Sitting in my bedroom, my 9 year-old self listened with attentive silence as I heard the angered indiscernible mumbles from my parents’ kitchen filter through my closed bedroom door. Anxiety arose within me as I crept closer to the door so I could hear my uncle’s words as he spoke to my parents, “Just now?!,” he exclaimed in anger, “Just now?!”
Just now. That was a phrase coined by my uncle I heard so often growing up. He used it every time he expressed frustration with day-to-day life experiences causing disruption to his planned routine. “Just now, that tractor trailer had to pull out in front of us just now?! Just now, the cash register had to break down just now?! Just now, the traffic had to come to a stop just now?!”
As a child, I felt the anger behind my uncle’s words was a mismatch to the experiences he described. As an adult, I realize this was my uncle’s resistance to what was happening in the moment.
In our own lives, how often do we experience resistance and how do we handle it? Do we hang on to it, letting anger, resentment and judgement take control of us, or do we accept it, allowing these emotions to flow through us so we can let them go?
Last month, I talked about the concepts of change and transition and invited you to reflect on acceptance, enjoyment and enthusiasm. This month, we’ll focus on the first of the three – acceptance. Acceptance is:
- Learning to sit with the unpleasant struggles and emotions resistance can bring, fully allowing yourself to feel the struggles and emotions without denying or suppressing them.
- Moving with the flow of what is instead of analyzing it or passing judgement on yourself or others.
- Receiving unplanned changes without trying to control the outcome they bring.
- Embracing patience, not rushing the process of changing the situation.
- Learning to “be” with what is in the present moment.
Acceptance does NOT mean you have settle for things as they are, without trying to improve the situation if you are unsatisfied. It means fully embracing the situation as it is in this moment, just as it is now, so you can take inspired action to change it from a place of inner clarity and nonresistance. The choice is ours. We can resist, “Just now?!” as my uncle would say, or we can accept, “Just now” and work within the flow of the situation at hand to better our experience. Which do you choose?
With Love, Light, and Gratitude,
Sandy
