acceptance

Acceptance may be the most powerful teaching I have received.  Before embracing acceptance in my life I spent a great deal of time to having the experience of being stuck in regret, fear and self imposed guilt for the choices I was making and judging them as wrong or bad. When I wasn’t emotionally beating myself up I was usually engaging in behaviors that eventually would lead me back to experiencing regret and guilt.  I didn’t seem to get it that I was actually creating this pain to pleasure/pleasure to pain merry go round . I started to become aware through a series of events in relationship that something had to change.  This thought eventually led me to my teacher who suggested to me for the first time that I was responsible for the life I was living and that I had the power within me to change it.  I felt scared and angry and I was excited.  I realized that I was more afraid of continuing down the path I was on than I was of changing directions.  I led an audacious life, made some bold moves like taking a one way (first time ever on a plane)  flight to Europe the day after graduating high school, I had married and divorced twice and raised a daughter alone. I was tough, a survivor, and I had no idea the kind of strength I would acquire by learning to accept all my choices, accept right where I was and accept responsibility for the choices I was to make.  I protected with white knuckles ‘my story’  which included so many of my experiences as a child and teenager.  Acceptance was a hard concept for me.  I had no idea the empowerment it would offer.  In fact I thought for sure that by choosing to accept something, anything, that I would be a door mat, and lose any power I thought I had attained; one of the many illusions I was holding onto. Through focused attention, self inquiry, discipline and will I learned that acceptance is a pathway to peace.