallarotti on Unsplash

​This little nugget of wisdom came by my desk today and I thought it would be great to share with you.

“Accept - then act.  Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it.  Always work with it, not against it . . .  This will miraculously transform your whole life.” - Eckhart Tolle

Accept it as if you had chosen it.

Work with it, not against it.

Brilliant.  And yet so hard, right?!

I think the path to acceptance is one of the hardest paths to navigate on this journey of life.

In order to accept something that is happening outside of us, or even something that is happening within us, we have to relinquish the desire to control it.

And it’s so hard to release that desire for control!

To say “just let it go” or “just surrender” without honouring why the desire for control exists to begin with, only leaves us feeling vulnerable, which is exactly what the desire for control is trying to protect us from.

So the mind says “just let it go” and the body says “but I don’t feel safe” as your heart rate increases and your palms sweat every time you find yourself back in whatever the situation is that is asking for acceptance.

And when the mind and body aren’t on the same page, things just don’t feel right.

If you find yourself in a position where it is difficult to accept any circumstance in your life for what it is, know you have permission to take your time to explore what is really going within yourself before coming to a place of acceptance.

You get to let acceptance happen on your own time.

There is no need to force a path of acceptance.  When we try to force anything in life, our resistance to it grows stronger; keeping us stuck in a repeating pattern that never resolves itself.

The thing to know is this - something deep down inside of you learned at some point in your life, that if you could just control yourself, or if you could just control others, then you would be safe.

So instead of asking yourself to “let go” or “surrender” that which has kept you safe up until this point in your life, because most likely whatever it is you’re honestly not ready to let go of it yet (otherwise you would have), try asking yourself this . . .

What is asking for healing?

Once you heal the core wound that is driving your desire for control, there is nothing left to let go of.  You will have created a felt sense of safety within yourself which naturally lends to a place where the desire for control just doesn’t exist anymore.

And when you feel safe, acceptance will flow naturally through you.

You will no longer suffer from feelings of guilt or shame because you “just can’t let go”.

Every time we heal a part of ourselves, we grow into more of our true nature, which only knows how to shine love, and therefore acceptance, into the world.

The path to acceptance may just be one of the most important legs on our journey of self discovery and healing.

I believe it is the gateway to receiving both grace and personal freedom in our lives.

A state where we can start to see that everything that happens in life is happening for us, in an effort to inspire our growth, rather than to us.

In this state of mind, we can take ourselves a little less seriously as life becomes an adventure of lessons learned; where you get to grow into more and more of yourself over and over again, and at the end of your life, you’ll be able to look back and see just how far you’ve come.

When a request for acceptance comes knocking at your door this week, instead of telling yourself to “just let it go”, ask yourself . . .

How am I being asked to grow?

With Love,
Kristen
XO