Say.......say it and get it out of you

I use to sit for hours and think about ways to end all the world's ills and have found this approach anti-productive. I say anti-productive for have you ever gotten a positive reception when telling anyone their way of being, speaking or thinking is wrong. People, no matter how tortured they are in their predicament, do not take well to being lectured about what is best for them from any outside source.

Buddhists often tout the belief that the world is "perfect as it is" and for years I have struggled with adopting this idea in the midst of the reality of life we live in and all the suffering we wee around us. These two concepts initially just do not seem to go together. but just recently I have been able to wed these two seemingly different ideas as being perfectly congruent with one another. The answer lies in full self acceptance. In trying to change the world to the way we feel it would be best, we place ourselves in a constant battle to prove our way of seeing, plus there is the added weight of the ugly ego convinced it knows what is best for the world. The fact is that we do not know what is best for anyone, but ourselves.

Painfully, I have come to see that the answer lies in doing just the opposite of preaching ones beliefes. The answer comes when one is simply being....being themselves and not at all in trying to change anyone. The more you are just yourself with all your faults the more people around you can be themselves too. When I say being yourself, I include all aspect of yourself; from my appearance all the way down to your beliefs.

With me, I begin self-acceptance with the fact that I don't wear makeup, I no longer dye my hair, I use the same voice no matter who's calling on the phone, I dress in what makes me feel powerful and fun. I no longer worry about what people might think about me as a mom when my kids begin screaming in the aisles in the supermarket...in all these ways I am just me....nothing more, nothing less.

So the world IS perfect the way it is......but only when we come to accept ourselves and the unique set of circumstances that make us who we are without needing to change the world into being just like us. Only then do we begin to fall into a higher consciousness.