Accepting What is and Making Room for What Could Be
How to Bring More Joy Into Your Life & Relationships

By David Stanley Bell

In Fear, You Lose Power

The spiritual path is one of balance between seeming opposites.This is the path to integrate aspects of divergence into convergence.

Buddhism teaches us that all that has a beginning has an end. As the seasons cycle, with death and rebirth, so do we. Heraclitus said we can never bathe twice in the same river. Nature is here to give us clues of our true essence, and we do ourselves disservice when we separate or isolate from nature. We are nature and nature is us.

Quantity should not be confused with quality. All that we have in this life can be gone tomorrow. When we embrace impermanence and lose our fear of losing, all we have is more beautiful and precious, and can transform to something even more beautiful and precious. Even Brad Pitt’s character in the movie 'Troy' knew and referred to this principal.

From Shakespeare's play 'Julius Caesar', comes the quote "Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once." What does this mean? That our suffering and our pain comes from the fear of losing and as long as the fear continues the suffering goes on and on.

In Trust, You Gain Power

So in the acceptance of the cycles and nature of life, in our acceptance of what is, we allow spirit and our interaction with spirit to manifest something even better. All we need do is surrender to enjoy in the moment.

"I'm a lover of reality.
When I argue with What Is, I lose,
but only 100% of the time."
~ Byron Katie ~

Relationships - the Great Testing Ground

Our relationships are the best place to demonstrate this. I have known many people that think that relationships are about trusting and then testing that trust. And then the other party is found unworthy when they violate this trust. To me, this is a constant game of control and judgment; where it is believed that people can’t be trusted and the experiments are set up to constantly prove this sad viewpoint.

Relationships are about learning to just be - to be ourselves, to open, to surrender our fears, to share ourselves, to love and allow ourselves to be loved, to enjoy. Relationships are the best place to practice these because our egos have so much invested in our relationships. So in our conflicts, the illusionary ideas of ego come out to the light of day, into awareness, and that is where issues are resolved.

"When you assume responsibility for what you experience
and share what you experience in a spirit of companionship,
that is the same as forgiveness.
When you hold someone responsible for what you experience,
you lose power."
~ Gary Zukav - The Seat of the Soul ~

When we truly love someone, we want our loved ones to be all that they were meant to be and we receive joy in the process of watching, sharing, nurturing that path. We want our partner to be free of fear and we want to enjoy all that comes in living in that fearlessness, in the moment.

Gary Zukov, in his book "Soul Stories", says "The new female and the new male want to look at their deepest fears. They like to find out what makes them angry or frightened. They want to heal all the parts of themselves that are not healthy - like the parts that do not care about other people, and the parts that do not like themselves. They look for ways that they try to control other people, or be controlled by other people. They also look for parts of themselves that feel victimized, and are resentful... the new female and the new male are partners on a journey of spiritual growth. They want to make the journey. Their love and trust keep them together. Their intuition guides them. They consult with each other. They are friends. They laugh a lot. They are equals. That is what a spiritual partnership is - a partnership between equals for the purpose of spiritual growth."

Trust and Acceptance

In Matthew 6:28, Jesus said “See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?. Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.”

"It doesn't interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for,
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.
It doesn't interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love,
for your Dream, for the adventure of being alive…"
~ From The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer ~