90-Day A Better Me Series

Part II: A Journey of Perspective

What Launches Us Forward: The Stable Foundation

Day 37: Accepting Our Pasts

“Accepting responsibility is simply admitting to yourself that you put out energy that wasn’t serving you well. It’s nothing to feel bad about because you will soon be choosing to refrain from repeating the pattern.”

-Laura George

We can’t change the past—It happened! There is no reason to let the hamster wheel spin over and over in our minds trying to make the past different than what it was. Was the key word. We convince ourselves that was is an “is” with our choices to keep the past in our present moment.  Was and is are two different things. Accept responsibility for the energy you put into it, feel the feelings that come with the lesson, learn the lesson, and change the pattern. Our peace, health, happiness, and stability will depend on how we choose to hold on to our past.

Even people who have experienced traumatic events can accept the past. The only person who can tell you that you can’tis YOU. Our belief of can’t is based on belief systems we’ve taken on as facts. They aren’t facts—they are perspectives. The blessing is we can always change our perspective. There are plenty of people who have been victimized who don’t take on the role as victim. They are two different things. We will talk more about victims of traumatic events and the role of victim on Day 41.

I spoke about blame in Part I of the 90-Day A Better Me Series. Blame doesn’t get us ANYWHERE!! All blame does is keep us in the problem, whether we are blaming others or ourselves, we haven’t accepted what happened if we are still pointing fingers. We are still messing around in the toxic energy that keeps us stuck. We don’t have to stay there! It’s a choice! Once again, whatever event that we are blaming others or ourselves for already happened. That is a fact. Acceptance opens the door to the learning experience from whatever happened. If our focus is on the blame we are stuck in the energy that got us in the predicament in the first place. If we are focused on acceptance, we are focused on the energy that will lead us out of the problem and into the best solution possible.

Most times, we aren’t dealing with evil people who vindictively are trying to hurt our communities, environment, our resources, and us. They were most likely trying to find the solution to some other problem, but were stuck in an energy that made it so they couldn’t see the big picture of the solution they chose. They tried to skip over acceptance.  Here’s an example: A person is trying to figure out how to save a company money. If their fear is not having enough money, their focus is on NOT ENOUGH, their solutions will come with consequences of that not enough energy, because they are focused on the problem.  Maybe they find something that saves money, but in time they find the solution destroys the environment. Then they have to go back and they try to fix the environment from that same feeling of NOT ENOUGH and then they lose more money. The negative energy that comes with the decision making which stems from blame, shame, guilt, judgment, anger, rage, and overall fear will come with really hard-hitting life lessons. The problem is when we skip over acceptance—We just get another lesson.

Acceptance helps us see with a wider view so we can step back and gain perspective on our and others past choices, feelings, and lessons. Our brainstorming of how to fix things comes from a place of compassion and understanding. We’ve accepted that the event happened based on the choices we or someone else made. We look at learning from the experience so we look at the how and why without blame. Then we do our best to see the bigger picture. The process of problem solving past learning opportunities isn’t about fear. Therefor, even if we didn’t see everything and we still have something to learn, it won’t be as harsh as the lesson that comes from putting the energy of fear into the situation.

There are so many examples of how we choose fear over acceptance of our pasts, but I’m hoping that the example I give can be adapted to whatever circumstances you have happening in your life. We can take this example and make it about romantic relationships, family, friends, politics, etc. The point is when we use acceptance as a part of processing past events, feelings, decisions, and or circumstances, we open ourselves up to learn and grow from the experience instead of becoming a victim of it.

Sometimes we try to avoid looking at our part and how we contributed to the problem, we all have a part to play if we are caught up in the toxic energies that we talked about in Part I. If we aren’t aware, we won’t accept. If we won’t accept, we don’t grow. We stay caught in a trap. Some people’s emotional development is actually stunted by their choices to stay in this place. They continue to have problems in their relationships, communications, and career development because they choose not to accept responsibility for their feelings, thoughts, beliefs, actions, and reactions. They get stuck in the dark room and they look for some outside light to get them out, but keep getting hit with more dark. We can’t break out of this room until we discover that the light comes from what we ourselves project out into the world. We have to accept that the dark and the light all has the same source—Us.

Just for Today

Take yesterday’s exercise to the next step. Step back and look at the events of the pasts with acceptance. Then try to come up with at least three different perspectives of how you can look at the learning experience. Just looking at different perspectives helps set us free from being tied to the stories of our pasts. Learn what you can about past patterns and you know longer will put yourself in positions to keep those toxic patterns alive. We accept the learning experience and grow from it.

With Love and Gratitude,

Rachael Wolff ©2019

Today’s Letter from A Better Me is “Accepting My Lessons from the Past” click here to read now.