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Acceptance spiritchat 001

 
By Guest Co-Host,  Samantha S Hall

Join us this coming Sunday, May 25, 2014, as we courageously explore the topic of ACCEPTANCE together!

In a society and culture where shame is still highly prevalent, learning how to not only FIND our true selves in the raging seas of other people’s expectations, but to still have the capacity to extend acceptance to ourselves can be a daunting task.  

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

We spend the majority of our lives learning other people’s belief systems and unconsciously adopting all of these beliefs as our own.  Part of this is perfectly natural to our learning, evolution, and growth.  However, we can totally lose ourselves if we ever found it at all in trying to be what other people have attempted to mold and shape us into.  At the end of the day or more importantly, at the end of our life….

  • Did we even know ourselves  at all? 
  • Did we learn to think for ourselves or did we blindly adopt what others thought? 
  • Did we know what we really felt; whether it was good or bad?  Positive or negative? Or just plain old indifferent? 
  • Did we know or give ourselves permission to learn what it is we like and didn’t like? 
  • Did we give ourselves permission to experiment and fail? 
  • Did we even know what we wanted?
  • Did we know what we really needed?
At the root of acceptance is knowing ourselves.  Without censure.  Allow that to sink in for a moment as for many, I’m sure parts of your mind and body are already squirming at just the thought.  It may feel uncomfortable to consider simply noticing what we think and feel in any given moment without judging it because we’ve been so conditioned to deny so many things about ourselves in order to be acceptable to others.  

Unfortunately for many, we learn to deny basic needs.  We learn to deny and stuff our feelings and wind up remaining imprisoned in situations that we feel we are  powerless to do anything about.  And we don’t, so long as we can’t even acknowledge and accept what we really think and feel about anything.

So what would happen if you took a baby step and began by simply acknowledging what your body is feeling right now?  What if you took a moment to scan and simply NOTICE what you are experiencing while in your body?  For many, this will be unfamiliar.  We spend so much of our time focused on externals that we avoid or deny our own internal world.  We become detached and lose the most important relationship we will ever have.  The one we have with ourselves. 

Our ability to connect and develop in intimate relations with others (intimate to mean a relationship beyond the superficial…they have true depth), is directly linked to the intimacy we have with ourselves.  If we aren’t intimate with our own selves, how can we be with anyone else?
This Sunday we are going to explore this vast topic on the nature of acceptance.  Perhaps we might only lift the lid on it in the brief hour that we will spend and share together. It is my hope that each of us will walk away accepting a little or a whole lot more ourselves and each other then we did before.  

  • We will also explore common misunderstandings and myths about acceptance. 
  • We will also take a look at shame’s role in our sense of unworthiness and inability to accept ourselves.
  • We will also explore ways we can find and extend more acceptance and compassion to ourselves without forsaking true responsibility. 

All of this and more this Sunday!  So we cordially invite you to join us for #spiritchat at 9am EST/6am PST on Sunday May 25, 2014.  We look forward to ‘seeing’ you there!
DavidWhyte Poem

 
Connect with Samantha at her website: TweetConnection
Twitter: @Samantha_S_Hall
Please accept the invitation of co-host @Samantha_S_Hall as she leads us in a journey towards a greater “Spirit of Acceptance”. The blog post above may have given you a preview of the breadth and depth of our chat. Samantha has been a member of our #SpiritChat community for quite a while, and she has framed a lot of excellent questions for us. Thank you, Samantha! – Kumud