Acceptance

I do hope you are keeping well and still enjoying the first month of 2023. Here is your gentle reminder to check in with yourself. How are you doing? Is there room for your to slow down a little, and make space for a little more you time?

We are so busy at the beginning of the month setting intentions and goals for ourselves, so now after a few weeks in, it is a good time to reflect on how this is going so far. And perhaps, make any small adjustments to help you going forwards. Remember, it is the small things we do each day that lead to bigger, monumental long-term goals! 

My 2023 so far looks like trying a regular meditation practice. I am noticing myself doing this most days - but not all! Trying not to judge myself when I simply cannot find the time to do it.

Meditation is a good way to practice coming back to the present moment. And by coming back to the present moment, we are learning to let go of worries or stresses and just accept things for how they are. And we could all do with a little more presence in our lives!

Cultivating presence can help us accept the inevitability of human suffering, and how mindfulness meditation, which is the practice of coming back to the present moment, again and again, and again, can help us to accept things just the way they are.

So, rather than the thing we’d normally do, which is put a bit too much pressure on ourselves to be happy all day every day, and when we feel anything short of this, perhaps allowing anxiety, worry, stress, and self-criticism to arise, and a feeling like we are ‘doing life wrong,’ we can turn to acceptance.

We can finally stop trying to change or control things and simply accept, and through this acceptance, make it a whole lot easier for ourselves to ride the wave.
There will be good days and bad days, this is just the inevitability of life. So, next time you find yourself questioning yourself, you can remind yourself that you are just a human being having a human experience, riding those ups and downs and accepting it all along the way.

And a human will experience pain, hurt, upset, loss, grief, sadness, joy, happiness, elation, love, and light - all of these things. So when you feel a feeling, welcome it. 

If the feeling feels a little overwhelming for you, perhaps you could try this:

• Close down your eyes and come to breath.
• Start breathing gently in and out through the nose, doing what you can to slow down the breath and find a connection with it.
• Notice how the body feels, try to relax any tension or tightness in your body, especially as you exhale.
• Then, try to notice where in your body you feel the feeling. Is it the shoulders? Belly? Mind? Chest? And when you have located this part of your body, breathe into it. Think about breathing fresh breath and fresh life into that part of your body.

By doing this, you are actually making space for the emotion or feeling to arise, connecting to it, accepting it is there without the usual stories in your mind coming into place, and then simply letting it go. 

I hope this resonates and helps you just a little bit today!