The only day that matters is today.
Be Joy. Be Love.
Find someone or something to open your heart to.
We can change our world just by opening our hearts.
Pause, Take A Breath & Remember
How AMAZING It Is To Be Alive Now!
“Let go or be dragged.”
Zen Proverb
Accept vs. Reject… or Allow
I am a very willful and opinionated person. And in many ways, my tendency to know and speak my own mind has been a strength for me. No one has ever accused me of being a lemming and just going along with the crowd. 🙂
But my willful, opinionated nature is also my Achilles’ heel, a weakness that has gotten me into hot water again and again. I tend to question EVERY authority and every point of view that is different from my own! I have difficulty letting go of my way of seeing the world and making room for other opinions. And I tend to push away people who don’t hold my view of the world. So, the idea of allowing for different opinions and points of view can be a bit of a challenge for me.
Figuring out how to relax and allow may be one of my core “life issues” – an issue that I will struggle with and learn about my entire life. What do I mean by “Relax and Allow?” Being in Allowance means I don’t try to embrace or fight against people or experiences anymore. I can relax and allow events to be however they are WITHOUT feeling the need to accept or reject them. Accepting or rejecting things takes a ton of time and energy. And acceptance vs. rejection is such a polarized black and white way of approaching the world. It’s the view that everyone and everything is either right or wrong, good or bad. It’s actually just flip sides of the same coin.
Allowance takes me beyond holding rigid black and white opinions. Allowance is the third choice. And being in a state of allowance is so different from the polarized, right / wrong energy of accepting vs. rejecting. Allowance is a calm, open space of no judgment; a space where nothing need be labeled right or wrong, good or bad. Everyone and everything is just “allowed” to be however they are today. No need to agree or disagree with that person, just allow space for them to be different. No need to accept or reject that newscast predicting doom and gloom; just breathe and allow for many different ways of seeing the same events.
Being in allowance is like a revelation for me! The idea of just allowing the world outside of me to be however it is today – the idea that I do NOT have to align with it or push against things is a HUGE shift. Allowance shifts me out of agreeing or disagreeing with people and events. Being in allowance means that when a person has a different opinion than mine; I don’t have to fight to change their mind or push them away! I can just “allow” that their way of seeing the world is very different from mine.
Allowance is at the heart of the middle path that Buddha spoke of. It’s also the space of non-judgment that Christ preached about in many different sermons. And it’s the place Rumi wrote so eloquently about:
“Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”
✧
Here are a few mental tools to help you access and explore the open non-judgmental space of Allowance:
When your boss / mother / teen aged daughter / TV news anchor / neighbor shares their opinion with you and you feel yourself start to react and bristle, say to yourself,
“Interesting point of view that they have this point of view.”
Repeat it several times and feel yourself shift and calm down. You may even get to where you can smile about their interesting view!
Try this mental clearing:
What would it take for me to stop labeling everything in the world right vs. wrong, good vs. bad, loved vs. hated, wanted vs. not wanted? Every bit of heavy, yucky, sticky energy that brings up, unravel and destroy it now.
When you catch yourself arguing with someone and trying to change their mind, try the wonder question:
What else is possible here?
or, Interesting point of view that I have this point of view.