First off, I haven’t written in a few days here, please forgive me. I’m back at it again.

Awareness, acknowledgment and acceptance are the triplets that make life infinitely easier. This post will be a little shorter than my usual 1,500+ words, and it’s my intention to make it power packed with stuff you can use right away to make your life better, easier and thus, create more of what you love. Let’s go!

What is awareness?

Good question. Awareness is knowing who you are, what you do, when you do it, how you do it and why you do it. It sounds simple, yet it’s easy to fall into the trap of being almost completely unconscious of who we are and what we’re doing. And quite a few of us have no idea why we do what we do.

How does one become aware?

Another good question. By taking deep breaths and staying present in each moment. The reason we tend to live life so unconsciously is because the mind is in either one of two places:

The past

or

The future

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Rarely are we ever fully present in the right now moment (unless we’ve done considerable work on creating and maintaining that state of being). Left to its own devices, the human mind quickly turns to guilt, remorse, sadness and/or self-flagellation over events and situations in the past (over which we have absolutely no control) or it races ahead to fear of what might, could or should happen in the future.

Anytime your mind languishes in the past, or races ahead to the future, you’re not present NOW.

Take this test today: set an alarm to ring every hour on the hour. When the alarm rings, immediately stop what you’re doing and write down what’s on your mind in that instant. You may be astounded, in the most unpleasant of ways. This is because we don’t even know what we’re thinking half the time. Thinking is automatic and the mind won’t stop doing it, unless you do something to cause the mind to stop and take a breather.

Determine to become more aware of who you are, what you do, when you do it, how you do it and why you do it by employing these three strategies:

1. MOVE SLOWER…slow down. Slow down. I’ll say it one more time (mostly for my benefit–I can be a Type A who moves at the speed and velocity of a tornado) slow down. The slower you move, the easier it is to be conscious and present NOW.

2. BREATHE DEEPER…Eckhart Tolle (author of The Power of Now and A New Earth) says that whenever you are aware of your breath, you are in the present moment. Make deeper breathing a part of your daily practice, all day, every day.

According to some, the number one indicator of life expectancy is lung capacity.

3. PRACTICE SENSUALLY IMMERSING YOURSELF IN THE MOMENT…feel the temperature on your skin, focus your eyes on what’s in front of you, inhale the fragrances and scents wafting through the air, feel the fibers of your clothing against your skin… Practice using all your senses by immersing yourself in the sensory experience you are having in this moment.

When you master awareness, you’ll drop the nasty little habit of blaming. That’s because you’ll be aware of what’s in your consciousness and you’ll take full responsibility for drawing all like experiences to you, wanted and unwanted. You’ll stop blaming people for being rude and start asking yourself what exists in your consciousness that would attract a rude person. (Get rid of the rudeness in your consciousness and it would be next to impossible for you to run into rude people, and if you did, they wouldn’t affect your happy mood in the least.)

When you’re aware:

You’re awake.

You know who you are.

You know what you do.

You know when you do it.

You know how you do what you do.

And you know why you do what you do.

How do we stay aware? Be breathing and staying present RIGHT NOW, without allowing the monkey mind to ruminate on the past or jump fretfully to the future.

The next step is acknowledgment.

What is acknowledgment?

Glad you asked. It’s the act, art and practice of stating what you do, when you do it. For instance, if you become aware that you have a tendency to blame other people for your stuff, acknowledging it (just before you do it or in the midst of doing it) may sound something like this:

Scenario: You’re trying to get your kids to school on time in the morning and they seem to drag. You yell at them to hurry up! Then you remember your new awareness/acknowledgment/acceptance habit and you say instead:

Kids, I haven’t planned very well this morning. It would have been wise for me to have prepared myself more last night. Now that we’re running late, I wanted to blame you and rush you. That’s not right. I acknowledge that I haven’t planned well or organized myself. I’m now getting feedback from my world on what I need to work on. I’ll be more proactive tonight so we’ll all have plenty of time in the morning to get ready in a relaxed way.

It may not sound exactly like that, use your own words, but please do acknowledge your issues (you don’t have to go around blurting out everything you think is wrong with you). This is a way of life to develop that keeps you out of blame and points your attention to the only place where you can effect real change: in the mirror. Remember, you can only successfully influence and lead others to the degree that you influence, lead and master yourself.

Acknowledgment puts the people around you at ease. After all, you’re not going to blame them for your stuff. Plus, they’ll start to acknowledge their stuff too, and they’ll stop blaming you. When you create a No-Blame Zone around you, life becomes delightful for you and your people.

Acknowledgment requires humility and willingness to check ego at the door and not let it back in the picture, no matter what the other person says. You don’t really care what the other person says anyway; your courageous act of acknowledgment is putting you in a better place in the universal order of things because you’re empowered. When you feel empowered you do what it takes to make a change. That’s what you want!

What’s the role of Acceptance?

Acceptance can be tricky for some because it’s been confused with agreement. Acceptance and agreement are not the same. Acceptance means you’ve found a way to retain your inner peace and calm even in the midst of a situation you don’t like. You accept it by saying “it is what it is”, as you commit to making a new choice going forward. You don’t have to like something or agree with it to accept it.

For example, a husband leaves socks/clothes on the floor (these examples are from my life if you haven’t guessed). In the past, it would’ve been easy for me to get harried and frustrated at the sight of clothes on the floor. I would have badgered my husband about picking up his clothes. I would have sucked my teeth loudly every time I passed them. Not any more. Now, I can walk by an entire laundry load of clothes on the floor and not get perturbed.

I’ve resolved in my heart and mind that it’s just not worth it. He can pick up his clothes or not. Because I no longer get bent out of shape about it, I barely see clothes on the floor.

Hmmmm, funny how that works…

Acceptance means you understand you cannot control another. You can’t force anyone to do, think or say what you want them to without unpleasant repercussions. They will resist being controlled, and you won’t get what you want anyway. It’s just not worth it.

The opposite of acceptance is resistance, fighting what is. What you resist persists. What you fight stays with you, because you’re adding energy to it, albeit negative energy.

Acceptance takes all the fight and resistance out of the picture, allowing the situation to change. Because of your changed and peaceful inner state of being, what you don’t like begins to slip away. There’s no resistant energy to hold it in place.

Try this exercise: pick three things that frustrate, annoy or irritate you (don’t start with something that infuriates you–you can always work your way up to that). Look at each situation, one at a time, and ask yourself:

1. What am I trying to get someone else to do?
2. Is this an issue of control?
3. Am I using manipulation to get my way (though it may be subtle)?
4. This person hasn’t changed this behavior yet, what makes me think they will, or have to?
5. Who died and left me boss?

Then state silently to yourself:

IT IS WHAT IT IS.

IT IS WHAT IT IS.

IT IS WHAT IT IS AND I AM COMMITTED TO MAKING A NEW CHOICE.

Keep chanting this statement until somewhere in your being you feel a shift toward believing it.

Then release it.

Go about your business and don’t try to get the person to do anything different.

(This process is only for working on issues that cause you no harm.)

If the issue comes up again (which it will–your new commitment will be tested, you can count on that) just continue chanting to yourself:

IT IS WHAT IT IS.

IT IS WHAT IT IS.

IT IS WHAT IT IS AND I AM COMMITTED TO MAKING A NEW CHOICE.

It’s always helpful to offer a prayer on how to retain your inner peace and calm in the midst of experiencing something you don’t like. Don’t necessarily pray for the thing to be taken away immediately, especially if this is a long standing issue. There’s a lesson here for you, if you’re willing to learn it. And if you don’t learn the lesson now, the lesson will just come back, amplified.

Well, I thought I wouldn’t write more than 1,500 words and here I am at 1,700, so forgive me. I acknowledge that I love to share information and sometimes don’t know when to stop!

I pray you use what’s here to make a radically new choice, one that befits the amazing person you are!

Until next time,

Valerie Love

Tags: acceptance, acknowledgment, awareness, breathe, choice, conscious living, peace of mind, responsibility, transformation