Darshän Beauty

Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Acceptance ...the way forward

As life gets rockier and rockier, acceptance seems like a strange cure. For those of us facing major challenges of finance, health, or relationships these days, accepting where we are can be difficult.

Over the summer I came down with a terrible intestinal disorder that could have ruined my long-awaited family vacation in the Bahamas. It was the first big vacation in five years at an all-inclusive resort and I spent most of the five days there barely eating and managing my distress, but still had a wonderful time.

A few weeks ago, the same symptoms came back just as bad as the first time, and tests finally showed that I had a bacterial infection that did not appear in the tests the first time. This news came just before I was to celebrate my 50th birthday at my favorite restaurant with my closest friends that I had been looking forward to all year long. There was no way my infection would be cleared by then. So you can imagine my disappointment realizing I would not be able to eat much or drink champagne to toast the emergence of "Vintage Helen".

Ten years ago, this sort of setback would have devastated me and I most likely would have sunk into what I like to call a "spiritual hissy fit", as I would spend numerous days or weeks lamenting over my cursed life. Five years ago, I would have reduced my hissy fit to one or two days and then picked myself up and carried on. While most of my struggles in life have been physical challenges, this would have been my reaction to anything that went wrong in my life, whether it was the loss of a job or a family dispute.

I don't know exactly when it happened, but one day I realized that fighting the challenge I was facing was not only counter-productive, but actually made things a lot worse than they had to be. I believe that on the energetic level it is because we sink to that lower level of energy and actually strengthen its hold on us.

The SIMPLE TRUTH is that life is about adversity, at least to some degree, and acceptance of our situation actually keeps us at a higher level of being that more easily overcomes our challenges. It is not what happens to us, but how we react to that situation that determines the outcome of how long it lasts or how much it robs us of the quality of life.

It is quite obvious that all of us will be facing challenges in these next few years, as life readjusts our priorities. By accepting our situation, we can avoid wasting precious energy on the parts that we cannot change, and apply this energy to creating the answer.

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