Acceptance vs. Struggle

“I have no more fight left in me.” These were the words spoken by a friend that led me to a new understanding, an Aha moment.

How many times had I pushed against life, resisted change and exhausted my energy fighting life.  A lot is the unfortunate answer.  Here I was challenging the “What Is,” spending my time swimming upstream as the river of life tried its best to carry me forward.

Why on earth would I do such a thing, why create a fight?  Why challenge the grand plan?

Into the Wilderness

I have contemplated this question for the past month to discover that the past is familiar and what I know and understand.  Life before the “change,” whatever the change, is unfamiliar and often scary.  It asks us to step into the dark and find the light.

It may feel like you have been dropped into the wilderness and you are trying to make your way out.  It will require that you look for resources to sustain you, gather firewood to keep you warm, build a shelter from the wind and rain.

You can sit in the forest and beg and pray for it to be different, you can fuss and fight with the what-is, or you can look around you and recognize your resources.   Gather your firewood, build a shelter to dwell in, seek out sustenance to feed you.  You can accept the what is and begin the journey of living in it.  Once your basic needs are met, you can sit in the shelter and once again beg and pray for it to be different, to be rescued from this new place, or you can venture out and see the new terrain before you.  You can choose to enjoy this newfound “wildlife” or you can continue the fight of wanting to get back to what was.  You cannot win that fight, but often we try to anyway.

We hold onto the rope of the past with a strong hand until we have rope burns.  It can be difficult to release the rope and trust that you will have stable footing where you are, but the process of holding onto the past will take all your energy and have you literally living in the past.

Dig Deep, Grow Strong

Acceptance of the what is, of the wilderness, of making your way through it, will bring forward all the beauty you hold.  You will begin to dig deep into the resources within you and use them to build a new life.  You will be fed by new experiences and find renewal in them.

Life is happening for us and not to us.  Knowing this makes all the difference in the world.  We give up the fight and are reborn again and again through the beauty of acceptance.

We find that we are more than capable.  We find our courage and move forward with great tenacity.  We recognize the gifts we have been given and begin to understand that the wilderness, the very scary dark wilderness that we were dropped into, was the great source of our growth and provided literally the rich soil in which we began to cultivate our souls.

Know that all paths merely led to you. Both open fields full of sunlight and dark wildernesses are part of the journey.  Stop the struggle and revel in the acceptance of what is.  Let the river of life carry you forward, begin to enjoy the ride.  Let go of the what if’s and the what was, and start celebrating the what is!

Copyright 2018 Melody White. All Rights Reserved.

 

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Sacred Space

I am finding that space is a requirement for all good things to come forward.  It is an essential part of all things and all growth.

An infant learning to walk requires space from the coffee table to your arms to take her first steps.  Learning to ride a bike requires space to ride without anyone holding onto the back of the bike.  A seedling requires the space of planting and more space to grow and expand and eventually bloom.

The world we live in evolved from space, regardless of who or what we believe to be the creator of the beautiful space we occupy; space is an undeniable factor of our existence.

Our earliest ancestors looked up into space to begin to define their world.  Seeing the sun, they called this space “day,” seeing the moon, they called this space “night.”  Daytime became the space in which we worked and performed the necessary things in order to live. Nighttime became the time to rest from this activity and spend time with others who are significant to us, often utilized as space for enjoyment.

Our beautiful souls are no different, they require space to learn and grow from experiences.  I have both witnessed and experienced this rhythmic flow that comes from taking part in and taking rest from.  I believe it is why there is a space requirement for grieving, from a life enjoyed with someone to a life without them. Space provides the necessary healing agent to recover emotionally.  And grief is not always experienced by the death of someone but can and may be experienced by the death of something, a relationship, a career end; any ending can fuel the energy of grief.  It is true that all experiences of life that come to an end.  A life lived with parents comes to an end and we set a new space for ourselves to experience life without them. At the same time, parents are learning to live in a space without their child there. Oh, the rhythm of life, it is our constant, and space is where it takes place.

Recognizing this aspect of space, and with great awareness, creating our own circle of space necessary for any transition, is vital to our spiritual self.  It is here in this circle of space that we grow and expand if we choose to do so.  It is always a choice.  Once the growth and/or healing (which I believe to be one and the same) takes place, we may widen our circle to embrace more.

The more able we are to be aware of this space, the more sacred it becomes as it fills with conscious living made by conscious choices.   Who and what you allow into your circle is directly related to the amount of space taken to grow and expand; with more understanding you will be able to house more spiritually.  Your perspective, your personal lens, will widen and be able to hold many viewpoints, many ways of both doing and seeing.

This growth and expansion comes from a reconciled heart, one that has processed an experience to the point of no two things striking within it any longer.  A heart that has brought itself back to balance and resides in equilibrium.

Equilibrium is the resounding vibration of love.  Love is the greatest living force we can house and is done so by our own creation of events, things, and experiences, and provides the greatest type of energy we can experience.

Be mindful of the sacred space you create for the processing of these events, things and experiences, in order for your circle to continue to widen until one day it houses all.

This, I believe, is the evolving spirit of mankind, to one day house all understandings; until one day we stand with no two things striking, and the heart is whole and the world we know, the one we have been so blessed to take part in, is at rest and resides in peace.

Copyright 2018 Melody White. All Rights Reserved.