The Power of Acceptance: Finding Emotional Freedom Right Where You Are

The vast majority of stress comes from your inability to accept your present experience as it is.

Unless you’re in immediate danger, when you’re feeling stressed it’s because you’re focusing your attention on something that is not your Truth.

You create a rift inside yourself every time you wish you were somewhere else, doing something else, experiencing something other than what you’re experiencing right now.

Reality and imagination pull you in two different directions.

You are here, but your mind is there.

Your body is here, but your energy is there.

And it’s stressful because when you imagine that something else, somewhere else is better, you’re rejecting what is already yours, right here, right now.

The irony of this is that you are looking “there” because you imagine that you’ll feel better when you get to a place that is other than where you currently find yourself.

You imagine that you’ll feel complete, secure, happy when you get there.

That some place other than where you are is where you’ll find wholeness, where you’ll finally be at peace.

But wholeness is here, and only here.

Peace is found in this moment, and this moment alone.

Right where you are.

In this experience.

Because wholeness can only be found in accepting the Whole of what Is.

By definition, it cannot be found by splitting apart.

And the Truth of who you are is found in accepting the Whole of who you are, and the Whole of your experience.

This is why you feel stressed when your mind is somewhere other than where you are.

Because there cannot be anything other than what is right now.

This moment contains everything there is.

The past and future are literally figments of the imagination, and can only be accessed from the present moment.

Read that again.

Let it sink in.

The only past or future that exist right now are the ones you imagine.

And meanwhile, it’s also true that the present moment is in constant flux.

But the mind (a.k.a. Ego) fears this Truth.

Because it fears that life will change in ways it judges to be unfavorable.

Meanwhile it clings to what it likes, what it imagines to be favorable, hoping that just those things will stay put forever.

But neither the rejection of the present nor clinging to it allow for life to be what it is.

And therefore neither rejection nor clinging can bring you emotional freedom.

It’s the attempt to control reality, to change it, that goes against its very nature.

And that’s why it hurts when you don’t accept what is.

There is a saying in Chinese medicine: “Where there is pain, there is no movement. Where there is movement, there is no pain.”

It’s only when you align yourself with life’s movement that suffering subsides.

And nowhere is this more true than in the emotional realm.

Emotional freedom is found not in clinging to emotions that you want and rejecting the ones that are more uncomfortable.

Emotional freedom is only found in accepting every emotion that wants to flow through you.

Because emotions are meant to flow, and they are meant to be felt.

They are called feelings for a reason.

But very often we’re so afraid of feeling what we’re feeling that we cause ourselves the exact pain we’re trying to avoid.

Emotions are just energetic experiences, flowing through our bodies.

They are Life’s Energy moving through us.

Take the mind out of the equation and emotions are just sensations.

Not good or bad.

It is mind that judges emotions.

And it is the mind that clings or rejects them.

The mind imagines that it emotional freedom is found in controlling emotions.

But when you learn to surrender to what is, you learn that exactly the opposite is true.

The mind’s clinging and rejection in an attempt to control are what cause pain, because they are both trying to put a stop to the natural flow that wants to move through you.

So what would happen, if you allowed yourself to embrace everything that is this moment?

Really.

Right now, try it.

Here, as you’re reading this.

What if you accept fully whatever it is that you are experiencing?

What if you allow yourself to feel fed-up when you feel fed-up, and let yourself feel that fed-upness flow through your body?

What if you surrender to fatigue when you feel fatigue?

What if you sit with anger instead of projecting that energy outside of yourself?

What if you let yourself be with the discomfort of it, and experience the sensation of it in your body?

What if you shine a light on your biggest fears and let yourself explore the darkest caves within you?

What if you invited all of the experiences in?

Without conversation.

Without trying to figure anything out.

Without trying to change anything?

Just pure, open-hearted acceptance.

One of the biggest fears we have is that if we invite these feelings in that they will get comfortable and move in and stay with us forever.

They might even invite more uncomfortable emotions to camp out in the living room of your psyche.

And you know what?

The truth is that they might feel stronger for a little while.

Because when you’ve built a dam inside of yourself to stop the flow of emotions for a long time, the river of emotion can feel like a tsunami when you finally let that dam break.

And allowing the presence of these emotions to be fully felt can be overwhelming at first.

Which is why it’s so helpful to have someone with you.

Someone who’s survived their own emotional transformations and can act as a guide you as you go through your own.

But you don’t have to be afraid.

In my experience, once you let go and accept what is, it doesn’t take very long for new emotions to come in and old ones to move out.

Because again, life is movement.

The only constant is change.

And emotions are life’s energy, moving through you.

The body wants to feel them.

Any pain that you feel isn’t the emotion itself.

Feelings are just sensations in the body.

Pain comes from the rejection of your emotions, of life, of what is, exactly as it all is.

When you try to put a stop to reality, you trap yourself in an unwinnable battle.

You create a war inside of you that ripples out into your perception of everything.

Emotional freedom is found in acceptance.

So are you ready to let go?

Are your ready to take down your dam and let the emotions flow?

Can you risk it?

What are you afraid will happen if you let yourself feel what you’re feeling?

To be who you are, right now?

To embrace the experience that is currently present in you, on a visceral level?

What if you just let yourself go there now?

To feel it all.

To be right where you are, in everything that this moment already is.

You won’t really know until you try.

And you can contact me for a free consultation if you’d like support in this process.

I can’t wait to see where this takes you!