Healing is one of the most powerful, beautiful and magical processes of our world. Often, all we need to do to heal is allow it. Nothing else. 

Our bodies are so magnificently created to self-repair and to sustain beyond many odds. However, the reason we may need healing can be complex. The recovery process is not so easy. It might require effort, discipline, struggle and pain, and we rebuild our strength, align with more fortuitous circumstances and reconstruct ourselves after hurt and loss. 

The idea of acceptance in our modern world is often associated with a deep spiritual or enlightenment phase and process. Not because it is challenging to obtain, but because our ego is constructed around the very idea that what we are, have, and are experiencing is somehow wrong or not as we would want and prefer. It has been meticulously constructed to protect us from the pain of dissonance between its idea of what it wants and our reality. 

We look to gurus, master meditators and highly acclaimed elders to guide us on how we can obtain such levels of peace and awareness. But the true masters of this circumstance are usually animals. Simply watching an animal living and surviving, it is in a constant state of acceptance most of the time. When an animal is in pain or in need, it simply accepts that state and adapts to what is to be done to find an equilibrium again. 

It doesn't fight against it, debate internally with whether the situation is right or fair or wanted, it simply does what is needed with what is present. 

If it is hurt, it might take shelter and rest, when hungry, it looks for food, if it is horny and aroused, it seeks a mate. The bliss of the animal kingdom is that they haven’t created a vast array of stories, meaning or reasoning as to why the situation they are in might be unfolding, considering and deciding if it is justified and whether or not it wants to respond to the circumstances. They simply accept and respond. 

That constant soothing of natural law is why I spend so much time in nature, why we advocate for grounding and all the principles and foundations of healing and wellness we talk about at Love School (life design, shadow work and ecosystem mindset). When it comes to accepting life and allowing what is to align us with the magic of what unfolds, nature always has the answers. 

Allowing and acceptance are states of being, a release and letting go. 

Surrendering to the moment, the will of life, knowing we have no choice but to allow, when all things are considered. We might accept our circumstances, and it leads to inspiration or an idea to take action, we might accept, and it leaves us spent, resting and in need to pause or reflect. There are all manner of possibilities that acceptance can invite into our circumstances. 

What acceptance does is move our ego out of the way and connect us with truth. 

It brings us back into observer consciousness, grounded in the present moment and opens us to simply be, where we are, how we are and who we are. Be alive with the real, full truth of our situation and then invite an innate, primal and intuitive wisdom to arise from that state of presence and truth.

Our ego is a master of comparison, as the saying goes, comparison is the thief of joy! We have become masters of creating our own misery, often by simply deciding what we are experiencing isn’t right, wanted or fair, and that life is not as it should be. 

We might face challenging situations at times, where we go through challenges, when we face hardships, but who decided that isn't right, wanted, needed for the best and even what life might be about?

We decide or are conditioned and told early on that ideas such as justice, fairness and happiness are states, conditions or virtues we should and need to steer towards to enjoy life. When those consciousnesses exist, we will have or be good, life is acceptable, and we are successful. 

Those subtle ideas can often control the core motivations of our mind and define our very existence. Mental health issues are very often rooted in this discontent and disconnect between our circumstances and reality as it presents to us, the meaning we assign to it or them and what we think should exist or have happened instead. 

This state is misalignment in action. 

Our mind, body, energy, and spirit are all pushing and pulling you in different directions. Our soul, our spirit, is vast, adaptable and accepting in its very nature. Our spirit has capacity, potential in your soul's journey is to learn, grow and experience life. Regardless of what it is, because of what it is. 

If we are the source energy experiencing itself in all manner of experiences, it is our experience, in our body, at this time in these circumstances, that that strand of source energy wants to experience. The spirit will always guide us toward growth. 

But our mind seeks understanding, our ego predictability and certianty and our body wants comfort, safety and security. These states or parts of ourselves can often be in conflict. 

The further away from acceptance, and if we are detached or rejected from it, the further we are from our soul essence source and the peace we crave. 

On my journey, I found disappointment to be one of the more challenging emotional experiences to process and experience. For me, it was entangled in wounds around rejection, or failure, shame, and not feeling good enough. So, to not get or have what I wanted, to have something fail, be denied or otherwise bypass my experience and be without was hard to navigate. 

But I have found that being able to find peace without the things I want, despite not having them or the thing working out, to be able to accept my reality as it is, regardless of hopes and desires, has created a more harmonious inner life. 

The peace I was searching for through circumstance was always available to me; I just didn't really know how to access it or have the capacity to hold it. 

Having emotional responses to loss and failure is perhaps natural due to the environments and cultures we are caught up in. The striving to succeed and to have things, own possessions and desire experiences is deeply ingrained in our motivation systems and economy. So much of our lifestyle is curated around the soothing of our disappointment of not having these things, or to fuel our efforts to acquire them. 

As I learned to let go of the striving, and instead act in alignment and respond to life, I learned that my capacity for holding life, surrendering, accepting and allowing it to be as it is, is often directly related to my capacity to hold less, loss, a little or what isn’t there. Especially since the coping habits of my ego self were to fill the void, be busy, overwork, overfunction, and have more (friends, substances or experiences). 

The distance between our striving and wanting and our acceptance can be vast; this is what creates the void we are trying to fill! 

The bigger the difference, the deeper the void. And we can create this void around anything. How we want life to be, how we wanted or prefer it had been, how we want to feel or look etc, etc. The more we compare our ideals and ideas, the more we hope for different things, the bigger the void and the more difficult it becomes to fill. 

The emotions we are avoiding through the filling of the void, the a-void-ance, which may encourage repression or denial of how we feel and the full truth of our reality, can become a heavy weight and burdensome. 

Trying can use a lot of additional energy than simply doing or being in natural flow; it can be hard and challenging for us. It requires a lot of effort, and especially if the energy is out of alignment and perhaps striving for something superficial we think we want rather than something aligned that we truly need or is part of our life or soul purpose (the unique energy traits and characteristics we have and are designed to embody). It can have a toll on us, mentally, emotionally and energetically in the long run. 

It can lead to breakdowns, burnout or states such as anxiety or depression as we are stretched too thinly and have lost the strength and capacity to energetically hold life as it is. 

To address the void can also be painful and require growth, presence and effort. Which is why we don’t always do ut an avoid that place. We may have to go through a process of grief and feeling the space and pain of the void being without. Processing the emotions of our sadness, disappointment or anger. Allowing that to express itself and be witnessed and felt. 

As we are present with the gap, as we allow ourselves to be honest, it begins to lessen, and we move into a state of acceptance. Strong emotional responses, crying, for example, as a release, often bring us into a state of acceptance, which is why we often feel better after crying and feel more centred in the space of clarity with what is occurring, even if it is initially unwanted. 

The contrast of the states of not having what we want or desire from an ego state and striving for what we think we should want or need is very different from aligned motivation and effortless work that compounds towards our true life vision. One is a state of alignment, and the other is depletion, taking us away from it. There is a divergence with one that creates the void and a convergence and sense of completion and wholeness with the other that feeds us and fulfils us, making the void obsolete. 

When we realise the reason there is pain is because we are not accepting what exists and therefore are not on the path that is in alignment with our wellbeing, it can invite the state of allowing.  And then surrender, naturally arriving into the state of acceptance. 

Knowing we are where we are for a reason, because of all the choices we have made, experiences we have had and because of the person we are. We are here, now, with what we have because that is what our life has led us through and to. 

Finding acceptance can also be as simple as breathing with awareness that we are here. Practising mindfulness and grounding is a powerful tool for cultivating states of acceptance. It brings us both a sense of awrenss if self as a single human. 

If we also practice meditation and tap into the energy beyond ourselves, we can also expand our conscious awareness. We can combine both experiences to create space to consider that we are also part of something else. In meditiation we become something bigger; we can practice tapping into that larger perspective and insight, give ourselves up and surrender our control to a higher intelligence. One that created us, specifically the way we are, for a specific purpose. 

As we meditate, we might be able to tap into a fruitful vision for our future, not just the ego successes we are taught to crave, but we may be able to see a long-term, fulfilling and sustainable life vision aligned with who we are and how we truly want to live. 

When we can accept life as it is, we are feeding and growing our observer awareness. Tapping into a higher perspective and a different perspective. We move out of ego consciousness and into our true self. 

Our true self can and will learn to hold the truth of our circumstances, accept and allow what is, even when it is limited or lacking compared to what we might be inclined to prefer. We can grow into this level of capacity when we sit with and feel the contrast of our current reality or current self that limits that potential. 

This space can be painful, but it is part of our soul growth. It is often referred to as the “dark night of the soul” as we question what we see as our reality, face the challenges we now see and the truth of the void and the circumstances we are truly in. We might also see all the limitations we have suffered through, when our vision is compared with the circumstances we have, got or have been given. 

But remember, comparison is the thief of joy! This soul growth state is not easy, but it is necessary to evolve past our existing self capacity. When we are in the darkness, and we see the void we are in. But as we hold these states of being with truth and witness it all, they integrate. 

Our soul and true self is capable enough to be able to cultivate a future vision for our life that keeps us moving forward in peace and alignment with a sense of acceptance. 

As we act because of our vision, despite our uncertainty or knowing and trust, we have faith in that higher vision, and we begin to remove ourselves and find alignment, creating our soul path. We heal and evolve. 

It becomes who we are to invest in the potential and to find peace regardless of what we have or our circumstances. This is when the true power of acceptance becomes part of who we are and core to our healed self. 

Additional Support

If you find this blog post helpful, you might benefit from the following videos:

To understand how energy supports our healing, our Energetic Alignment for Recovery Masterclass explains in more detail how we integrate and align from an observer perspective. 

Our Building Energetic Power Course take s a deep dive into energy and soul growth as we choose a path of personal evolution and move toward health and wellness. 

If you struggle to find acceptance of reality due to past abuse or feel coerced and manipulated by the power dynamics in your current reality, our Freedom From Illusions Course can be helpful to move past these restrictive states of awareness.