Do you know why you need to accept the negative aspect of any frame of mind?

DO YOU KNOW why you need to accept the negative aspect of any frame of mind? Because, until you do, it will take up more and more space.

Here is an affirmation you will often find in my books and quoted by me in my talks and workshops: “In order to become what you want to be, you must accept that you are what you do not want to be.”

Your ego will try to convince you that this is not true. It will try to find you all sorts of reasons why this could never work. That is a totally normal reaction on the part of the ego because it is not capable of understanding spiritual notions like acceptance, unconditional love, responsibility and forgiveness taught by LISTEN TO YOUR BODY. Your ego is convinced that if you accept yourself in any frame of mind that you do not like, you will stay that way for the rest of your life. Remember that it is ALWAYS your ego talking when something is telling you it is bad to be a certain way.

Let’s take for example the woman who is down on herself for often being distracted. She notices that she frequently starts a task and doesn’t finish it because she starts thinking about something else or lets herself be easily distracted by others. She has been dreaming for a long time of becoming an organized person. So there you have the negative and positive aspects of this frame of mind or this state of BEING. The same applies to you. Each time you criticize yourself or want to change, ask yourself what you judge yourself to BE and what you would like to BE instead.

It is very important to work only with states of BEING and not with the behaviours. In the case above, the woman must not tell herself, “I want is to finish what I start.” When we are working to change a behaviour, the only way is to control one’s self. True and lasting change can only come about through acceptance of our state of mind or state of being. Contrary to what the ego believes, the more we accept ourselves and the more we accept others, the more there are pleasant transformations.

Why is duality present everywhere and in everything? Light and darkness, height and depth, love and hate, qualities and flaws, truth and falsehood, etc. Because it is the only way to learn discernment, true love and intelligence. Duality lets us exercise our decision-making power and find the path toward creating a more intelligent life for ourselves. When we refuse to accept this duality in our ways of being, we are going against the creative intelligence of this planet. Our ego thinks it is more intelligent than the divine creation which is perfect.

Each time you do not accept yourself as you are, a part of you feels rejected and will do everything in its power to get your attention. It does this in the hope that you will acknowledge its existence because it wants to be loved by you, that is to say, it wants to be accepted by you as it is.  

Take the example of a young boy who is very curious and asks a lot of questions about everything. His mother, who is very busy with her job, the house, her husband and the other two children, becomes increasingly exasperated and impatient with him. She turns him away, telling him to stop asking so many questions. The more the child feels rejected by his mother, who does not accept him as he is, the more he will repeat the behaviour. He might even start to play nasty tricks to get attention. This reaction is quite normal. The result is the same when it is ourselves we reject. For instance, people who do not succeed in slimming down as much as they would have wished despite having tried one diet after another, remain big because they do not give themselves permission to be big. Their bigness just wants to be accepted.

The woman in the preceding example who doesn’t want to be distracted anymore must give herself permission to be distracted once in a while, even if she prefers not to be that way. In order to come to accept herself, she might ask herself what she is trying to do when she undertakes several things at once. She might be afraid of forgetting something important because she considers everything important. Above all, she must truly feel that she is not bad, stupid or crazy and that her intentions are good. After that, she can find a new behaviour that will help her to be what she wants to be. Gradually, she will notice that she can sometimes be distracted but that she is also capable of being organized. A new behaviour could be to stop and take a few deep breaths when she is about to switch to something else. She could also take the time to ask herself which of the two tasks is the most urgent or important, then just note the second one and place it in clear view. Another thing she could do is ask for suggestions from people she considers organized. But the important thing is to accept herself as being a distracted person first, and then adopt new behaviors to be more organized.

The more we give ourselves the right to be what we do not want to be – which means not criticizing or being angry with ourselves – the easier it is to be what we want to be. And the more we accept ourselves, the more we accept other people who seem distracted. The lady in my example will know she truly accepts herself when she is no longer bothered by others who are distracted. She will know that they are doing their best and that they have good intentions as she does.

Let me remind you that it is impossible for anyone to manifest just the positive aspect of a certain state of being.  Only people who control themselves achieve this, but they do so only for a period of time. All of them lose control in the end.

Accept yourself and you will become more of what you want to be.

With love,

Lise Bourbeau