Acceptance brings joy

More and more, as I live this life, and share in the joys and tribulations of the lives of others, I believe that at the root of all human misery, is a lack of acceptance. Conversely, behind true joy, if you look for it, you can find acceptance.

• If you can accept your body, you won't be miserable about how you look.
• If you can accept your family as they are, you will be happier when you're with them.
• If you can accept your circumstances, whatever they might be, you can work within them to solve whatever dilemmas you might encounter. You might even find space to laugh.
• If you can accept that you can't control everything, then the uncontrollable becomes less distressing.
• If you can accept that not all situations will come out the way you would like, then it becomes much more bearable when they don't.
• If you can accept autism, you won't need to cure it or fix it. Instead you can move into a place of understanding and awareness, and you can embrace the true joys autism has on offer.
• If you can accept that people come with their individual foibles, they all become more endearing.
• If you can accept tragedy, grief has a much diminished impact.
• If you can accept that some people are going to foist their heartache upon you, then you will be empowered to change your involvement, instead of being stuck in trying to change their "unacceptable" behaviour.
• If you can accept that there can be different races, religions, sexualities, belief systems all at the same time, in the same world, that world becomes much more beautiful.

On the other hand, if you can't accept, you will always feel pain, hurt, misery as you fight against the current. To me, lack of acceptance is a fast track to misery.

It's your choice. I would like to challenge you to look at the things in your life that are causing you pain - can you find something in there you need to accept?


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