Clients often come to my office because they are in a painful place in life, having an experience they are struggling to make sense of. Our natural resistance to pain drives us to analyze, to evaluate and to search for the explanation of “why” it is happening; on the errant premise that discovering the answers will reduce our pain.
It doesn’t.
In fact, this resistance – the trying to figure our way out of the experience – only creates more anxiety and stress. Don’t get me wrong, understanding is useful, but it rarely provides the relief, resolution or imagined satisfaction we seek. And the truth is, even if there were a definitive answer to our search it wouldn’t change the fact that the present moment is what it is.
YOU ARE WHERE YOU ARE.
Resisting the moment leads to incessant thinking, frustration and mental and emotional exhaustion. A state I have visited too many times; and these experiences have fueled my desire to find another way. They have led me to practice acceptance.
That doesn’t mean I necessarily approve of what’s happening, or like it, or want to be in it. It does mean that I allow myself to take in the experience of “what is” right now without resisting it. Acceptance means I can wonder about what’s happening without over-analyzing or over-focusing on it. Author Eckhart Tolle invites us to go a step further.
The discussions about whether we create, manifest or choose all of our experiences can be long and go deep into the night. The laws of attraction, self-fulfilling prophecies and karma are universal dynamics but don’t explain it all. While I enjoy the discussion, I feel far from having all the answers.
I loved these words from Eckhart Tolle, because what I DO know is that how I view the present moment dictates my experience of it. Let me say that again:
HOW YOU VIEW THE PRESENT MOMENT DICTATES YOUR EXPERIENCE OF IT.
When you accept the present “as if” you had chosen it, possibilities exist that are not available when you see the situation as the luck of the draw, was chosen for you or forced upon you. Possibilities for growth, for learning, for internal peace independent of external turmoil.
When I am facing a time that I don’t want to be in, doing things that I don’t want to do, feeling certain that I would not have chosen this; it helps me to ask myself “IF I had chosen such a thing, what would I have wanted to get out of this?”
Just asking the question opens my mind to possibilities. Recognizing possibilities fosters greater acceptance of what is. Greater acceptance always leads me to greater peace; and that is where I want to live.