Attitudes and Acceptance

If we put even half as much energy into accepting life as we do resisting it, something amazing would happen. A book by Susan Jeffers called Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway reveals a wonderful and deceptively simple technique. Susan suggests we "Say Yes To Our Universe." She suggests we stop resisting the flow of events, people and situations through our lives and instead let Life help us out.

Saying yes to your universe allows miracles to happen. They may not happen overnight, yet they will happen. You see, by relaxing your mental grip on what you believe to be reality, you allow spirit to flow through your life and bring to you your own good.

Until we accept people as they are, instead of how we believe they should be, we are frozen in time. We wait for an event which will never happen; we wait for people to change before we will allow them their point of view. Well, people will not change to suit us, and neither will life. In a subtle way, whatever we resist remains that way, because we have decided we need that situation in order to resist it.

We all see and hear what we want to see and hear. If, for example, you have chosen to believe the world is a negative and violent place, then the world is (for you). And human nature being what it is, you will reinforce your point of view by ignoring whatever good you come across, or rationalize it away as "coincidence."

We cannot change until we allow ourselves to change, and how can we become different if we continually put our energy into remaining as we are? Most people are afraid of change, and the bigger the change, the more scared we make ourselves. All there is to move us forward is the inner conviction and knowledge that life is essentially good.

It is impossible to accept something or someone if we have fixed opinions about the person or subject. How can you accept yourself if you are firmly convinced you are doing things wrong in your life? The answer is simple, you can't. Instead, you will criticize, judge and punish yourself. Until you accept your present position as okay at this moment, you cannot change.

At that point in the process, the "yes, but" stuff starts to flow. This phrase heralds the arrival of the judgment brigade. The way you are is the way you are. All the thinking, analyzing and dwelling in the past doesn't change the way you are one iota.

Transformation comes from accepting things as they are, as happening now in space and time. Judgment thrusts you into the black or white world of wrong and right. When you look out the window you see many colors, so putting yourself into a black and white world means living in a false one. Your mental world may seem safe and secure, with no one else's opinion to upset the apple cart; yet it is lonely and barren when it comes to feeling good about yourself.

It is okay to have opinions; indeed, it is impossible to get through life without them. The difficulty is when you color yourself and others in the light of personal prejudice, and do not allow space for others to be different from you.

Acceptance and serenity are the same thing. We are all human, and it is painful to judge and be judged. The wonderful paradox is that we must accept we judge before we can stop judging.

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