Let's discover the power of acceptance to lighten up
How do you know when something is not good for you? And when you discover that it's not good for you, can you make the distinction between whether to let it go or to push on? And when you make the distinction, can you go through the acceptance of the heart?
For a very long time in life, I was too stubborn a girl to understand the things that weren't good for me. I was under the illusion that the things I was pulling here and there could be real. I thought that if I worked hard enough, things could be the way I wanted them to be, but there were things that were in my hands and things that could never be in my hands. I think I resisted too much not to understand that.
We experience the greatest surrender when we are faced with the possibility that we may cease to exist in this life.
Friends, after all the denials, after all the tears, there comes a moment when you finally understand. Understand what? The deep acceptance that appears in that place where words are meaningless and empty. The giddy presence of trust in the One who is greater than you helps you to meet true surrender.
You cannot make situations and events that are not good for you good by making them try to come to you, by ignoring them, by playing the long game. You cannot change the way you feel about situations by keeping yourself busy.
Whether it's your relationship, your job, your health, or anything else! The first step is to see what is really happening in all its nakedness. The first baby steps to healing are right here, friends! When you stop running away and see the situation clearly, you start to differentiate between what is in your hands and what is not in your hands. And as the distinction becomes clearer, acceptance begins to emerge.
We all want to be loved and accepted. But friends, we are stingy in giving it to ourselves and I have news: Although we usually say we are aware of what is on the surface, it is only when we talk to a therapist that we begin to see the darker parts of ourselves that we have swept under the rug and didn't even know existed. This is where the strength of the bond between therapist and client lies. When you feel that no matter what you tell a well-equipped therapist, that little girl or boy inside you will not be excluded and will be accepted, the darkness starts to be covered.
Now I knew that I could invite whatever I was holding on to, like the breath I exhaled, into the space of letting go. Now I knew that my efforts to hold on were all about me again. The Existence that gave me new life with each breath was taking it with each breath that was released. I knew now that if something was slipping away, right here was pregnant with new possibilities and this was the most magical part. I didn't need to fill this place. Sooner or later the wave would wash ashore. All I had to do was to look with the willingness to see what was really there and to trust it.
Deep down we are always aware of everything that is not healthy, we just don't want to see it. If it is exposed, we don't know what to do with what is exposed, so we are afraid and we put on our mask. Until one day, somehow, the referee blows the whistle in a harsh way. And the harsh whistle depends on everyone's story.
Maybe you invite him to sit next to you, whatever it is that you played that extra time with today. You stay with it as long as you can without trying to do anything, without trying to fix it. This is where life will give birth to you again. Don't worry, the great life is breathing life into you moment by moment, don't waste a breath.
If there is something in your life that is pressing you, the most annoying words in the world are: GIVE UP, ACCEPT! But it takes time to give the true meaning of these two actions. This is the great dilemma of life: Where the effort ends, the action itself is revealed. The first step in trying to end the effort is to slow down. Whatever the situations, whatever the circumstances, you are what is valuable! Everything else can only be an expression of the meaning you give it.
Instead of the look of I must let go, I must accept, you can be willing to see how the situation makes you feel and trust that this movie is yours in all its colors!
And all of life is a stage that is built on you doing it! You are not a victim of this scene! You never have been! You are the sun of your own system. Don't mistake other people, events, situations for the sun. It is possible to exist without compressing your own life!
We always want to see ourselves as flawless and perfect
An enormous, majestic, immaculate ship is sailing on the sea. Near sunset, the sky has turned orange, the ship's lights are on and it is floating with the waves of the sea. A little closer to the ship and you can see the scratches, damage and imperfections. A closer look reveals that the ship is not so magnificent; it has many flaws. Negativity begins to cover the beauty.
Individuals who need approval always want to show themselves to others as flawless and perfect, just like in this ship example. They don't want to get too close to the people around them because they are afraid of being criticized. Even a single mistake can prevent them from getting approval. Praise is very important for these individuals, but it is very difficult for them to accept their inadequacies.
Receiving praise from others is actually a good thing, but trying to hear words of praise all the time can tire them out at some point. With this in mind, over time, people start to do things for others rather than for themselves. They dress for others, cook for others and achieve success for others.
So why do these individuals need approval and praise so much? This is basically related to the lack of self-esteem in the individual. In other words, self-esteem and confidence are proportional to what others say to them. Moreover, parental attitudes of excessive tolerance, compassion and protection during childhood can also lead to a need for approval in later life. This is because the individual associates the behaviors he/she sees in his/her family with the outside world.
On the other hand, individuals with a need for approval create a coding in their minds with their past experiences and form the thought "I am good if others like me, I am bad if others do not like me". With this thought, even the smallest process of hosting a guest is very challenging for the person because if he/she does not hear a positive sentence, let alone a negative criticism from the guests, he/she may think that he/she cooks very bad food, that the guests do not like the house, that he/she is not successful in this business.
The need for approval brings with it the inability to say no to others. Since the individual who cannot say no cannot draw the boundaries between himself/herself and others in a healthy way, he/she may experience too much interference from outside. As in the ship example above, the person who tries not to let others too close to him/her in order to get approval on the one hand, cannot fulfill this request because he/she cannot say no at the same time, and a vicious circle is formed.
In the light of all this, people who need approval usually respect and like to be approved of are people with high self-confidence, who know themselves and are honest with themselves. In other words, they try to fill the areas they feel they lack with others.
In fact, one should first appreciate, love, show compassion and trust oneself. In order to do this, we must know that balance, not perfection, exists within us. Remember that if you strive to strengthen your self-esteem, it will become easier and easier to fight your need for appreciation. It doesn't matter how you do it. However, one of your priorities from now on should be to love yourself.
Don't try to change the dream and just walk
What if we look at everything that happens as if we are in a dream and we are walking in a dream? That is, we are in a lucid dream and we know that the dream is a dream and we are walking in it.
A beggar appears in front of us and says something to us, and what sticks in your mind is not so much what he says, but the depth of his eyes and the piercing look in them. It's as if you've seen a sorcerer, wearing a robe, wand in his hand.
Did he have a wand? You didn't look carefully, your mind was trapped only in his eyes.
You advised yourself to look carefully and kept walking.
What did the sorcerer say to you?
-May God reunite you with your loved ones!
Your loved ones?
Bring your thoughts back to the fact that you are in a dream and your loved ones may not be the ones in this world? Your loved ones may be those in the universe, in all existence. You can be yourself.
-God bring you back to you!
Maybe that's your message?
You are walking, there are many people passing in front of you, behind you, some of them you see eye to eye. You hear the voices of some of them but you realize that you are only looking at your feet. When you look up, you see how far you have traveled. Did you walk the distance? How quickly did you get here?
You are somewhere else...
The one you know, but almost don't realize you're walking.
The door opens, you enter the building. The same people, running left and right. You only see them when you look, otherwise you don't even notice them.
You move towards your desk, this desk feels strangely tired, this chair. Always familiar but tired.
Remember that you are dreaming again,
What does the table say to you?
-I'm tired and I'm heavy...
If you sit on me, you will join me, says the chair, a little old, a little clumsy, but familiar.
You sit down and after a few minutes you forget this conversation. You move out of that accumulation, using your powers of anger, fire, faith. Otherwise you'll end up like the chair.
You are in a dream...
They bring you a file with numbers on it. You're not paying attention, pay attention.
Side by side, 99, 11, 00. You look at the even ones.
Then a word catches your eye. "All".
All personnel bla bla bla...
You're reading "The Whole". You're dreaming.
Then you go up and say something to someone. He gives you answers, independent of what you say.
You say it in a different way, and he says what you said before in a different way.
He doesn't hear you
Can you hear him?
You are in a dream...
Remind yourself.
And tell her something real, from the heart.
"You're beautiful."
She lifts her eyes and looks at you. He wakes up for a thousand moments and it's a "real moment".
She will remember her dream now, with an anchor, with a word.
A dragon will come and say he gave me a golden egg. You are that dragon.
Today, let that be our exercise.
You are dreaming and you are not trying to wake up from the dream. You don't try to realize that you are dreaming. You're just dreaming. That's all.
You don't try to change the dream.
You are walking in the dream.
You are walking as a dream warrior, as a traveler of a dream, and here you are learning to watch, to look carefully.
To all dream travelers!
I felt at home for the first time in my life
One day, many years ago, I dreamt I was in a strange place. It was a deserted, quiet place by the sea. After wandering the streets like a ghost for a while, I found myself on a path leading to the cliffs overlooking the sea. When I stopped at the beginning of the path and looked, I realized that there were some shadows on the rocks.
I walked that path with caution and some fear. The sun was pale, not warming, but its light painted the sea in a golden hue that I loved so much. The air was beautiful, as if it didn't exist. And as I got closer to the cliffs, somehow, perhaps for the first time in my life, I began to feel at home.
When I finally reached the shadows, I discovered that they were a group of people sitting on the rocks. Twenty or thirty people with red hair, green hair, their denim jackets decorated with safety pins and badges, silently watching the sea...
As I stood there watching them, I felt my heart fill with love. Then I realized something that made my skin crawl. I don't know how or how I knew this, but they were not human beings. They were sea lions disguised as humans.
I must have made a strange noise because at that moment, one by one, they all turned to look at me. There was a pure love in their eyes that I had never seen before, not even in my own family. It was unconditional love, they saw me as I was. And in that moment I realized: they were my real family and I was one of them. I was a sea lion in human form. I had always been a sea lion in human form.
I smiled as I walked up to them. I had never felt so happy in my life. Finally, finally, I was where I belonged. When I sat down among them, on the rocks, I felt wrapped in love.
Then we continued to watch the sea together, without speaking, smiling at each other in the pale sunlight. And I was so happy that I had finally found the source of that feeling of not belonging anywhere that I had been experiencing all my life.
Yes, I could finally explain this feeling. All my life I had never felt like I belonged anywhere, because I belonged to the sea, to the sea, to these people. I had finally found them, here. I was finally here, and I was never going home again.
When I woke up, my face was wet with tears. I must have cried in my sleep from happiness. I waited a few minutes to recover, then I put my emotions aside and started to think about the meaning of my dream.
Sometimes our dreams have no meaning. Even Freud admits that. But sometimes they speak to us. They show us what is important to us. That's when we need to listen to them.
This dream was talking to me. It was telling me to find my family. To make a family for myself. My own, chosen family... I could understand it clearly, I just didn't know how to do it, because I didn't want a family of mother, father and child.
I felt alone in those years. I thought I would be alone forever, alone in a crowd where I was unloved and unloved. But it didn't happen that way. I didn't stay alone forever. Gradually, I got rid of that crowd and started walking alone on a quiet, lonely path. And eventually I fell in love with this path.
I met them when I was happy with myself in my solitude. When I finally felt myself to be a complete human being. They were half human and half sea lion like me, in short, they didn't belong here. When we found each other, our eyes shone like stars. We were never going to be crowded, but we would always take care of each other. And so it was, we were never separated after that day.
I know I will continue to hear the song of the sea in the depths of my heart for the rest of my life. But at least I know that I am no longer the only one who hears this song. There are others like me.
We have become each other's mother and child over time. And with them, I don't need to be afraid, because I know: I can actually overcome any challenge that life will throw at me.
The easy attainment of the goal devalues it
Today, we can easily access almost everything we are looking for. Thanks to technological innovations, we can do most things without even leaving our seats. As a result, we don't have to make great efforts for anything. But do we know the value of this? Would it really be so worthless if everything was just "one click" away?
Whether one is happy when one achieves a desire has a lot to do with whether it is easy or not. The easier it is to achieve, the faster it loses its meaning. This is the biggest problem of the modern world. Because they cannot experience the pleasure of "being on the road and searching" that I mentioned above.
When they are so adapted to the hustle and bustle of life, they cannot stop and realize that meaning cannot be found in such easily accessible, hollow things. I'm not saying that the actions that give meaning to your life have to be difficult and arduous. Of course you can find great meaning in very simple things. The problem is in the effort you make to achieve that meaning. Unfortunately, modern man has forgotten that he has to make this effort.
When you want to be a theater artist, if what you have in mind is that thousands of people applaud you and you have interpreted theater in your mind only as an art product that is applauded, then you have achieved your goal at the first applause you receive.
And since achieving this goal is quite simple, it will not make you happy at the end of the day and will make you say, "Something is missing in this". But if you have associated the meaning of theater in your mind with being able to swallow stage dust, you can feel this meaning throughout your artistic life. Because a person who knows the meaning of his work does not do it for someone else's appreciation.
**Everything should have a meaning!**
If you are aware, there is a serious enthusiasm and orientation towards certain things nowadays. Personal development courses, meditation centers, relationship coaches... People are looking for happiness and the meaning of life in everything they can do. They get needy advice from anyone who looks a little happy. On the other hand, people who are only interested in the money for the sessions and trainings you will attend give you secrets on how to live a "more paranoid and meaningless" life. And they can market this as the key to happiness. They give you advice like "don't care what anyone else says, do what you want", things that modern people stopped doing decades ago. When the people of today's world are so full of ambition and ego, when the competitive environment is fierce, it is not a good idea to listen to this advice and look for happiness here.
You are constantly exposed to a set of ideas that impose on you that your actions must be "**meaningful**". For example, you think that the meaning of getting married is to start a family, or that the meaning of success is to become the manager of the company you work for. Because this is how society imposes these things on you. Everything from an advertisement you see to a book you read tells you to find meaning. As a result, you may find yourself saying, "This has to be meaningful because it has to be".
However, it is not a requirement for something to be meaningful. It is a requirement that it is "valuable" to you. Whatever you do that you value is what is meaningful. What goes on around you cannot shape your life. Having a poor family should not make greed the meaning of your life. Only pursue what you see as valuable to you, so that the path you are walking on will not one day feel empty and meaningless. The only meaning of a path that is run with the idea of "getting somewhere" is whether you will get there or not.
Being able to "run towards something you care about" means much more than that.
@alistairnov
