The Hard Work that Goes Behind Accepting Your Reality (#012)

Your level of satisfaction is closely linked to your acceptance of reality. In spite of tons of materials on accepting reality, most days, the mere concept is hard to comprehend. That's because accepting yourself is closely tied to accepting reality. What happens when we resist reality? How do we respond when God's business and the reality of other people's lives affect us? In this episode, James and Sean tackle the hard work we need to do to accept ourselves and our realities. Key Takeaways: This week, Sean and James had real and raw conversations about God's business, depression, things that we can and can't, and how to act. They dig a little deeper into the book, Loving What Is. When you’re in a slump, don’t fight the fact that you’re going through it. Actively do something so that you get to the stage where it’s all better. The more you fight your reality, the harder the work you need to accept it. Episode Quotes: Actively do something to help make you feel better James [00:10:32]: Byron Katie talks about how this is God's business. These are things that are not in our control, and it's not that it's something that we dismiss, right? I think her point is that we can't let it bring us down. And we can't let it paralyze us. If we think about it so much, and we make it our business, which some people do —I think some people really actively make it their business —fundraisers or rescue missions or go help out like big actually go do things. It means that it's not in their control. Right? It's actually not, but they're actively doing something to make them feel better, do something about it. When you’re pressured to fight the thoughts of depression Sean [00:25:38]: It's okay to be depressed if I want to feel depressed, and it's okay for me to feel depressed. And then I think fighting the reality that we shouldn't be depressed, that just makes us even more depressed because we're just like, “why am I still depressed”? The hard work you need to do to accept your reality Sean [00:28:02]: I think that's one of the problems is that just not easy. I mean, it's not supposed to be easy, right. It's not supposed to be simple. You wake up one day, and you're magically fixed. You read one article, and you're magically fixed. There's so much work, like the work that has to go behind it. You have to inquire yourself. You have to really dig deep and fish out all the weird thoughts and things that you're afraid of to actually get past it. And a lot of people don't want to do that. A lot of people think it might not be necessary. Also, some people might not even know what the next step is actually. Show Links: Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life, by Byron Katie The Work (And Resources, by Byron Katie)