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Self-Acceptance
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Foundation Five
I accept myself just as I am, holding that nothing is wrong with me (and nothing about me needs to be fixed).
Accepting yourself as you are, without “buying into” the nagging and ill-conceived sense that something is wrong with you, that something needs to be fixed—or worse yet, that you are unworthy—is a major first step on the path of living a true life. Enough with all the must-miss striving, improving, fixing, comparing, and getting down on yourself for this or that shortcoming. Put all that aside for now and just see if you can accept yourself as you are, even with all your so-called flaws. Even with your “flaws” you are still an individual expression of Spirit. Maybe those “flaws” are part of a greater perfection. Maybe the acceptance of those “flaws” from a place of wholeness and perfection is the path to freedom, the work you need to do in order to realize your true worth. Remember, the moon need not be full in order to shine.
True creativity and fulfillment in life begins with the wholehearted acceptance of yourself—all of yourself—along with the wholehearted acceptance of whatever experience the Universe is bringing you in this moment. It is this running away from yourself, the belittlement of yourself, the ignorance of your true value and worth, and the nonstop effort to fix the outer conditions of your life that steer you in the wrong direction. So, first, be yourself, love and accept yourself—just as you are, just as Infinite Spirit accepts you—then do as you may, then everything shall be added unto you.
Greenlighting / The Power of "Yes"
The term “greenlighting" (as first employed by Saniel Bonder) refers to the total acceptance of who you are; it’s giving the green light to yourself, exactly as you are. It’s also about the embrace of whatever experience you are having without trying to change it, run from it, reject it, or mentalize it away. It’s the total acceptance of life, as it is, right now. We might also call this "the power of 'yes'."
As you may discover, when you don’t accept yourself, when you reject the unwanted parts of yourself, when you avoid what you are actually experiencing you create a negative spiral in your life (and this puts you out of sync with the all-accepting nature of Spirit). The pain of rejecting yourself and running from your pain is often more painful and persistent than the pain you are trying to avoid. So don’t run, don’t hide from your experience or from any part of yourself. Give whatever is coming up for you the green light. Just let it be. Feel it. Experience it. Don’t try to change it or fix it. Don’t avoid it or supplant it with some running commentary that is constantly telling you about your experience. Experience it as it is, without a commentary, without a sense of “me.” Just be with it. Just feel the physical sensation in your body. Just behold it from a place of wholeness, a place of pure awareness and unconditional love.
God is always giving you the green light—He is lovingly embracing all of you, every aspect of your being. You cannot truly do God’s will unless you give yourself the green light as well, unless you lovingly accept the all of yourself, just as you are. Why is this so? Because it’s God’s will that you lovingly accept all of yourself, just as you are—exactly as He lovingly accepts the all of you, just as you are. Now, tell me, how can you do God’s will by doing something different from God’s will?
God’s Power is Infinite. This concept is difficult to grasp; it means that God can do anything. He exists in total freedom. The Sufis hold that God creates this entire universe from nothing a billion times a second. There is no movement, just a billion different creations of the whole universe in a second, and that creates the appearance of movement. A Being of Infinite Power can create all universes—every star, every planet, every atom—from nothing, a billion times a second. He can create anything He wants; and He always creates exactly what He wants. And what is He choosing to create right now?—you, exactly as you are. He is pouring the entirety of His being into you and choosing you to be exactly who you are, exactly as He is creating you now. That is His will; He can have no other will. If you desire to do God’s will then begin by wholeheartedly embracing the whole of who you are, and the whole of Life, just as God Himself is doing right now.
God is giving you more than a green light; He is giving you life itself. He is pouring the whole of His love, power, aliveness, and beauty into you right now. If God, as you understand Him to be, does not accept you, the all of you, exactly as you are, with unconditional love and without judgment—and wish that you be exactly as you are right now—then you’ve got the wrong version of God. You’ve got the wrong understanding of God.
If it were God’s Will that you be different from who you are right now, you’d be different from who you are right now. Everything, exactly as it is showing up right now, is God’s will. Even your non-acceptance of who you are right now is God’s will. Even your desire to be different from who you are right now is God’s will. Even your not knowing who you are right now is God’s will. It is your task to know all this for yourself, to wholeheartedly embrace everything that is showing up in your life right now, even your resistance to everything that is showing up in your life right now.
Embrace Life from Where You Are
So long as you do not accept something for what it is (and keep trying to run from it, or change it, or obscure it with busy-ness, or spiritualize it into oblivion, or drown it out with mind-altering substances) it will continue to have power over you. It will continue to shape the conditions of your life. Only by accepting it, by consciously experiencing it, by giving it the green light will it ever change. … While you cannot change every condition you can begin to strip conditions of the power they have over you by accepting them from a place of wholeness, by not using up all your energy in your struggle against them. The mere acceptance of something from a place of wholeness brings about the alchemy that ultimately changes it, that brings in in deeper alignment with Spirit.
Everything in your life is here to teach you something about yourself; it is showing you where an inner shift could take place. So, it’s not so much about changing the outer condition, per se—even though that can be quite beneficial—it’s more about changing the consciousness within yourself that is giving rise to those conditions in the first place.
The true power that you have, in every situation in life, is the ability to accept Life as it is, from a position of wholeness, from a position of oneness, from the knowingness that you are the unchanging awareness upon which every experience of your life is founded. You, as pure awareness, are the one true constant of your ever-changing life, unaffected by condition, undiminished by thought, unshaken by emotion. Change if you may, improve things if you are so inclined, but always remain aware of who you are in the process, always give the green light to the essence of who you are and to Life itself.
Creating from a Place of Wholeness
How can I accept myself as I am—feeling that nothing is wrong with me and that nothing needs to be fixed—but still feel a need to take action to improve my life and my conditions?
If you are an individualized manifestation of Spirit, if you are Spirit operating on the plane of the particular—if “as above, so below”—then the laws that govern Universal Spirit are the same laws that govern your life. So, how does Spirit create or “improve” things? Does Spirit do this from a sense of lack? From a sense that something is missing or that something needs improving? Or from a sense that something is wrong with itself and that it needs to create something in order to fix what is wrong? No. Spirit creates from an overflow of love and abundance. So why should your approach be any different? Fixing what is broken, gaining what is missing, or filling what is lacking is the constant motivation behind a human being’s attempt at life. But how can a human being truly live or realize his greatness by acting in a way that is contrary to the laws of Nature and the Creative Power itself? He can’t. How can a person further experience the qualities of Spirit in himself by operating in a way contrary to Spirit? He can’t.
If you feel inspired to act then act. If you want to change things then change things but do it in a way that’s in resonance with Spirit, do it in a way that leads to positive change and transformation. It’s okay to want to improve your conditions but try to do it from a place of wholeness, a place of unity with Spirit, a place of total acceptance of yourself rather than from a place of need or lack or self-disapproval.
Spirit is always positive and always creates from the positive. Spirit’s motivation to create is never to get what is missing but always to expand upon what is there, to expand upon its wholeness, to experience more and more of Itself and its qualities. Spirit’s own sense of itself—as love, beauty, abundance, fullness, etc.—is its starting-point. Creation begins from there. It should be the same for a human being—he should begin with his wholeness, his divine qualities, not with the notion that something is wrong or missing.
I think St. Augustine summed it up when he said, “First love, then act.” First be as Spirit—realizing your essential self as love, joy, aliveness, fullness, etc.—then act.
If you can’t act with love, if you can’t act as Spirit acts, that’s okay. Don’t get down on yourself. Just, gently, keep inclining yourself in that direction. If you feel a lack and are prompted to act to improve things then that’s what you should do. That’s what’s coming up for you. Acknowledge that. Honor that. If you can act from a state of love and abundance that would be good; if not, keep inclining yourself in that direction. Always accept yourself; always give yourself total permission to be yourself, whatever you are doing.
Quotes
In discovering who we really are, we come to recognize that these qualities are not the result of the effort of a separate person, but are naturally present in who we are before we identify ourselves as a separate person. Who we are is naturally loving, accepting, deeply relaxed, and always at peace, never attached to any form, and who we are has never been seeking anything. It is naturally nonjudgmental, choiceless, and always free from identification. It is the ocean, always at rest even amidst the storm of life, forever deeply allowing every wave without judgement, resistance, or attachment. The end of the search of a lifetime is not a future goal, but who we already are.
(Jeff Foster, The Deepest Acceptance, p. 65)
We are complete in ourselves; and the reason why we fail to realize this is because we do not understand how far our “true self” extends. … We rightly say that every person is Universal Spirit expressed as an individual consciousness; and if this is so, then each individual consciousness must find the Universal Spirit to be the infinite expression of himself. It is this part of the “Self” that we so often leave out in our estimate of who we are; and consequently we look upon ourselves as limited and suffering human beings when we might better think of ourselves as archangels.
(Thomas Troward, The Hidden Power)
Letting Go vs Letting Be
Trying to let go is, in a subtle way, the same as trying to get rid of the things we don't like, especially the thoughts and feelings we find difficult to feel. We're seeing them as the enemy and wanting life to be different.
Letting be may sound similar, but it is actually quite different. Letting be means we don't try to drop it (let it go), nor do we try to alter it or force ourselves to accept it. Rather we simply acknowledge what's there and say "yes" to it, which means we're willing to feel it, just as it is. We don't have to like it, nor, on the other hand, do we have to view it as an obstacle or an enemy--we just have to be willing to experience exactly what our life is right now. (Ezra Bayda, The Authentic Life, p. 95)
__________________ ◊ ◊ ◊ __________________
I accept myself just as I am, holding that nothing is wrong with me (and nothing about me needs to be fixed).
Accepting yourself as you are, without “buying into” the nagging and ill-conceived sense that something is wrong with you, that something needs to be fixed—or worse yet, that you are unworthy—is a major first step on the path of living a true life. Enough with all the must-miss striving, improving, fixing, comparing, and getting down on yourself for this or that shortcoming. Put all that aside for now and just see if you can accept yourself as you are, even with all your so-called flaws. Even with your “flaws” you are still an individual expression of Spirit. Maybe those “flaws” are part of a greater perfection. Maybe the acceptance of those “flaws” from a place of wholeness and perfection is the path to freedom, the work you need to do in order to realize your true worth. Remember, the moon need not be full in order to shine.
True creativity and fulfillment in life begins with the wholehearted acceptance of yourself—all of yourself—along with the wholehearted acceptance of whatever experience the Universe is bringing you in this moment. It is this running away from yourself, the belittlement of yourself, the ignorance of your true value and worth, and the nonstop effort to fix the outer conditions of your life that steer you in the wrong direction. So, first, be yourself, love and accept yourself—just as you are, just as Infinite Spirit accepts you—then do as you may, then everything shall be added unto you.
Greenlighting / The Power of "Yes"
The term “greenlighting" (as first employed by Saniel Bonder) refers to the total acceptance of who you are; it’s giving the green light to yourself, exactly as you are. It’s also about the embrace of whatever experience you are having without trying to change it, run from it, reject it, or mentalize it away. It’s the total acceptance of life, as it is, right now. We might also call this "the power of 'yes'."
As you may discover, when you don’t accept yourself, when you reject the unwanted parts of yourself, when you avoid what you are actually experiencing you create a negative spiral in your life (and this puts you out of sync with the all-accepting nature of Spirit). The pain of rejecting yourself and running from your pain is often more painful and persistent than the pain you are trying to avoid. So don’t run, don’t hide from your experience or from any part of yourself. Give whatever is coming up for you the green light. Just let it be. Feel it. Experience it. Don’t try to change it or fix it. Don’t avoid it or supplant it with some running commentary that is constantly telling you about your experience. Experience it as it is, without a commentary, without a sense of “me.” Just be with it. Just feel the physical sensation in your body. Just behold it from a place of wholeness, a place of pure awareness and unconditional love.
God is always giving you the green light—He is lovingly embracing all of you, every aspect of your being. You cannot truly do God’s will unless you give yourself the green light as well, unless you lovingly accept the all of yourself, just as you are. Why is this so? Because it’s God’s will that you lovingly accept all of yourself, just as you are—exactly as He lovingly accepts the all of you, just as you are. Now, tell me, how can you do God’s will by doing something different from God’s will?
God’s Power is Infinite. This concept is difficult to grasp; it means that God can do anything. He exists in total freedom. The Sufis hold that God creates this entire universe from nothing a billion times a second. There is no movement, just a billion different creations of the whole universe in a second, and that creates the appearance of movement. A Being of Infinite Power can create all universes—every star, every planet, every atom—from nothing, a billion times a second. He can create anything He wants; and He always creates exactly what He wants. And what is He choosing to create right now?—you, exactly as you are. He is pouring the entirety of His being into you and choosing you to be exactly who you are, exactly as He is creating you now. That is His will; He can have no other will. If you desire to do God’s will then begin by wholeheartedly embracing the whole of who you are, and the whole of Life, just as God Himself is doing right now.
God is giving you more than a green light; He is giving you life itself. He is pouring the whole of His love, power, aliveness, and beauty into you right now. If God, as you understand Him to be, does not accept you, the all of you, exactly as you are, with unconditional love and without judgment—and wish that you be exactly as you are right now—then you’ve got the wrong version of God. You’ve got the wrong understanding of God.
If it were God’s Will that you be different from who you are right now, you’d be different from who you are right now. Everything, exactly as it is showing up right now, is God’s will. Even your non-acceptance of who you are right now is God’s will. Even your desire to be different from who you are right now is God’s will. Even your not knowing who you are right now is God’s will. It is your task to know all this for yourself, to wholeheartedly embrace everything that is showing up in your life right now, even your resistance to everything that is showing up in your life right now.
Embrace Life from Where You Are
So long as you do not accept something for what it is (and keep trying to run from it, or change it, or obscure it with busy-ness, or spiritualize it into oblivion, or drown it out with mind-altering substances) it will continue to have power over you. It will continue to shape the conditions of your life. Only by accepting it, by consciously experiencing it, by giving it the green light will it ever change. … While you cannot change every condition you can begin to strip conditions of the power they have over you by accepting them from a place of wholeness, by not using up all your energy in your struggle against them. The mere acceptance of something from a place of wholeness brings about the alchemy that ultimately changes it, that brings in in deeper alignment with Spirit.
Everything in your life is here to teach you something about yourself; it is showing you where an inner shift could take place. So, it’s not so much about changing the outer condition, per se—even though that can be quite beneficial—it’s more about changing the consciousness within yourself that is giving rise to those conditions in the first place.
The true power that you have, in every situation in life, is the ability to accept Life as it is, from a position of wholeness, from a position of oneness, from the knowingness that you are the unchanging awareness upon which every experience of your life is founded. You, as pure awareness, are the one true constant of your ever-changing life, unaffected by condition, undiminished by thought, unshaken by emotion. Change if you may, improve things if you are so inclined, but always remain aware of who you are in the process, always give the green light to the essence of who you are and to Life itself.
Creating from a Place of Wholeness
How can I accept myself as I am—feeling that nothing is wrong with me and that nothing needs to be fixed—but still feel a need to take action to improve my life and my conditions?
If you are an individualized manifestation of Spirit, if you are Spirit operating on the plane of the particular—if “as above, so below”—then the laws that govern Universal Spirit are the same laws that govern your life. So, how does Spirit create or “improve” things? Does Spirit do this from a sense of lack? From a sense that something is missing or that something needs improving? Or from a sense that something is wrong with itself and that it needs to create something in order to fix what is wrong? No. Spirit creates from an overflow of love and abundance. So why should your approach be any different? Fixing what is broken, gaining what is missing, or filling what is lacking is the constant motivation behind a human being’s attempt at life. But how can a human being truly live or realize his greatness by acting in a way that is contrary to the laws of Nature and the Creative Power itself? He can’t. How can a person further experience the qualities of Spirit in himself by operating in a way contrary to Spirit? He can’t.
If you feel inspired to act then act. If you want to change things then change things but do it in a way that’s in resonance with Spirit, do it in a way that leads to positive change and transformation. It’s okay to want to improve your conditions but try to do it from a place of wholeness, a place of unity with Spirit, a place of total acceptance of yourself rather than from a place of need or lack or self-disapproval.
Spirit is always positive and always creates from the positive. Spirit’s motivation to create is never to get what is missing but always to expand upon what is there, to expand upon its wholeness, to experience more and more of Itself and its qualities. Spirit’s own sense of itself—as love, beauty, abundance, fullness, etc.—is its starting-point. Creation begins from there. It should be the same for a human being—he should begin with his wholeness, his divine qualities, not with the notion that something is wrong or missing.
I think St. Augustine summed it up when he said, “First love, then act.” First be as Spirit—realizing your essential self as love, joy, aliveness, fullness, etc.—then act.
If you can’t act with love, if you can’t act as Spirit acts, that’s okay. Don’t get down on yourself. Just, gently, keep inclining yourself in that direction. If you feel a lack and are prompted to act to improve things then that’s what you should do. That’s what’s coming up for you. Acknowledge that. Honor that. If you can act from a state of love and abundance that would be good; if not, keep inclining yourself in that direction. Always accept yourself; always give yourself total permission to be yourself, whatever you are doing.
Quotes
In discovering who we really are, we come to recognize that these qualities are not the result of the effort of a separate person, but are naturally present in who we are before we identify ourselves as a separate person. Who we are is naturally loving, accepting, deeply relaxed, and always at peace, never attached to any form, and who we are has never been seeking anything. It is naturally nonjudgmental, choiceless, and always free from identification. It is the ocean, always at rest even amidst the storm of life, forever deeply allowing every wave without judgement, resistance, or attachment. The end of the search of a lifetime is not a future goal, but who we already are.
(Jeff Foster, The Deepest Acceptance, p. 65)
We are complete in ourselves; and the reason why we fail to realize this is because we do not understand how far our “true self” extends. … We rightly say that every person is Universal Spirit expressed as an individual consciousness; and if this is so, then each individual consciousness must find the Universal Spirit to be the infinite expression of himself. It is this part of the “Self” that we so often leave out in our estimate of who we are; and consequently we look upon ourselves as limited and suffering human beings when we might better think of ourselves as archangels.
(Thomas Troward, The Hidden Power)
Letting Go vs Letting Be
Trying to let go is, in a subtle way, the same as trying to get rid of the things we don't like, especially the thoughts and feelings we find difficult to feel. We're seeing them as the enemy and wanting life to be different.
Letting be may sound similar, but it is actually quite different. Letting be means we don't try to drop it (let it go), nor do we try to alter it or force ourselves to accept it. Rather we simply acknowledge what's there and say "yes" to it, which means we're willing to feel it, just as it is. We don't have to like it, nor, on the other hand, do we have to view it as an obstacle or an enemy--we just have to be willing to experience exactly what our life is right now. (Ezra Bayda, The Authentic Life, p. 95)
__________________ ◊ ◊ ◊ __________________
