It's episode 126 of Here to Thrive, and today I'm talking about acceptance. My hope is that this conversation will challenge your mindset. I've found that avoiding, resisting, and judging the situations I'm facing in life has helped me really embrace that concept of not fighting what is and moving towards acceptance. And for me, well, acceptance is a freeing state.
We're going to talk more. Welcome to Here to Thrive. I'm your host, Kate Snowise. This is a podcast for people who are ready to step up and live a happier life.
It's for those of us who are dedicated to understanding ourselves and getting the best that we can out of this thing called life. It's a mix of psychology and modern spiritual thought, always with a focus on practical advice so that you can take it back and apply it to your own life. I don't believe we're here to nearly survive. I truly believe we're here to thrive.
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Let's jump into today's topic of acceptance. I'm going to start with a parable. So one of my amazing clients actually first introduced me to this parable and immediately resonated with me. I was like, hell yes, that is such a good life lesson.
Then last week I was reading a book called Own Yourself by Kelly Brogan and came across this parable again in the book when she was talking about mindset. And I was like, you know what? I need to share that with my Here to Thrive listeners because if it made me go, whoa, yeah, when I first heard it, then I'm sure some of you will have the same reaction. As far as I can tell, it's referred to as the maybe parable and it's a Taoist story if Google serves me well.
Now this Taoist story is about an old farmer who had worked on his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away and upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. Such bad luck, they said sympathetically. Maybe, the farmer replied.
The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. The neighbors came around. How wonderful, they exclaimed. Maybe, replied the farmer.
Then the following day, the farmer's son tried to break in one of the untamed horses and was thrown off it and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy and commiserate about the farmer's misfortune. Of course, the farmer just answered, maybe. The very next day, military officials came into the village to draft young men into the army.
Seeing that his son's leg was broken, the army passed him by. Once again, the neighbors were there, this time celebrating on how well things had turned out. If the son had not had the broken leg, he would have been drafted. But once again, the farmer just responded with, maybe.
Maybe it's good or bad. Who knows? I'm going to put a link to that story in the show notes so that you can go and find it if you want to share it with a friend. It'll also be at my website at thrive.how, podcast 126.
But what do I take from this lesson? Here are a couple of my thoughts. The first one, we can't see the whole picture of our lives. It's reassuring to the human heart to remember that we cannot see the whole picture.
For those of us who are impatient and feel like we have full control over everything, him, I might know someone like that. I'm working on it, okay. For me, remembering that whatever we are currently experiencing is only a part of the story is so empowering. It doesn't necessarily mean that we will one day be able to make perfect sense of everything we've experienced in life.
But I have found that with time and space, it becomes easier to look back at the path we've walked and be able to extract a why or to give the experiences of our life meaning. So often we can't do that when we're living it. So often we can't yet see the meaning when we are in the midst of the lesson. If a farmer had taken a short-term view of his experience in this parable, he would have suffered so much more in the story.
By zooming out and recognizing that each incident was only one more step in his story, he stops himself from getting too attached to the outcome and rather flows with the happenings of his experience. As I mentioned in the introduction, I summarize this with a simple little mantra for myself. Don't fight what is. When times are tough and I feel like life is being unfair, we've all been there.
I take a moment to remember that this is only one part of my story, not the whole thing. There is more yet to come. This may be the lull before the beautiful blessing. And I've held on to hope by recognizing that perhaps there is something to be gained from my hard times if I can just suspend judgment.
So the first lesson I take from this is that we cannot see the whole picture of our lives and we need to remember that, that one part is not the whole. Moving into this concept of suspending judgment, I also note that suffering is tied up with when we judge our experiences as good or bad. In this story, the farmer never labels his experience as good or bad, but simply that it is. It's obviously an idealistic notion and hard to live, by all means I get it, but by understanding the principle of avoiding judgment, I think that we can really empower ourselves when we hit hard times.
Like in the story, with his son breaking his leg. On the surface, it looks terrible, but the very next day, it proves to be a great blessing. Another example, so often we label a breakup as bad, but when we zoom out, the reality is that so often a breakup is a very good thing, even though it causes us a lot of pain. I wouldn't have met my husband if I hadn't have gone through some rough breakups, right?
We all get it. On the surface, for example, winning the lottery can look like a wonderful thing. That's something we'd all label as good, but would you still want the money if you could see into the future and recognize that it caused intense jealousy within your family and that relationships that were important to you were going to be damaged? Not saying that would happen, but you know, it's an example.
The other day, I was watching the movie yesterday. Oh my gosh, great movie, by the way, people. Put it on your watch list. It's the one with the, uh, world has forgotten the Beatles songs.
Oh, so good. Anyway, in the movie, the main character is challenged to commit to drinking from the golden chalice of fame and fortune. But what if it means sacrificing true happiness and connection? This parable for me brings into question the notion of good and bad in our lives.
It's a reminder that what looks good on the surface may actually lead to some of our greatest challenges and vice versa. What is hard may be the precursor to some of our greatest blessings and growth. If we can take that lens and put over our experience, it makes it so much easier to navigate the ups and downs of life. So my second insight is that there is power in suspending our judgment and avoiding labeling our experiences as good or bad.
The final thing I take from this parable is that life is full of ups and downs and the strongest of us recognize that and ride the waves gracefully. Resistance is a force of nature and it's a force within our human psyches too. We have the ability to resist our experiences. We also have the ability to consciously accept our experiences.
From what I've personally experienced of life so far, there are always ups and downs. I was recently watching a Kabbalah video. That was an unintentional plug for next week's episode with Monica Berg, by the way, totally one of my top three favorite interviews ever. So subscribe so you do not miss that one.
But coming back to what I felt I learned from this Kabbalah video, I think it was with Rav Berg and he was talking about marriage vows. And how so often we would say for richer or poorer, for better or worse. But he challenged us to say that that's incorrect. Life isn't about for richer or poorer.
We will always experience both. In a marriage, there will be times when you feel richer and times when you feel poorer. There will be times when you feel better and times when you feel worse. That to be more accurate, it would be better to say for richer and poorer, for better and worse.
Every marriage at some point, if your marriage lasts long enough, will experience ups and downs, including having to face physical health issues. Life is designed to give us all of the experience, the ups and the downs. We don't just get the good. Each of us is going to be challenged with good times and bad times, easy times and hard times.
Knowing that this is how life goes, I think it makes it easier to ride the waves. Now, as a society, I don't think we do this all that well. I think we avoid the uncomfortable stuff. We avoid the tough times.
As a culture, we don't like to talk about death. We shove it under the carpet. We're prone to wanting to slap a happy sicker on everything, if you ask me. But that isn't what life is designed to be.
Trying to minimize the ups and downs of life only brings us more pain when things feel hard. We feel like we're doing something wrong when, in reality, life is designed to be like this. There's relief in recognizing that ups and downs are normal. So my third insight, life is full of ups and downs, and the strongest of us ride the waves raceway.
The concept of acceptance and moving closer towards it when we look at our own life experiences. I want to challenge you today to consider this parable and maybe even share it with someone. Ask yourself, what does this mean to me? What do you take from this short lesson on life?
How could this parable be applied to your life right at this moment? When you look through the lens of the story, what does it illuminate about your own life? For me, I share my broad lessons. Whatever I'm experiencing now is only one slice of my story.
There is power in zooming out and recognizing this. Our suffering is tied up with labeling our life experiences as good or bad. When we can simply accept what is, rather than wanting it to be different, we can avoid so much emotional pain. And finally, life is designed to have the ups and downs.
And when we acknowledge that, it's easier to ride the waves. I mentioned it in the episode. Monica Berg is next week. She's an author and the head of communications, I believe, at the Kabbalah Center.
Now, Kabbalah is something that's always interested me. So I was super interested to have this conversation with Monica about ego and consciousness. It's a good one. I'm not lying when I say it's one of my all-time favorites.
So subscribe now so you don't miss that the week after next. If you want to come find me, you can search here to Thrive on Facebook. A lot of you are finding the group. I really need to get more active in there.
Or head to my website, thrive.how. Until next time, keep thriving, beautiful people. Keep thriving.