ACCEPTANCE

You cannot control everything. You don’t have to control everything. You don’t have to know how things will work out.

Where Energy Comes from

Imagine this: you didn’t sleep last night. You were up at 4 am and you had a long day at the office. You fought the boss and you fought the traffic. It’s now 6 pm and you are home, collapsed on the sofa, too tired to shower and too tired to eat. Your phone rings, and it’s a very official-sounding lady. She verifies your name and address and says, “We have been trying to contact you all day. Congratulations! You are the winner of the state lottery – the sum of twenty million dollars.”

You leap three feet in the air. “Twenty million! We’re RICH!” 

You race up and down the stairs to find the family. You call your mother, your brother, all your friends and neighbours. “Get over here! Let’s party!”

QUESTION: Where did you get all the energy from? It had to come from somewhere! You say, “It’s the money!” But it’s not the money. You haven’t even got it yet. And it could be a hoax.

Here’s where the energy came from: energy flows into your being every time you say, “THIS IS A GREAT MOMENT!” It is how life works. It is the cosmic difference between “Oh, YES!” and “Oh, no!”

It’s why three-year-olds are unstoppable. To three-year-olds, everything is fresh and exciting. They are energy channels. If you could get a three-year-old to worry about Energy flows into your being every

the time you say, “This is a GREAT MOMENT!” mortgages and medical bills, he would be as tired as his grandparents.

Blockages

The Chinese understand energy. Chinese medicine explains why, when you get angry with your boyfriend, you get a raging headache. You tense up in your neck and shoulders, you choke off the energy flow in your “meridians” and you get a pain in your head.

Whenever we resist a situation, whenever we say, “This is not okay,” we block energy flow.

Massage or acupuncture removes the blockage. (So does forgiving your girlfriend.) You relax, the energy flows and there is no more headache.

We are all channels – we channel energy and inspiration. The word, “enthusiasm”, comes from the Latin, “enthusiasms”, meaning divine inspiration, possessed by a god. When we are enthusiastic, we have life force flowing through us and we are connected to everything. But every time we say, “This is a bad moment!”, every time we find fault, every time we judge people and events, we clog our channel.

When electricity can’t travel down a wire or past a piece of plastic tape, we say there is “resistance”. When there is enough resistance, electrical energy stops flowing altogether.

Saving Energy

You can’t save up your energy like money in a bank. The less you love, the less love flows through you. The less energy you spend, the less energy flows through you.

Misery and apathy shut off your energy. That is why depressed people are mostly exhausted. Passion for life and people restores the flow.

Acceptance

Perhaps you are broke right now. Perhaps you have lost your job or lost a loved one. Maybe you are sick. You say, “I just don’t know what to do.”

Here is the first thing to do: accept where you are. To turn things around, you first make peace with your situation. Forget about blame, forget about guilt, forget the “what ifs”. Progress depends on acceptance.

Acceptance doesn’t mean, “I want to stay here.” Acceptance means, “This is where I am – and now I move on to what I want.”

Acceptance is power.