As it’s been a while since I wrote to you, and I thought I’d share both a video of a guided meditation that I did with our Daily Mindfulness Club members this morning, for you all to enjoy.

In this meditation, I teach three things:

1. The value of feeling difficult sensations in your body to help transform your relationship to them

2. The power of acceptance and different ways to come to acceptance

3. Reflecting on a quote from Byron Katie

Let’s go through each of them in turn

Feeling difficult sensations

Why would anyone want to ever feel difficult sensations?! It seems crazy. But mindfulness does seem crazy... except it works. When early experiments on mindfulness were done with people experiencing chronic pain, they found their experience of pain went down by up to 90%. Amazing. My friend has experienced chronic pain for years. I asked him when he meditates. And he told me he’s meditating all the time - if he wasn’t meditating, he’d be screaming.

Mindfulness is powerful stuff.

If you listen to the guided meditation, you’ll discover it’s not just about feeling the sensation, although that is a vital part of the experience. Mindfulness is about using creative ways of meeting that difficult sensation with kindness, curiosity, acceptance and my favourite one at the moment - the observer self. What I like to call the transcendent self.

The Power of Acceptance

It’s only after doing this mindfulness stuff for 20 years that I’m really beginning to appreciate the power of acceptance. It’s the most powerful way to cultivate peace of mind.

I am accepting my past could not have been any different to how it was, and that’s hugely liberating. 

I am accepting this present moment and life situation that I’m in is exactly the way it’s supposed to be - otherwise it’d be different. That doesn’t mean it’s good or bad - it just means it is the way it is. 

And I am learning to accept my future too, whatever it may be. My future will be the way my future will be! I know this all may sound completely crazy to you if you’ve not explored acceptance before. You may be thinking ‘My past could have been better! And this present moment is horrible! As for my future - I’m going to make it better, otherwise it’ll be terrible.’

I’ve come to realise acceptance is more powerful than frustration. Frustration with the way the world is and other people are and the way you are, is tiring. It’s draining. It leads to burnout. 

But when you accept that the universe is the way the universe is, then you have much more energy to play with. To make changes through an inner calling and drive to make changes, not out of heavy obligation. You can sleep when you’re tired. You can say what you feel. And you can have fun trying to make a difference too.

The energy you generate through frustration and anger is limited and not always wise or kind. It can be, but it can also be destructive too. The energy you have when you accept everything the way it is, feels limitless. Then change becomes easier.

And this brings me to the quote from Byron Katie I discovered today.

Quote on Acceptance

“Life is simple. Everything happens for you, not to you. Everything happens at exactly the right moment, neither too soon nor too late. You don't have to like it... it's just easier if you do.”

― Byron Katie

The quote isn’t perfect as life doesn’t always feel simple or right at all. But there’s something to learn here.

I like this quote because it helps you to see your life in another perspective. Rather than seeing all the tragedies happening to you, you see them as opportunities to learn something new. And the quote also gives you choice - you don’t have to like anything. You can hate the way things are if you wish...but that does have a consequence. If you learn to accept the way things are, you’ll find things are easier for you, and you’ll have more mind space to come up with creative solutions to life’s challenges. Be those challenges for you, your family, your community, your nation, humanity or mother earth as a whole.

There’s many issues that need dealing with in our world. And I urge you to take action to make changes when you feel called to do so.

But remember...

Change starts with acceptance. 

What will you accept today?