Acceptance is often thought of as what "loser" are left with. The acceptance I'm talking about is not failure, defeat, or resignation, giving up or last resort. By acceptance..I mean embracing, owning and expanding beyond one's closely held and defended personal limitations. It is a waste of time and energy to resist what is. Then why do we spend our lives in resistence? Because resistance mainatins our sense of who we are by saying "no" to everything that doesn't support our identy. Identity is mainstained by repetitious thoughts spoken by authoritarin voices telling endless stories about who we are and then judging us for not measuring up to some ill-defined standard
When we don't accept what is, when we dig in uor heels and say no to life, what are we doing? Are we simply being "right", justifying our opinions and beliefs and keeping our own little reality intact? When we catch ourselves thinking aoubt what's wrong. its' good to ask what doesn wrong mean? Wrong almost always boil down to something we personally don't like, don't approve of, don't want, or to something we fear or envy.
The problem is not the fact that I feel inherently flawed and that there's something wrong with me, thought that's what I have been thought to believe about myself. Trying and failing is not proof that I am inadequate, wrong, and doomed to failure. If life is as it is, if life doesn't conform to my expectations, if life will not be as I believe it must be, then what happens to me? I stand there hodling this perspective, positioned against life unless life meets my standards. What are the odds that life is going to be the way I say it should be all the time?
I have been conditioned to believe "I'm not good enough" most of my attention is going to be taken up gathering information that will support my belief will all be marked by "not good enough"
I'm not good enough to be loved
I'm not good enought to be rich
I'm not good enought to be that
Richard Bach said it best, " Argue for your limitation and sure enough they're yours"
My entire life will happen inside the space of "not good enough" And to maintain my identity, I will have to be vigilant to resist any information that refutes my belief that I'm not good enough.
When i accept all the ways I am--unwilling, lazy, guilt-ridden and resentful as well as willing, compasssionate and understanding---i"m no longer tying up my energy in fighting what is so, and I have alot of enery available to me. When I try to do that....i notice i was more relaxed and that life is more enjoyable...but what soon follow is fear: "something is wrong. I've stopped trying to make myself better, and I'm happier, This can't be right. This can't be right....what's
happening to me?
Conditioned belief and behavior from loops that we must step outside to see. For one person the issue is food, for me...its relationship and money to others it's body image. The belief is that if the issue were resolved all would be well. In fact the process (the loop) would simply shift to another content ( the issue). Actually, the content is so irrelevant that we could all swap and be in the exactly the same
We're all trying t ofigure out what the right people do, what the right character traits are, what the right life to live is , what the right thoughts to think and feeling to feel are, which car to drive
and there is no right answers!
ALL THAT IS REQUIRE IS THAT YOU ACCEPT ALL THAT IS UNACCEPTABLE TO YOU
You know what keeps the wheels turning in the loops....DISSATISFACTION
Dissatifaction is at the root of our addiction. Most of us, unless we have no spark of energy left in our bodies, are addicted to having something going on around us all the time to distract us from being quietly with ourselves. For most of us more of life works than doesn't work. People we love get sick and die, we lose a job, or become ill, but most of the time we're not having those experience. Most of us have enough to eat, a place to live, and medical care when we need it, Our suffering is not so much from the circumstance of our lives as from being dissatisfiied with our lives. I call these the ya....but...
-Ya i have a job....but i hate it
-Ya i make decent living, but everything is expensive
-Ya i have a wonderful, challenging job, but I' m too tired at the end of the day
Dissatifaction is the glue that holds the ego together. When I'm dissatisfied, I'm ME. I don't like that, I don't want that, there's something wrong with them, there's something wrong with me, this is not acceptable, I can't stand that, I wish I had more.....
Dissatifaction is the cause of suffering...we can most easily eliminate by accepting.
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