Radical acceptance

The boundary to what we can accept is the boundary to our freedom....

I wanted to know what it would be like if all boundaries dissolved and just let life live through me. As I relaxed open, my heart and mind filled with tenderness toward everything that felt so painful in me and seemed so wrong. I realized that any argument I had with life - from the slight self-criticism to the utter anguish of shame - separated me from the love and awareness that are my true home.

Many times since then, especially when i’ve been caught up in tension or self-judgment, I have stopped and asked myself “what would it be like if I could accept life – accept this moment - exactly as it is?” Regardless of which particular mental movie has been playing, just the intention to accept my experience begins to deepen my attention and soften my heart. As I grow more intimate with the actual experience of the waves of experience moving through me, the running commentary in my mind releases its grip, and the tension in my body begins to dissolve. Each time I begin again, wakefully allowing life to be as it is, I experience that vivid sense of arriving, of reentering the changing flow of experience. This letting be is the gateway to being filled with wonder and fully alive.

An excerpt from Tara Brach's book 'Radical Acceptance'