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Posts tagged with “accept”

How I Went from Approval Seeking to Authentic Living

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“My life transformed when I stopped caring what people in the stands thought.” ~Brené Brown

One afternoon, I had coffee with a friend who told me that she and her family all have a garden campfire every Friday night and toast marshmallows. It sounded so rustically idyllic compared to our normal frozen pizza and movie tradition that I asked my husband if we could do the same that evening.

He sat down to pick up the remote control and casually replied that he was too tired to build a fire, then thought nothing more of it. But I felt devastated …

Being Grateful for the Peaceful Coexistence of Joy and Pain

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“It’s a gift to exist, and with existence comes suffering. There’s no escaping that, but if you are grateful for your life, then you must be grateful for all of it.” ~Stephen Colbert

Life is not a war; you do not conquer it, nor do you overcome it. You simply accept that suffering is an inevitable and necessary rite of passage on our paths throughout life.

No one is immune to pain; it is only dished out at different levels, and our own internal experience is incomparable. We share similar human experiences—that is the tie that binds us all together—but …

How I’ve Learned to Love My Inner Weirdo

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“I want to think again of dangerous and noble things. I want to be light and frolicsome. I want to be improbable, beautiful and afraid of nothing, as though I had wings.” ~Mary Oliver

 I was a beautiful, wild, and exhilarating kid. I marched to the beat of my unicorn drum and, to the confusion of adults, I did not fit into the typical boxes they had been anticipating.

This little kid was ready to thrive!

The freedom did not last long. My zest for life and unicorn drum beat quickly symbolized my weirdness. Adults tilted their heads in perplexity …

How I Reframed Letting Go So I Could Move on from My Painful Past

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We are truly free when we let go of the thought that the past could or should have been any different than it was. This is so hard.

The challenge is born from our desperate need to validate our feelings and experiences. It often feels like we are invalidating ourselves if we let go of the thought that the past should have been different. We have been through hell, experienced things most people don’t know about, and it initially feels so devastating to think of just letting it go like it never happened. Where is the justice in that?

I …

Surrendering Isn’t Giving Up: Why We Need to Accept What’s Happened

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“The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance.” ~Nathaniel Branden

I remember the last time I saw him before my world crumbled. I held up my hand with the ASL sign for “I love you” through the window to him, as he mouthed the words back and got in his car to leave for work. I found out an hour later that he—my fiancé—had begun cheating on me a month before he had proposed.

He never fought for me. Even during the course of our relationship, when he would run away due to his own insecurities, …

Why Judging People Is Really About You (Not Them)

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“It’s easy to judge. It’s more difficult to understand. Understanding requires compassion, patience, and a willingness to believe that good hearts sometimes choose poor methods. Through judging, we separate. Through understanding, we grow.” ~Doe Zantamata

“Why doesn’t he say something?”

I was sitting at the dinner table with my partner and friends. Everyone was interacting and talking to each other, except my partner. He was just sitting there quietly. I had to admit, this situation made me very uncomfortable.

Why was he so quiet? We had been dating for over six months and normally, when it was just …

Dear Parent of an Estranged Adult: What Might Repair Your Relationship

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Dear estranged parent,

I know it’s not easy to feel cut off from your child when you still feel love and maybe even remorse. I know you might feel confused about why your adult child is so upset, and you might even feel angry and wrongly accused.
Perhaps there’s some truth to that. I don’t know why your child cut ties with you, but I can share a little of my own experience and then offer some tips that might help, regardless of your unique situation.

So why did your son or daughter cut you out of their life?

I …

How to Deal With Low Moods: A 4-Step Plan to Help You Feel Better

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“And some days life is just hard. And some days are just rough. And some days you just gotta cry before you move forward. And all of that is okay.” ~Unknown

I have always struggled with low moods. I guess that considering that I spent close to twenty years of my life inactive and depressed, this could be seen as progress. But that still didn’t feel good enough.

I wanted to feel more balanced, light, and happy, and I wanted to achieve it in natural ways without having to take any kind of medication since that hadn’t worked for …

5 Things to Do When You’re Tired of Pretending to Be Happy

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“Happiness is like being cool, the harder you try, the less it is going to happen. So stop trying. Start living.” ~Mark Manson

I am a lucky person. In this crazy pandemic, my entire family and I have made it through in one piece. My husband has been out of work for half of a year and my son’s school has been closed. But I still have a job that can support my family.

I am grateful.

Every day after dealing with crazy deadlines and pressure at work, I go home and see my son’s sweet, cute face.

I am …

It’s Okay to Feel Scared: How to Stand Up to Fear by Standing Down

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“It’s okay to be scared. Being scared means you’re about to do something really, really brave.” ~Mandy Hale

When it comes to plane travel, I frequently quip: “I’m not a nervous flier, but my bladder is.”

In a way, this is true. Aside from brief freak-out moments when there’s a patch of turbulence or when a flash from my catalog of gruesome “what-if” scenarios forces its way into my mind’s eye, I remain blissfully disconnected from my fear. Meanwhile, my bladder takes the brunt of it, with hourly pit-stops to the lavatory alongside a persistent, dull ache.

While this is …

How I Healed My Body and My Life by Embracing My Sensitivity

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“I used to dislike being sensitive. I thought it made me weak. But take away that single trait, and you take away the very essence of who I am.” ~Caitlin Japa

“You’re making people uncomfortable,” my mother would say. “Stop being so sensitive,” she would then quip.

I have always been sensitive for as long as I can remember. Now I understand there’s a name for it: highly sensitive person (HSP).

The scientific term is sensory processing sensitivity (SPS). As it turns out, 15-20% of the population has this trait.

As a highly sensitive person, my nervous system filters less …

A Life-Changing Insight: You Are Not a Problem to Be Fixed

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“I decided that the single most subversive, revolutionary thing I could do was to show up for my life and not be ashamed.” ~Anne Lamott

I remember one particular clear, cold winter morning as I returned home from a walk. I suddenly realized that I had missed the whole experience.

The blue, clear sky.

The lake opening up before me.

The whisper of the trees that I love so much.

I was there in body but not embodied. I was totally, completely wrapped up in the thoughts running rampant in my mind. The worries about others, work, the future; about …

Why I Now Love That I’m Different After Hating It for Years

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“Only recently have I realized that being different is not something you want to hide or squelch or suppress.” ~Amy Gerstler

I grew up during the traditional times of the sixties and seventies. Dad went out to work and earned the family income, while Mom worked at home raising their children. We were a family of seven. My brother was the first-born and he was followed by four sisters. I was the middle child.

I did not quite know where I belonged. I oscillated between my older two and younger two siblings, feeling like the third wheel no matter where …

The Joy of Not Getting What We Want

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“Remember that not getting what you want Is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.” ~Dalai Lama

Let me tell you a story. I first read it in a book on Taoism, but I’ve seen it in at least a dozen other places since then, each with its own variation. Here’s the gist:

There’s this farmer. His favorite horse runs away. Everyone tells him that this is a terrible turn of events and that they are sorry for him. He says, “We’ll see.”

The horse comes back a few days later, and it brings an entire herd of wild horses with …

How to Open Your Eyes and Make the Most of Life

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“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” ~Marcel Proust

I was asleep for the first thirty-two years of my life. I was jolted awake when my daughter was born unable to sustain her own breath.

I sat beside her in the NICU helplessly every day for three months, unable to hold or feed her due to her fragility. I watched as she endured two surgeries before six weeks of age.

She was diagnosed with a rare muscular disease that required significant medical intervention and around-the-clock nursing care. In those first few …

What to Do If You Can’t Forgive

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“Your heart knows the way. Run in that direction.” ~Rumi

“I know I should forgive but I can’t.” I squirmed in my seat as I said this to my teacher.

I said this immediately after I explained all that I’d experienced during our meditation exercise.  In the meditation I’d had a vivid recollection of the constant verbal and emotional abuse I’d received from my dad.

It had been ten years since I’d lived at home, but I was still angry, still carrying all of those emotions from years ago. Instead of telling me all the virtues of why it’s important …

How to Keep the Love Flowing in Your Relationship

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“The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.”~Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island.

Have you ever noticed how with certain couples love and affection flow so naturally? Indeed, almost effortlessly. There is a good reason for this. These couples have learned to accept one another as they are, which leads to greater intimacy and a more vibrant love flow.

When we don’t accept our loved one for who and how they are—quirks, …

Why This Will Be the Year I Stop Running from Pain

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“One has to accept pain as a condition of existence.” ~Morris West

This may seem sounds counter-intuitive, but this year I want to let go of trying to avoid suffering.

It doesn’t mean that I am a masochist and plan to spend the next year being miserable. It’s more a question of learning to accept life as it is—uncertain, full of surprises, and with its full quota of difficult circumstances.

Our Wish for Happiness

The thing is that we all want to be happy. There’s nothing wrong with that, but if we fear not being happy, then we …

Acceptance Is Not Passive; It’s the Path to Peace

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“The price of our vitality is the sum of all of our fears.” ~David Whyte

Acceptance by its very nature is imperfect; it’s messy and often unpleasant, while ultimately leading to a place of growth, a sense of freedom, and a life familiar with ease. I know this because I have had a lot of painful acceptance in my life, and it has been crucial to helping me move beyond the stuckness of fear and suffering.

Years ago, being the natural striving, fun-seeking, achievement-oriented person I was, I ignored the fact that my body felt like a truck had run …

You Can Have a Tender Heart and Still Be Fierce

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“Life is a balance between what we can control and what we cannot. I am learning to live between effort and surrender.” ~Danielle Orner

For too long, I felt myself pulled between two shores of my identity. On one side was my yoga teacher, meditator, healer identity—my tender side. On the other side was my activist, change-maker role—my fierce side.

I always felt like I was too tender for some and too fierce for others. It made me feel like I didn’t fit in anywhere.

Definitely the soft-hearted “woo” person in my activist circles. And I was definitely the …