Acceptance. What does this word mean to you?

Acceptance.  What does that word mean for you as a spiritual person? 

I completed a workshop not so long ago, where the woman running the workshop wanted us to find acceptance in our life.  She asked us to bring to our minds a traumatic or emotional situation or concern.  She wanted us to go back into the situation and allow our old hurts and pains to be relived or re-experienced.  She claimed by doing this, sitting in the pain once more. we would look for and find acceptance with the situation. 

I found this very confronting.  I had worked very hard to find my peace with the situation and didn’t want to dredge it up again.  I found it hard to work to find acceptance.  I was always taught by my family and by my angels and spiritual team, that yes, we need to learn and understand about the situation, aka the lesson, and then learn to release and forgive for our own healing.  I am afraid I didn’t get much from this workshop, which was disappointing.  I am always looking for ways to learn to release and learn.

When I came back home, I started to ask friends and family what they thought the meaning of acceptance? All the answers seemed so different, but also resonated with the same meanings.  Love, Truth, Understanding, no judgment.  

Many people suggest that acceptance means Universal, Divine, God or Source energy will always be there to help you on your path.  No matter what you have endured or struggled with, you will always be loved and accepted.    One person did suggest that they found acceptance in their life when they simply stopped fighting everything.  Attempted to take on all that was placed in front of them in this lifetime.  To try to work with the situation or issue and move forward.  They said that they found many different lessons this way.  They learned balance and wisdom when they simply accepted what came into their life. 

I found this beautiful, but I am not sure I am that “good” or “spiritual “enough to accept this as the meaning.   Through talking to people about what this word might mean to them, I discovered that a lot of people shared that their idea of Acceptance was to accept themselves.  To accept that when things happen in your life, it is Divine timing or plan.  Not to fight it, and to learn to work with the energy.  Acceptance seemed to align with non-judgment as well.  To allow others around you to just be.  I thought this was a nice sentiment. 

I heard the word Trust a lot when people were describing their thoughts on the meaning of acceptance, but a theme came to light.  It was about being able to not judge people or situations.  To honour the truth.   To understand, in our lifetime, we will have Yin and Yang.  Or light and darkness.  It is the way we can understand and learn when things are good, by accepting when we have darkness entering our lives for a lesson. 

Acceptance is understanding that sometimes things go wrong in your life.  Does this mean you simply have to put up with it?  I do not think so.  I think the ability to look at things and accept that they have come into your life doesn’t mean you cannot make changes to improve or make the situation or issue better.    I have also been shown that accepting what we can change is for our own highest good.  We can’t change the past or the future.  We can only work with what we know and understand.    

Until next month, I will leave you with a quote by Eckhart Tolle.  Would love to hear what you think about acceptance.  Email me your thoughts directly at kathy@angelconnections.com.au or here

"Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it.

Always work with it, not against it." Eckhart Tolle