Accept Your Life

There's no doubt that life can be messy at times, and even when it seems to be going well, it usually doesn't take long for things to pile up again. For most of us, it seems, we always think that once we get everything taken care of and put in place, life will be easy sailing. However, I think we all know that this rarely seems to happen. It's a constant work in progress trying to stay aligned with the life we want for ourselves.

However, never fear. We have strategies to help us deal with this, and the first one is.... ACCEPT IT! I know, easier said than done, however, accepting our current situation is the first step to changing it. Psychologist Carl Rogers says, "The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am... then I can change." We can't see what needs to change if we won't acknowledge what's wrong, and we can't acknowledge what's wrong if we can't see ourselves clearly. This goes for our lives too. Taking time to stop and take a look at our life every once in awhile is the only way to be sure we're living our own values, and staying on our path. Then, If something needs to change, we can slowly begin taking steps to turn our life into what we want it to be.

Martha Beck talks about how staying in our integrity is the best way to determine if our lives are aligned with our true path. She says that a good way to stay in integrity is to "Know what you know, feel what you feel, say what you mean, and do what you want to do." So if we're not sure what's out of alignment we should take a look at what we are not admitting we know deep down inside, not feeling what we feel (because we've buried that too), not saying what we mean (because we're probably afraid of what people will think), and not doing what we want to do (most likely because society is telling us we should be doing something else). When we can accept what's really going on, and be brave enough to change it, it gives us the power to live life on our own terms and it lets our true nature take the lead.

So once we finally give in to accepting things as they are, we can calm down, focus in the direction we want to go, realize nothing is perfect, make the changes we need to make, forge ahead, and embrace life for the beautiful mystery that it is...

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