Allowing Yourself to be Exactly as You Are

Allowing yourself to be exactly as you are, is such an important part of awakening. Author Jeff Foster, who is an amazing voice of consciousness in the world, talks a lot about acceptance and allowing. He says, “You do not have the power to accept this moment. You do have the power to allow it. This moment does not ask for your acceptance. It is already the way it is.” Jeff is saying that whatever is showing up in your life has already been accepted by life. It is all okay because whatever is happening is exactly as it needs to be. This belief is so powerful because you live most of the time in a mind that always wants things to be different than what they are. and this is called suffering.

Years ago, I took a trip out to Lake Chelan for a week of meditation. I experienced so much spaciousness in this beautiful place, except during one particular night when I woke up in terror. My son, who had just completed very aggressive chemotherapy treatments, called me earlier in the day. He said something along these lines: “Mom, I am so tired of this. It feels like I will never get through this. I don’t feel any energy and I wonder when I will be able to get back into life again.” This obviously triggered my storyteller and when I woke up in terror, my first response was to react. I noticed myself tightening because I wanted it to go away. Then, after just a few moments, curiosity kicked in and I dropped down into my heart. I allowed it to be there, and I said to my scared one, “Oh, fear is here. It’s okay. I am here for you, Little One. I see how scared you are. It’s just fear and together, we can enfold it all in our hearts.”

As I continued to talk to my scared one, it was just like when the sun begins to rise in the morning. Light and spaciousness surrounded me, and my heart burst wide open. This is the power of allowing whatever is showing up to be there and letting it all in. Just a few minutes before I had been completely identified with and contracted around the fear. But, as I continued to give my scared one the love she so desperately needed, I felt warmer and warmer, softer and softer, and my heart got bigger and bigger as I drifted back to sleep.

I have a radical invitation for you to hold the possibility that whatever is happening in your life is exactly what needs to happen. While your storyteller always has an idea of how things should be, the truth is that life keeps on unfolding and it does not matter what your storyteller is saying. As the Persian poet Rumi once said, “If God said, ‘Rumi pay homage to everything that has helped you enter my arms,’ there would not be one experience of my life, not one thought, not one feeling, nor any act, I would not bow to.”

The healing you long for happens when you change your relationship with your struggles. It is not in hoping they will go away. Instead, it is really powerful to see them as the Divine showing up in a form to show us something we need to know. And wisdom tells us the only thing required is allowing life to be exactly as it is. Give yourself this gift of allowing it all in, exactly as it is, and know that the more you awaken, the more you realize that struggling with life is an endless game while allowing is where lasting healing happens.