If you could summarize your experience of 2021, what word comes to mind?

When I look back over the past 365 days of my life,
I’m reminded of
growth and growing pains,
personal loss and gains,
incredible new connections and difficult separations,
and discovery and communion with Spirit.

I would summarize 2021 with one word – ACCEPTANCE.

Prior to this year, I hadn’t given “acceptance” much thought. I just assumed I accept every person and circumstance in my life, because I’ve released judgments and criticism around them. I assumed I accepted what was, because I let it be.

The truth is…I confused acceptance with resignation.

When we resign ourselves to something or someone’s behavior, we don’t honor them or ourselves. I confused acceptance with failure or agreement. True acceptance is neither. In reality, acceptance is simply telling the truth, and letting things be as they are.

True acceptance of others can never happen without self-acceptance first.

Gratefully, this was shown to me this year with so much grace and mercy. Once I saw that I was not accepting myself fully, I was able to ask the question, “Where else am I not truly accepting someone or something?” That lesson came in the form of physical illness for me. It was a deep learning that I can only describe as “brutal and raw.”

As I recovered, I experienced true freedom as the word “acceptance” was whispered in my ear.

Carl Jung said, “Where you resist, you persist.” The resistance to take my ego out of a situation in hope that it would change was causing my experience of the situation to persist. When I realized that I have no control over it changing and that it has nothing to do with me, that is when I was able to accept it, fully and without judgement. This is Radical Acceptance.

You know you have reached Radical Acceptance when:

• It is all the way, complete and total.
• You accept with your mind, heart, and body.
• You stop fighting reality and let go of bitterness over things not being how you want them to be.

Eckhart Tolle writes, “When you live in complete acceptance of what is, that is the end of all drama in your life.”

If I would have understood this concept sooner, it would have saved me a lot of grief and pain. But, everything in life is a process. I realize now that acceptance is the first step in the process of transformation. As long as we are constantly transforming and becoming a better version of ourselves, then we are doing the work.

It starts with acceptance and ends with fulfillment.
Everything in between is life.

May 2022 be a year of radical acceptance and transformation for all of you!

Big Love,
Maria