Saying Yes to Life: Walking the Path of Radical Acceptance

What if life could be simple?

What if life could be absolutely and totally safe?

And what if life knew, moment-by-moment, exactly what you needed, so that you would never want?

Most of us try to create a life that gives us all of these things. We try to find our own path to happiness.

But what if happiness were right here, waiting to be discovered in the last place we would expect?

And, finally, what if the only key to that happiness was the willingness to say, absolutely and unconditionally, “yes” to life as it arose?

By using the key of radical acceptance, unconditional freedom, peace, and happiness can be attained.

I’ve hinted at this in my recent posts, but today, I’d like to take that to the next level.

The Result of Resisting Life

What most people do is resist life, or at least parts of it. “There’s this part over here that I like, but that part over there, I really dislike and want nothing to do with it.”

Abundance is good, but poverty is bad. Health is good, but sickness is bad.

We’re stuck in this tug-of-war between pleasure and pain. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj referred to it as the river of life flowing between the banks of pleasure and pain.

“Between the banks of pain and pleasure the river of life flows. It is only when the mind refuses to flow with life, and gets stuck at the banks, that it becomes a problem. By flowing with life I mean acceptance — letting come what comes and go what goes. Desire not, fear not, observe the actual, as and when it happens, for you are not what happens, you are to whom it happens. Ultimately even the observer you are not. You are the ultimate potentiality of which the all-embracing consciousness is the manifestation and expression.” (I Am That, Ch. 3)

As long as you are trying to avoid one bank while wanting to stick to the other, you will suffer.

That is what we call having attachments and aversions. You have an attachment to, say, financial security, and an aversion to financial lack.

The thing about attachments and aversions is that they come in a package. You can’t have one without the other.

That’s the issue when law of attraction teachers tell you to only think about what you want. As long as you have an attachment to what you want, you also have an aversion to what you don’t want. And so, every time you bring to mind what you do want, you simultaneously bring to mind what you don’t want.

This is called duality. This is called illusion.

For instance, if you have an attachment to financial security, and an aversion to financial lack, then every time you think about your desire for more money, you will simultaneously think about how little money you have now.

There’s no escaping this trap, through the common means employed, other than what will be shared later in this post. You can’t visualize enough, or affirm enough, to break this bond between attachment and aversion. It’s an all or nothing package.

And so because of these attachments and aversions, you are afraid of life. For, if you fear one part of life, then you fear life itself. It has you in a bind—a trap which you seemingly cannot escape.

Fearing Life

When you fear life, anxiety rises. I believe this is why anxiety and depression is such a major problem today, because people are simply running away from life.

Once again, to contrast this with traditional law of attraction teachings, we are meant to only focus on certain thoughts, and keep away from others.

But as I said above, the more you try to keep away from a certain thought, the more power you are giving it.

I see a lot of people who post in law of attraction forums and groups that they’ve been focusing on their desire for months or even years now, and nothing is happening, or things are even getting worse.

And the reason is this: they are attached to the outcome, and bringing the aversion to its opposite right along with them.

They fear one part of life, and that fear will hold that which they fear in existence.

Whatever you reject, grows stronger. Whatever you push away, pushes back just as hard.

This is why we find ourselves in a cycle of pleasure and pain, tossed back and forth between these two extremes.

Life is meant to flow. As long as we fear life, we do not allow it to flow as it should. Nisargadatta referred to it as a “river” for this very reason: that it is meant to flow effortlessly, and we are meant to flow right along with it.

But when we cling on to certain things, or push away other things, the river turns into a whirlpool, threatening to pull us under.

The Path of Radical Acceptance

Now hopefully you see the issue with attachment. It resists the flow of life, because as long as we are attached to one thing, we are averse to another.

There is really only one way of escaping this trap: radical acceptance.

This has been called many names over the years: surrender, mindfulness, detachment, acceptance, allowing, etc.

But it is all pointing to the same thing. In order to let life fully flow through us, we must allow.

And when I say we must allow, I mean that we must allow everything, the good and the bad alike.

If you don’t like your current situation, that must be allowed. If your desire isn’t coming fast enough, that must be allowed.

If there is any attachment or aversion, that acts as what I call a sticking point. Life sticks to, gets caught up by, these attachments and aversions, which causes it to stagnate.

When we live in complete allowing, in radical acceptance, then it is free to flow through, unimpeded.

Why does this really matter? Why does it matter we are completely detached and allowing of all that is?

Simply because, the way life works, whatever sticking points we do have, life will take advantage of over and over again.

Imagine this. You start in a state of complete allowing.

Then, you form an attachment to, say, a particular job you really want. Suddenly, life just isn’t complete unless you have this job.

Well, along with that attachment, an aversion is formed, to the lack of that job. The more you want the job, the more you reject not having the job.

Now, a sticking point has been formed, where more and more energy will build up, which we call resistance.

First it starts out very subtly. You would really like to have the job, and you’ll be slightly disappointed if you don’t get it.

But, the more energy you put into this desire, the bigger it gets. Soon, you are so excited about the job, but equally fearful of the possibility of not getting it.

You are now caught in an endless whirlpool of suffering.

It shows, too, why visualization and affirmations often don’t work. NO matter how much you increase the energy of this desire with these techniques, you’re only pouring the same amount of energy into its matching aversion. Even if you try not thinking about it, it’ll still be there.

What is the way out? Only by releasing the energy.

To release the energy, you must allow the whole thing. If you get the job, fine. And if you don’t get the job, that’s just as fine.

Allow it all. And only by allowing and radical acceptance, will all that resistant energy be released, because you have removed that sticking point.

Now, free of stuck energy, you can happily set a pure intention for the job, and it will likely come, and quickly at that.

But, the difference is, you don’t need it. You won’t suffer if you don’t receive it.

Now, reflect for a moment on how many attachments and aversions you have in life. Imagine the above effect, but for each of those sticking points.

Now, is it any wonder that you suffer as much as you do?

And what do you think would happen if you would just accept all of that, right now?

Imagine all of those sticking points just being removed at once, because you made the deliberate decision to let life flow through you, without resisting any of it.

If truly accomplished, suffering would vanish in an instant.

The Allowing Challenge

Of course, it’s a lot to ask to simply and perfectly accept everything all at once. However, you can accept moment-by-moment, as much as you can. And, you can even accept your non-acceptance. 🙂

What would happen if, just for this present moment, you just accepted everything?

Accept all your thoughts, your feelings, your present experience, and everything else.

If you do this properly, you’ll instantly feel a sense of great openness and expansiveness within you. This is you opening up to life as it is.

Imagine holding this acceptance, moment-by-moment. Life could simply flow through this wide open space, without getting stuck anywhere. Even if it does get stuck temporarily, you can accept that, too, and immediately release it.

There is truly nothing wrong, once you learn to accept and allow everything.

So that is my challenge to you right now. Take one whole day, at a minimum, and just completely accept everything that comes up. Strive to allow life to flow unimpeded, not clinging to or resisting any part of it.

Don’t do this because you secretly want to get your manifestation. Just do this because otherwise, you are suffering. Simply do this because it is the key to true happiness.

I guarantee that if you truly do this challenge, things will change for you. I can’t tell you exactly what will change, as it is up to your particular situation. But, things will change.

And if you’ve tried it for a day and life hasn’t fallen apart for you, then try it for a second day.

Pretty soon, you’ll realize that this way of living is a whole lot better than the way you were living before.

You’ll find yourself being happier, more often, and for no reason whatsoever. You’ll just feel lighter and freer overall.

Are you ready to take the challenge?

I know it can be scary. It’s hard to let go of all of our attachments and aversions, because it feels like they are literally holding our world together.

But, just try it for a single day, and see what happens. I guarantee your world will not fall apart in a day. 🙂

So try it out, and let me know the results you get in the comments. Also check out our discussion about The Allowing Challenge in the forum.

How About You?

Now it’s your turn. Did you try the challenge? What were your results? Let me know in the comments below.

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