The assignments for this day were:
- Remember a recent situation in which you didn’t like the way you reacted. What feeling was evoked by that situation. Sadness? Anger? Use the main feeling at the center of the cluster. Cluster for five minutes. Look at what you’ve written and select one word or section of the clustering and explore it further with the methods of streaming, write for ten more minutes. Underline anything you’d like to return to later. Underline any insights. How does this exploration help you to accept your feelings?
- look out your window and find two unrelated objects. Write what these two objects have to do with accepting yourself so you can better feel your spirit. Cluster for two minutes. Use streaming for five minutes. What did you find about yourself? for instance, say you saw a fence and a chair. They fence may be about the way you hold yourself back, how “fenced in” you feel. The chair could also be the place for judgment, to have a time out and to sit so you can better develop spiritually.
- write about a miracle of acceptance that you would wish in your life.
I have to say I have been struggling with this word acceptance. I think in part it is because it brings me back to a time in my life when in the midst of trying to be of service, I found myself also being hurt. More honestly, allowing others to hurt me. it brought me back to a time when I allowed others to hurt me and continue to hurt me until I was able to see that I was the one who was allowing them to hurt me and found the power to leave. It brings me back to this place of feeling like a round peg in a square hole. It reminds me of all the times people told me I was too much of something or not enough of something. It reminds me that God does not say as I have accepted you, accept one another, but as I have loved you love one another. It makes me feel as if there is something I need to accept. And yet at the same time there are things I need to accept in my life. no, it is more then accepting. It is knowing. I need to know at the core of my being that I am worthy. I am worthy. I am worthy of being loved I am worthy of being treated with dignity and respect. I am worthy. I am worthy of not internalizing what other people say about me which I know is not true. I am worthy of loving myself. I am worthy of investing as much time in myself and my own evolution as I invest in others. I need to know that I am beautiful just as I am. I need to know that as Dr Seuss once said those how matter don’t mind and those who mind don’t matter. I need to know that just as I have had the power and the discipline to transform other aspects of my life, I can transform my relationship with my body as well. I can accept my body for what it is now and how I look now, and I can also work on making my body healthier. One does not have to be in opposition to the other. I need to know at the core of my being that the same power that has helped me to move through fears in the past is the same courage that will help me to move through any other fears that come in my life. I need to know that I am the little engine that could and know that I can.
See the thing for me about acceptance is that I have choice. I do not have to accept what others say to me as if it were gospel. It is not. when people speak to me in ways that is not of love or even compassionate anger then I do not have to accept it. I do not have to eat it and internatlize it and chew on it. I can recognize it for the nasty, spoiled, toxic food that it is and spit it out. I have to remember that I do not have to accept something just because someone gives it to me. some things are not healthy for me to accept.
If I could pray for one miracle of acceptance in my life it would be that I always accept myself and others for who we are at this point in time in our lives and know we are all works in progress. My best as don Miguel ruiz once wrote varies from moment to moment. May I accept that I am a work in progress and always be open to that evolution.