acceptance

Transformative Repentance

May 3, 2017

Living in a perpetual state of repentance is the way to change. We are always in brokenness and there is nothing that keeps our hearts tender like saying we’re sorry, turning around and repenting for the things we have done. It is true you make mistakes every day. Why would you not want to live in repentance? The alternative is to not pay attention to the things you are doing wrong or to rationalize and try to convince yourself and others that the things you have done are not that bad. When you put it that way, it seems like there is only one option. Read More

The Good Life = Resilience

September 27, 2016

175-25

Remember your life is not supposed to be stress-free. I think we all have ideals we are dreaming of: “Everything will be great when….” Fill in the blank: “…when I find ‘the one,'” “…when I get a new job,” “…when I retire.” It’s the time when it feels like you’ll just be able to kick up your feet and relax for the rest of your life, when you’ve finally “made it.” I’m not saying we can’t experience good things, but if we count on attaining some version of utopian paradise, we are going to start wondering why all this stress keeps coming at us. Read More

Finding Our Way

August 6, 2016

2015-11-08 16.19.04 HDR

Believe it or not, your self-hatred is the vehicle to finding love. This goes against some common wisdom which says you should really learn to see your own value. I mean sure, you have some nice things about you, but as you examine yourself, you will undoubtedly find some things that are lacking – even just by your own standards. It is impossible to produce love in yourself since you try to do so by some standardized merit system: “if you do and are such and such, you’re okay. If not, you’re not.” That type of love is not even really interesting to us. The only way you can truly receive the love we are talking about is to know the Love that loves you despite yourself and despite your sometimes intense hatred of yourself. Do not be afraid of this self-hatred. It will lead you right where you want to go. It’s just sort of an inside-out way to get there. Do an honest appraisal of yourself and find your wretched unworthiness. Then reach for the Love that loves you anyway. Read More

Grieving

November 11, 2014

In order to love and accept our life and those around us as they are, we must learn to grieve what we thought they would be. Without doing that, we will always love our ideals more than we love the actual thing. This does not mean we have to stop wishing for things, for hope is a good thing. In fact, if we do not do this sort of grieving, we will not be able to hope. We will only have depression – the kind that follows when we do not get what we thought we should have. Everyone goes through this kind of disillusionment – mostly in our adulthood (there is a normal developmental idealism that carries us through our youth). Our marriages, our careers and our lives in general undergo this disillusionment and it is totally normal! Maturity is the consistent “surrendering” of our ideals to attempt to love what is, rather than what we hoped would be. Again, the hope is good. Our demands for what we hope are what are dangerous. Read More

Archetypes

November 4, 2014

In order to truly love someone else, you must surrender your rigid beliefs about what you yourself “should be”. Most of us travel around with these inner archetypes by which we judge ourselves and others lovable or unlovable. As long as you are holding onto yours and hoping that you measure up, you will also use it to deem others valuable or not. Our deepest fear and dilemma is that we do not even measure up to our own created archetypes. The gift is to know that although we do not measure up, the measure is not needed. We do not even need to judge ourselves. We are valuable only because we belong and we are loved. Read More

January 15, 2014

I wonder what the world would be like if we did not work so hard to avoid everything. So much in our lives exists to help deaden our senses: not only drugs and drink, but electronics and countless other diversions. If we really felt everything there is to feel, I wonder if we would fall apart. The world seems like it would drastically change if we just accepted and encountered the pain of our circumstances head on, as it is. But we do not. We anesthetize in order to avoid feeling too much. Read More

Sustained Ecstasy

June 1, 2013

Someone gave me this bit of wisdom once: she said, “the pain tells me that I am alive.” She was battling cancer and all the pain and agony that go along with that, and she stopped taking her pain medication almost altogether. She is a brave soul. She said when the meds covered all of the pain, she would wake up and not know if she was alive or dead. Her illness had progressed to a point where she could go any time, and she didn’t want to be in a drug-induced stupor. She wanted to be alive and endure everything that goes along with that. Read More