Learn To Accept What Is

Learning to accept our external as well as our internal reality is an important and key step towards fulfillment.

“When you make friends with the present moment, you feel at home no matter where you are.” Ekhart Tolle

The present moment includes everything that has manifested in our conscious awareness, from our internal thoughts and feelings to all external events. These events include someone cutting you off in traffic, your loved one saying something you don't like, missing your flight or even far off external events like interest rates going up or wars you don't agree with. It is easy to make friends with a pleasant situation, but it is these unpleasant realities that require our work.

why make friends?

Accepting what is already here is tuning oneself with the flow of life, with reality itself. Reacting with aversion and dislike to your own self or external events only produces unpleasantness in the body and leaves you in a contracted space. The only thing you can change about something that has already happened is the way you feel about it. You don't have to love it but allow it a seat at the table and it will stop being a thorn in your side.

Acceptance doesn't mean passivity

Being in a relaxed state with what is doesn't mean you can't move towards changing a situation or a thought pattern. Wise action, however, only results from a state of peace and clarity rather than one of aversion and conflict. Your inner well-being doesn't need to be constantly disturbed by all the uncontrollable phenomena that is constantly arising and passing. Anchor your fulfillment within and you'll become a powerful agent of change whenever you decide it so.