Volume One
Chapter Seven — Steps to Authenticity
November: Acceptance
1. It is easy to accept things you like, but things you don't ... not so much. Living a life of acceptance simply means that you acknowledge that there is very little in your control. You watch it all happen as the observer. You observe what others have chosen to make observable: the good, the bad, and the ugly. You do it without being emotionally invested, without losing your neutrality. Easier said than done. As a feeling, sentient being, you feel angry or sad at what you see. You want to help those involved, but too much emotional involvement on your part could end up hurting you by robbing you of your peace and disconnecting you from your soul's feelings of love. How can you accept all that goes on in the world without feeling somehow drawn into it?
2. When you identify more as soul, you start to disempower things and events and see them as what they are. Everything can happen here, from the most loving and joyous to the most dastardly. You have to take the good with the bad and somehow come out clean in the wash. The negative things, the bad things, are as much a part of life here as the positive ones are. But how can you understand life's dark side, what we refer to as the resistance to love? I say stop trying. Stop giving yourself headaches and stomachaches by trying to figure out why this happened or why that happened and just try to accept that it happened. Look at the facts, accept them, and move on. Not to be cavalier about it, but try to limit the power some of life's horrors have over you. They were difficult enough to begin with without giving them permission to hurt you.
3. Acceptance doesn't mean fighting. It is not opposition to anything. It isn't a hard-liner's staunch stance. Accept that you don't like it. Accept that it is happening even though you don't want it to. Accept that you think it is fair, but someone else is in opposition to what you think. Accept that change is inevitable, and that something positive may rise from the ashes. Acceptance doesn't mean you don't have values and don't care about anything. It means that you understand that much of life is outside your realm of control. If you do have control over some things, then value those things, and allow your soul to use its voice to infuse unconditional love into any situation.
4. Guidelines:
Pick a time of day that suits you best and read the step that corresponds to the appropriate month and date. This is your starting point. Simply reflect on what the step means to you and ways to put it into practice. Accept whatever feelings come to the surface as you work your way through the steps. These steps are the beginning of a transformation where love replaces fear, which is no easy feat. Be patient with yourself. You are doing what few have ever been able to do. Now you have the means. Just add a little willingness and you will be a more soulful and less ego-driven being in just a year's time. Godspeed.
5. November 1
What have you never accepted one hundred percent?
6. November 2
Can you see from the November 1 exercise that the lack of acceptance in this case has brought you pain?
7. November 3
Blame prevents acceptance.
8. November 4
Who do you blame for your response to the November 1 prompt? Yourself or someone else?
9. November 5
Use this day to reflect throughout your current life experience to discover other things or situations that you have never fully accepted.
10. November 6
The opposite of to accept is to reject.
11. November 7
Which things or situations did you finally accept and come to peace about in your current lifetime experience?
12. November 8
Have you ever been rejected by a potential friend because of something they heard about you?
13. November 9
Have you ever rejected a potential friendship because of something you heard about them?
14. November 10
Have you ever rejected a potential friendship for fear about what others would say if they saw you with the person in question?
15. November 11
Have you ever been rejected as a potential friend by someone who did not want to be seen with you?
16. November 12
Reflect on an established relationship that you ended because you did not accept something you had recently discovered about them.
17. November 13
Growing up, did you feel like you had to behave in certain ways, or be a certain way, in order to be accepted?
18. November 14
Being acceptable is a list of arbitrary standards that indicate conditional acceptance.
19. November 15
Conditional acceptance is not true acceptance.
20. November 16
"No shirt, no shoes, no service" is not true acceptance.
21. November 17
Dress codes are not true acceptance.
22. November 18
If you have been a parent, or even a childcare provider at any point in your current lifetime, did you promote the message that the children had to conform by jumping through hoops in order to be accepted?
23. November 19
In order to stay out of society's conflicts, can you accept that you feel strongly about certain things and others do not feel the same way about them?
24. November 20
Agreeing to disagree is a form of acceptance of inevitable differences of opinion.
25. November 21
I accept that I am not my thoughts.
26. November 22
I accept that I am not who I have always thought I was.
27. November 23
I accept that I'm not only who I thought I was, but am also soul, a part of God.
28. November 24
The love of God will help me accept things and people I have rejected.
29. November 25
Rejection is not love.
30. November 26
Accepting others for who they are doesn't mean that it is in my best interests to be around them.
31. November 27
I accept that others may be strongly resisting love and that it may be difficult to be around them.
32. November 28
I can bless everyone and not curse anyone.
33. November 29
I accept that like attracts like and things that are dissimilar may not mutually benefit from each other's company.
34. November 30
I accept that I can save no one. They must save themselves from themselves.
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