Acceptance

Do you know people who, when things are going well for them, but things are going bad for you, will tell you: "Let go and let God"? Doesn't it drive you crazy? They got a check that day or they lost a few pounds, or it's a good hair day, or whatever it is, and they say, "Let go and let God." And of course, if they could see, you want to throttle them at that moment for their insensitivity...

In this answer to a viewer's question, "letting go" author Guy Finley talks about how grief over the death of a loved one will complete itself and become something else if we will not resist the experience and allow it to be what it is.

It seems natural to fear moments we don't want, to avoid any knock at the door of some untimely event. But it's not these moments themselves that we are afraid of: what we fear is our reaction to them, so that we can't see that this experience we don't want... is actually the pain of a negative reaction as it unfolds within us.

Would you like to make the most out of every moment of your life? If we want to make the most out of every moment of our life, we have to let every moment in our life touch us. We have to learn to listen to it, to receive it. If we want to be lifted by it, we have to let it hold us. But instead of being touched by moments, we're touched by thought. We're touched by irritation...

Our True Self is not a person. It is a great spirit. And it is part of a ceaseless flow in which the idea of "good" and "bad" only exists because in that flow has been born a certain creature, given an imagination that has created a self in the name of itself. And there you have all of the problem. When you resist what life brings and don't accept it, all you're really doing is....

Can you can see that, "If I'm ever to have freedom, somehow or other I'm going to have to accept everything that's given to me"? It seems counterintuitive, so let me explain why it's true. There are two orders of transformation. They are not really separate; they are in a constant exchange, just like the river is in a constant exchange as water flows in and out at each point...

Following are what may be called the The Three A's of the Peaceful Life. Welcome them as special work reminders to let God's will be as your own. If you will take these new intentions and inner attitudes with you into your day, then you will soon realize what it means to let go and know peace. Work to trust in the Goodness of God's moment, so that instead of trying to dig...

The next time that life comes knocking with what you "don't want," instead of allowing yourself to be dragged through the old round-around, make these three new choices, and watch how they dismiss the darkness knocking at your door: Your first choice (always!) is to come wide-awake to yourself. Remember: Your new aim is to not allow old, mechanical reactions..."