Inner Work

For the week of May 21, 2007

Embracing Our Life

By resisting parts of our life, we lose precious time and energy, inwardly rejecting what we do not want but nevertheless have. Some situations we can and do change. Others not. If we cannot or do not choose to change something, yet continue resisting it, we rob ourselves of that part of our life. If instead we could accept and embrace our life, warts and all, we would live more fully, create more possibilities for our inner world, and see more clearly the paths toward improving our life.

This embrace of life can only happen now, not in some abstract future. We take this moment as it is, even if distasteful. This moment is our life, our only life, and as such we honor it. We relax into acceptance, into presence, embracing our one moment. We embrace our body from within, through relaxation and full awareness of physical sensation. We embrace our emotions, even if distressed and difficult, accepting and respecting our self as is. We embrace our thoughts, even if wild or obsessive, accepting and respecting our self as is. We embrace our senses, what we see and hear and so on: this is our life now. We adopt an attitude of openness, acceptance, and respect toward the people around us. We drop our inner barriers of resistance to our experience and enter the unobstructed peace of presence, the life of here and now.

Persistent practice of meditation, presence, and prayer can establish our access to a Friend Who never disappoints, to the source of peace, joy, love, and meaning. The relationship between that higher world and our life has many layers of subtlety. One of those is the temptation to use the higher world as an escape that enables us to avoid facing, choosing, and embracing our difficulties. We have human needs, physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual, all of which warrant respect. Ignoring our ordinary human needs leads to trouble, though we need not overindulge our desires. Embracing our life means using judgment based on conscience in choosing how to live, in balancing conflicting needs, responsibilities, and desires. And however it is, we live it fully in each moment.

For this week, embrace your life. The more you embrace life, the more vivid life becomes, and the more there is to embrace.

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