Acceptance

Black and white illustration by Mari Pardun of a tree with "Unity," "Peace," and "Love" in its roots, symbolizing interconnectedness and harmony.

Have you ever been the new person at school? Or at a job? Perhaps you have been the new person in a neighborhood or community. Perhaps you left the safety of your hometown to discover a new home that initially felt scary, strange or foreign.

Who are we during these in-between moments? Do we lose value because we feel as though we have lost our place in the world?

Let us take a moment to consider how incredibly small we seem within this endless universe.

Who are these be-ings on this fascinating, green planet suspended in space?

We often pretend as if we cannot see how small we are in comparison to the expansiveness of this planet and universe. We do what we can to make our lives seem larger-than-life. We do what we can to convince ourselves of worthiness and value. We attach labels to ourselves and to one another. We give these labels the power to influence who we are and who believe ourselves to be.

From the moment we are conceived we begin to receive these labels. Our families, often well-intended, become excited to know what the child’s sex will be. Giving labels based on our anatomy. Assigning gender, boy or girl. He or she.

We understand the world based on our personal experiences and the families we are born into. These experiences are greatly influenced by the geographical location in which we were raised.

Black, Brown, or White.

Queer or straight.

Poor or Rich.

Smart or dumb.

Short or tall.

Success or failure.

Worker, student, partner, or friend.

Teacher, counselor, IT professional or CEO.

College graduate or dropout.

Democrat or republican.

Religious, spiritual or somewhere in between.

Bombarded with images, concepts, and ideas intended to influence how we view ourselves and one another. We restrict ourselves to the labels and images we grow up seeing.

These labels and external factors claim to define our worth.

Why are we drawn to these ideas?

Why are these labels given such high regard?

Could it be that we are seeking acceptance?

Or meaning?

Or Love?

Could it be that we fear seeing ourselves and one another fully?

Perhaps we are afraid to see how magnificently insignificant we all are.

Perhaps we are scared to accept that we are like microscopic ants scrambling around to find the crumbs.

We have a compulsion towards comparing ourselves with one another. In doing so we try to establish our worth by seeing ourselves as better or worse than we are. We seek worthiness externally, rather then accepting that we are ALL worthy.

We have a compulsion towards division. Failing to understand that division in its nature is divisive. We see the worst in one another and fail to understand that we could just as easily be in someone else’s shoes.

If we are all born onto this planet and die on this planet just the same…

Why would one deserve more than another?

Why would we turn our eyes away from the plight of our fellow humans?

The differences between us reside within the mind, within the labels created by the mind.

We must begin to understand this.

We are one.

We eat.

We walk.

We drink.

We communicate.

We live.

We die.

We are connected.

We are not enemies.

We are all experiencing.

Tasting.

Expanding.

Expressing and creating.

And loving.

No grief.

No time thief.

We are free.

We have always been free.

The key to accepting one another completely is to accept that we will never see the world as others do. It is accepting that we will never know what it is like to live in someone else's skin or to walk in their shoes. It is knowing this, noticing the differences, and still treating one another as family, nonetheless.

Imagine a world where people see the oneness of us all. A place where otherness is a thing of the past and wholeness reigns throughout the collective.

Speak this into existence:

I am grateful to align within myself.

I am grateful to be co-creating these moments.

I am grateful for abundance.

I am grateful for freedom.

I am grateful for flexibility, creativity, and adventures.

I am grateful to be able to express myself fully.

I am grateful to live in the now moments.

I am grateful for those who came before us, those that reside in this moment with us and those that will follow.

We are fully human.

We are fully divine.

Miracles are our nature.

We see the light within ourselves.

We see the light within one another.

~Acceptance~ By: Christine Nicholas

Constellation

microcosm of "fitting in or not" that I find myself lost in... my subconscious stirs up a dark daydream of thoughts and I wonder how life would be lived differently if the breath were picky about what body it served… if even as a cloud I was judged… judged for being too small and inconspicuous to dine at the table of the vast sky if the sun turned its back on me….arms crossed in dissatisfaction, as if to deprive me of the warmth of its rays because of the assumption I would not bloom beautifully enough for eyes to see or that My fragrance would not be that of roses… In my angst I drop to my knees and pray that when the sky drops its judgements of Me, and all the clouds come together and the rain seeps into my earth-toned skin...

my heart would feel nurtured by its quenching waters given as a gift from the sky... and when the sun opens its eyes and marries Its view with the eyes of the vast sky, it would see how its shiny food entices bumblebees

to become drunk on the nectar of the flowers beneath my feet and how the support of evolving Life all around draws near to me as the acceptance and unconditioned Love of strangers in all forms And the blanketed warmth formed by the clouds in the vast sky... morphs into a concrete bed of flowers beneath my feet... And as I stand tall in Who I Am I draw closer to peaceful respite and contentment in the rise and fall of the chest of God within and I can see with new eyes the macrocosm of Love as I rest peacefully dozing blissfully in this I Am Presence feet planted firmly in the accepting soil of the flowers gazing up in awe at the welcoming sun as the clouds pass by…