Acceptance – What does it mean to us? Does it mean surrendering, giving up or giving in? Why do we resist it? fear, lack of trust or understanding? The meaning we give to this word affects our ability to just let go. For what is, is just that, it just is. No story our ego can come up can change that. What we can change, is what meaning we assign to the event. We can change our attitude towards what happened. Life is what it is. We live with an unrealistic expectation that our lives should go exactly as planned. Then, when we realize we were not making conscious choices, but rather our past (beliefs, agreements, assumptions & fears) did the choosing and it influenced us as we zigged and zagged through our life.
We go from being our ego selves as youth (checking ourselves out in the gyms’ mirrors to see how great we look) to the insecurity of middle age where going grey or bald is seen as a loss to our vitality. Facelifts, hair colouring, tummy tucks,botox shots, oh the insanity! When we finally learn to let go we begin to live. Acceptance requires a sincere desire to see things as they are, not as we wished they were. This can open up a space to ask ourselves the following question – Is it my stuff? Your stuff? of God’s stuff? If it is our stuff, doing something about it. If it is others or God’s stuff, then it doesn’t require our energy. Letting go is like the young Raven who was afraid to jump off the branch but when he did, he opened his to wings to life and flew into the horizon of uncertainty chirping a song of gratitude.
So, let us open our wings to life and let go of the thoughts and fears that would endeavour to ground us.