Acceptance is only the beginning.

This guided meditation is to help us rest deeply, embrace this moment and how we feel about it, and then be moved to act from a place of love rather than fear.We hear the words “accept” and “allow,” and we think we are being instructed to get stuck in acceptance, that we just have to come to terms with the cards we’re dealt in life, that it’s all kind of a bummer. That real freedom is being content with a shitty situation and never improving upon it. But why do we get so much satisfaction out of this incredible F**k That meditation by Jason Headley? Where’s the place for having strong opinions, hating something, wanting something, or doing something in the world?We don’t really want to stop at acceptance. We want to do something with ourselves, we want to have something unique to contribute, we want to help, to grow, we want to be an integral part of this world.This path doesn’t stop at acceptance. We use acceptance to move forward and live life in the ways we are meant to live into it, give the gifts we were born to give. Ultimately, acceptance takes us to our wildest dreams. The thing is that we just don’t exactly know what our wildest dreams are yet, because they’re so beyond what our little brains can fathom, that we aren’t exactly capable of dreaming that big.Your generosity makes a huge difference. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.The reason that mindfulness instruction says to simply listen, relax, soften, is because through that softening, we shift out of fear and into love. And love is where we stop fighting with the constraints of reality. It’s where we get start to be involved in our lives in a meaningful and effective way, to be creative, to do what is uniquely ours to do in the world. We give ourselves over to the moment, simultaneously letting the moment move us, while offering something new to it. This is how we get to live fully.What is happening right now? How does your body feel? What is your mind doing? Your heart? Drop out of your ideas and expectations of what should be happening, and connect directly with what is. What if you didn’t have to wait to feel better or to become some imaginary, idealized version of yourself? Stop waiting to find contentment somewhere else: your existence is enough. Rest. Then let yourself be moved from this place.There is a different kind of intelligence at work in your life beyond your thinking mind. You can see this when you look at how your life has unfolded. There's so much more at play than your own plans, ideas, and sense of control. Look at the plans that you had for your life. Now look at what actually happened. Most of what you’ve learned and who you’ve grown to be, has little do do with the plans you had for yourself. We don’t know the lessons we need to learn. Letting go into the flow of life means you finally let life move you to the very places, you come to realize, you’ve been wanting to go all along. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit caralai.substack.com/subscribe