Finding a Place in Your Heart to Move Toward Acceptance

Awareness That Heals, episode 119.

A very warm welcome to Season Three of Awareness That Heals where we have progressed to be able to focus on one challenging emotion at a time. This will allow you to choose a specific emotion that you’ve had challenges with, and each one will have a progressive series of guided meditations that will allow you to go deeper and deeper into self-compassion. For me, it’s truly inspiring because each emotion has unique nuances for both self-care and responding to your environment at the same time. This is subtle and a rare skill as all too often we don’t stay aware of how we can care for ourselves as we are. I hope that you’ll not only find it helpful, but also give you deep resources that you can internalize when the emotion is most emerging.

(01:07)
The natural starting point for not only this meditation, but really for almost any time is for you to recognize that you are the observer, and being the observer allows you immense freedom. Because instead of being identified with the anxiety, you can recognize that you are the one observing the anxiety, and this naturally leads you to a place where you can recognize that you want to care for yourself when you are in anxiety. And this combination of being aware of the anxiety and wanting to care for yourself is utterly evolutionary and opens the door to a whole range of qualities and actions and thoughts and gives you guidance to improve your quality of life. It’s very natural when you see the anxiety, to say, you aren’t all of me anxiety, I can see both you and there’s another capacity to steer my attention. I can tolerate and accept and even welcome my anxiety.

(02:41)
Eventually, as I develop my practice and I can talk to the anxiety and let it know that I want to care for it, or I can ask questions or you can ask it questions about how can you best take care of yourself when you’re in this specific moment of anxiety. Once you’ve really gotten the knack of deeply tolerating yourself, deeply accepting yourself when you’re anxious, you also can learn to be the welcomer, which is really like a welcome mat outside your door. It’s an embrace, it’s a hug. It’s treating yourself and the parts of yourself as if they’re a friend rather than an enemy. And that changes your relationship to yourself and the world. And another feature that is so helpful is learning to ask questions from your heart when you’re anxious that are going to ask things like what actions or what attitudes or what communications do I need to pursue to be less anxious or to be relaxed or more relaxed?

(04:07)
These are each tools that help us move up the elevator that we have used as the metaphor for having a rising spirit, for having a quality of life that is continuing to expand. And then we also explore the importance of asking what need or needs are most central to us, and utilizing the Introspective Guides that have 75 needs to help you identify what’s most important, to really ground the observer to be able to help you. When you’re in anxiety, I am suggesting that you put your trust in your awareness and your desire to care for yourself. Recognizing that the tone of voice that you use inside you is a central feature to improve your quality of life. It’s important as we do this introspection that you look at, do I have access to a feeling of appreciation, that I’m someone that’s working on myself that cares about my quality of life. I’m not just living a fairy tale in this world, I’m actually wanting to develop self-compassion and compassion. So now please get ready for the guided meditation.

(05:51)
Now we’re adding the final step or floor in our metaphorical elevator. And we’re asking the question, what are the thoughts, actions, qualities, and or needs that will most help me respond in a way that is going to support me when I’m really anxious? Specifically, you might have three words that you say to yourself, be kind. What are the actions that you might need to take? What are the qualities which are listed in the Introspective Guides? And what are the needs that are really going to guide me when I’m anxious? And when we get that specific to really be able to isolate that many details, our quality of life is assured of really going through, frankly, an endless series of evolutions. Because when we care about our thoughts, our actions, our qualities and our needs, we’re truly entering a quality of life that very few of us have realized or are even directly pursuing.

(07:23)
It’s so subtle that every thought matters or more and more we’re moving in that direction. It’s not helpful to think in terms of absolutes. So when you think of any of these, please see it on a relative continuum and ask yourself now what thoughts do you think would be most helpful when you’re anxious? Think of another situation where perhaps it requires an action or a need or a quality. And when you really drop down and you allow yourself to use the list, which will help you be clear because it’s all too easy to be vague and say, oh, I just need to be more mindful, or I just need to be more compassionate, or I just need to pray more, or I need to meditate more. Those are all helpful. But this allows you to cover a subtlety that will enhance all those other really good practices. So my wish for you, not only with this meditation, but through all of them and beyond all of them, is that your quality of life will be expanded and it will have an immense effect on the people around you and the people around, and that our deeply imperiled world and country can be helped by your inner work that’s opening your heart and caring for the world. So I thank you on behalf of your work and on behalf of our world that badly needs all of our support. Thank you so much.

(09:25)
So again, take a look at where this leaves you. For example, maybe when I brought the world in, maybe you felt inadequate, maybe you felt unworthy, maybe you felt judgmental, or maybe you felt blissed out. But wherever you were, wherever you are, the key messages that are in all these meditations is wherever you are is sacred. And see how much that is or isn’t true for you. And if it gives you a clue, well, I’m not sacred there. Take a look and see, is there anything that you realistically can do or think or attempt to feel or anything? And if it’s something that you can’t do anything about, then you want to move toward acceptance and see if you can find yourself in your heart for a place that wants to move toward acceptance. And if it’s something that you can do something about, see if you can find the courage and the humility to do what’s realistically possible. So I thank you again from the bottom of my heart for giving your attention and your time and energy to this meditation and these meditations. And I wish for you and I wish for our world peace and trust, love and compassion, and thank you for joining us in this series.