The Art of Acceptance

Sometimes life is rough. Sometimes what shows up isn’t what you wanted. Sometimes less-than-ideal things happen.

What do you do when this is the case?

Sometimes you strive too little. Sometimes you strive too much. Sometimes you strive so hard you don’t know any more that you are striving.

What do you do when this is the case?

Sometimes your ideas of who you should be get in the way of who you are. Sometimes who you are gets in the way of who you want or need to be.

What do you do when this is the case?

The answers, with certainty, will vary. Not only instance to instance, but instant to instant. Living with deep acceptance is an ongoing practice. For most of us, there’s not some ultimate end-point to learning acceptance.

In one moment you may feel challenged by an interaction with a loved one, and the next moment you may release attachment and find yourself settling into acceptance. The next moment you may find yourself once again gnawing at the perceived emotional injury, and have to will yourself to stillness.

In stillness you will find acceptance.

Attachment, stillness, acceptance. What do these terms mean? Learning the contours of these terms is also an ongoing practice, based in body/mind/spirit awareness. As you find the stillness where the conflict within subsides, you arrive at acceptance.

According to Buddhism, attachment is suffering. Attachment is the catch in your breath that comes with fear or excitement. It’s the feeling in your gut as you remember past events, or imagine future ones.

Attachment is as present in hope as it is in fear, in desires as it is in resistance. Attachment is a state we often confuse with emotions such as love or fear.

Acceptance exists in that place where we stop grasping for long enough to realize we already have the desired thing within our reach. Or more accurately, never had nor will have it at all. Acceptance is the awareness that life is as it is.

Deep acceptance is the first step to creating conscious change. There is no wishing that will change the state you are in now, but acceptance will allow you to change that state through releasing attachment to past and future perceptions of rightness.

Deep acceptance is both a key to liberation, and the doorway it opens. With deep acceptance, you become aligned with the world as it is, and the world as it is becomes aligned with your acceptance.

BIO:

Lasara Firefox Allen, MPNLP, is an author, educator, activist, & coach. Lasara’s first book, the bestselling Sexy Witch  (Llewellyn Worldwide, 2005), was published under the name LaSara FireFox. Lasara is offering a tele-course on Deep Acceptance starting January 10, 2011.