Patience.

I loathe patience. Abhor it. But if I’m ever going to make my way to acceptance, it seems that embracing patience is a critical step in this formidable journey.

Acceptance.

I need to accept exactly where I am, where my life is at. I’ve created this current reality for myself, and I can create a new one. Of course I can. I’m forging a new map—torching the old blueprints to draw up a fresh itinerary.

Accept myself. Love myself. Become comfortable with every part of myself so that when the time comes, I can fully and presently give myself to someone who’s worthy of receiving me. But I have to accept and give myself to myself, first. I have to take care of myself, put myself above all others. Put my well being above everything, because that’s really creating a new map. Something I’ve never done before. Fully loving and caring for myself—fully accepting myself, blemishes and insecurities and love handles and shortcomings and all.

Fuck perfection, fuck living up to something unattainable. Fuck everything except for being human and accepting myself for that.

Give yourself a pep talk in the mirror. Try it. Face to face. Watch what it does.

It shatters panes of illusion. It’s amazing how your face changes when you have a conversation with your reflection. It’s like the colors shift, the room changes and all of a sudden, it’s just you. You and you. Telling yourself things you know but need to hear. Confronting yourself, challenging yourself.

It’s a powerful practice in grounding and self-realization. You somehow begin to see how thwarted your own perception of who you are and what’s happening around you really is.

When you’re face to face with your reflection, there’s no escape. You can see every hesitation. You notice every back-track. You see yourself wince, observing your own vulnerabilities.

But something you don’t count on that comes through is your strength. You witness your power. You gain clarity. You engage release and ignite acceptance.

Acceptance comes when we give everything up. Just give it up. Give up the worries, the anxieties, the self loathing and deprecation. Give up what you’ve been told and the native language that really was never yours to begin with.

Give up all the fallacies of your past and create a new language. Forge your own alphabet through sunrises and mountaintop views and epiphanies and breakdowns and uncertainties and courage and the fleeting glimpses of clarity that inevitably show up.

Acceptance comes when we wake up. When we say goodbye to the forces that formed us…the forces that no longer hold power over us.

So what falls by the sidelines when that happens? The need to be perfect. The need to overachieve. The need to be everything to everyone—to be good enough, smart enough, fucking funny enough. Knowing exactly what to say at the exact perfect moment. Being the strongest, wittiest, prettiest, sexiest, most secure, smartest woman in the room.

Because I’m never going to be that person by trying so hard—I’m never going to be that person by trying to be that person. The only person I’m ever going to be is the person I allow myself to be…

When I allow acceptance into my heart, that’s when things will start to come together effortlessly. That’s when I’ll realize I can stop trying so hard and just let things flow through me…through my hands, my heart, my words, my mouth. When I start communicating clearly—when I stop judging what I want to say.

When I stop trying to edit my truth.

When I accept my truth, wholly, is when I accept myself, wholly. When I no longer struggle over joining the words that will perfectly, eloquently and succinctly communicate my absolute truth—that is when acceptance has been reached.

When I can actually relax into my life without worrying about a million different things and stretching my brain over a million different miles. That is when acceptance has found a home in my heart.

When I can remain truly present with myself is when acceptance has become firmly rooted.

Strength. Clarity. Power. Release. Acceptance.

 Five goddamn words. Five simple words. Communicating simplicity. Communicating truth.

Float like a bee, sting like a feather. Feathers are light, truth and justice, and sometimes those elements sting. But bravery and courage carry us through that sting, that wound…and courage comes from acceptance of everything and everyone as they are.

Acceptance doesn’t mean laying down and dying, giving up the fight for something that you love and know is right.

Acceptance is about surrender, about admitting that you don’t have all the answers, that no one and nothing is perfect, and that somehow in some way, things have a way of working themselves out, no matter how fucked the situation seems.

Acceptance is never giving up. Its writing and creating and singing and vocalizing and connecting and sharing and persevering even when you think you’ve got nothing left to give; when you feel like the well’s been tapped dry. Because you’ve accepted this existence, you’ve accepted your purpose, and you’ve accepted all the ebbs and flows that come along with it.

You’ve accepted life. You’ve accepted failure so that you can make way for success. You’ve accepted the darkness so you can welcome the light. You’ve accepted roadblocks so that you can develop the strength and fortitude to work and think and move around them, creating new ways of living.

And after all that, you come to accept the beautiful lightness that flows through your hands and fingertips where once there resided only pain and heaviness. You’ve accepted the free flow of energy and inspiration—you’ve accepted the role of conduit (and we’re all conduits) and relaxed into the arms of whatever is speaking through you without judgment or expectation.

You’ve accepted the light by making love to the darkness and deciding that you want more. Deserve more. Are more.

Acceptance means you’ll never be the same again. Acceptance means you’re on your way to becoming more than you could ever imagine. Acceptance is as terrifying as it is miraculous…but if there’s one thing I’ve learned lately, it’s that true, pure, gigantic joy is almost always accompanied by sorrow; saying goodbye to one way of life, no matter how stale or toxic, to make way for better.

And even though it’s what we’ve been begging for, it’s still a part of us that we’re shedding, an old friend we’ve carried for way too long, a house guest who has epically overstayed their welcome.

Acceptance is pure fucking liberation. It’s destroying the chains that bind you. It’s living, maybe for the first time.

Exhale limitation, inhale expansion. Become limitless possibility.

“Breathe in the light and say goodbye.”~ M83

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Editor: Bryonie Wise