As 2012 approaches, I find myself wondering if I can find even more acceptance for myself, my experiences, my relationships and the world.  Inner peace may be the hardest work, allowing ourselves to experience life without resisting it.  Life presents itself in an objective way, and we muddle through it, often interpreting our experience in a very didactic way, good or bad, fair or not fair.

I find when challenges arise, I find myself interpreting them.  I am eating right, getting enough sleep and exercise and still I feel fatigued.  I experience a challenge in “I am doing the right thing, how come life isn’t how I want it to be.”  We all have certain expectations of the way things are supposed to be.  Eating right, exercising, thinking good thoughts brings good health, being responsible with money brings financial success and so forth.  Yes, the formula of doing the right work assists in bringing us what we want and helps increase our odds.  Yet, working hard doesn’t ensure getting what you want or encountering life as it is supposed to be.

Expectations and beliefs have a way of limiting our experiences.  They hold us to formulas that aren’t always true but based on how we interpret the world.  Our mental beliefs are like a pair of glasses that continually taint our perspective of the world.  Sometimes these perspectives can be helpful, allowing us more space to become who we are.  For example recognizing the frustration with your mate doesn’t really have anything to do with them, but your inner struggle for independence.  And sometimes it can hold us back in thinking that having a mate means they aren’t tuned into our emotions or hear us clearly.  This can become an absolute in our minds, for example the belief that he never hears me.

I love Veruca Salt, the character in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, who after she meets the Oompa Loompas, tells her father, “I want a Oompa Loompa now.”  I can relate to her exaggerated character in the moments when I find myself clenching my jaw or tightening my breath in frustration.  It is that feeling, no I want this and I am not going to accept what is.

Observing the incongruent aspects of life verses the actual, I am curious how I can find more acceptance of myself to be exactly where I am.  With a sink full of dirty dishes, with resolutions not even started, with sore backs and challenging relationships, with all the things that haven’t been said, and the never-ending list of things that don’t quite fit into what we want, how can we encounter our lives as a process?  And at the beginning of the process is self-love and acceptance.  Regardless.  Self-love and acceptance, no matter what.  The present moment doesn’t mean to be devoid of feelings but instead allowing feelings to be present without regretting the past or worrying about the future.  Just allow your experience to be just what it is, nothing more or less.  Many blessings for the coming year!