Practice Acceptance

I am reading “The Blue Machine” about how the ocean works by Helen Czerski, and I had this realization. We really know very little, even practically nothing about the planet we live on. We know even less about being human. If you really examine your life, you will find that what you know, and I mean really know, you learned by discovery. My friend Mako offered this nugget. “People are not a fixed quantity. Something can be tangential and incidental one day, and HOT AS HECK the next. Sexuality is mercurial.” To illustrate the point, consider the word “rain”, the word offers you a glimpse. On the other hand, if you were to be standing in the rain, you would experience the sound of the rain, the feeling of rain on your face, and the visual image of the rain falling. That experience offers a more realistic knowing of “rain” than the word “rain” could ever do.

There is a Taoist principle along these lines:

That seems dichotomous, to say both, “We know very little” and also to say, “Knowing makes no difference.” But, if you notice, I am referring to the personal state of knowing, in reality, like standing in the rain to experience rain, the secret to life is discovery. Remember, “those who know don’t talk and those who talk don’t know.” Nobody can tell you what rain feels like, you have to stand there in the rain to experience it.

As a Taoist, I practice acceptance. Which is my way of “getting with the Tao.” Practicing acceptance is akin to quieting that inner voice. We exist as creatures trained by evolution across thousands of years to survive. Our current lifestyles actually offers very little risk. After all, you can buy a burger at Micky D’s for $1. For the most part in western society, we face very few circumstance where our survival is truly at stake. Even so, our inner voice which is oriented toward survival is always judging and assessing each and every input, social situation, and interaction. We easily form opinions about everything, and we operate as if our opinions are “the truth.” When I say, “I practice acceptance,” what I am really saying is that I choose to give up my opinions.

The hardest realiation to make is that because of our inner voice judging and assessing, what that leads to, which is all we are doing is building a context of scarcity in our lives. When you are ready to practice acceptance, by giving up your opinions, you will discover that you actually have access to and live in abundance.

When Petra and I began our journey, this was a big ask. She had come out of a tough situation being married to a malignant narcissist, during which time her survival was truly at stake. In order to survive, she naturally adopted a defensive crouch. Over time, as she has relaxed into her freedom, her self-expression expanded and she watched and experienced her personal power growing. All of which allowed her to accept that she does indeed live in a world of abundance. She has an abundance of love, of appreciation, of admiration, of acknowledgement and so on. She is happy, even wondering around in the morning while doing her chores, singing.

Acceptance is your access to abundance.

Something to think about in the context of relationship is, “All boundaries are held in common.” At the same time, you can really set out to diminish or erase those boundaries and discover what it would be like to have no boundaries between you by practicing acceptance and finding abundance in your relationship.