Acceptance is Opening to All Possibilities

 I was approached to write a talk, Taming the Dragon: Facing the Fear of Change for a non-profit organization. Saturday I delivered the talk twice and did well enough.  As I drove away from the event, I realized that the talk was as much for my own healing as it was for the audience of low-income families who were attempting to break the cycle of poverty.  My talk involved sharing my stories about the many times I faced the fear of change over the years as I created my programs and built my business.   One of the biggest AH HA!s I gained from writing this talk was that I truly saw the power of acceptance to transform negative emotion into positive, productive energy.  Acceptance – I discovered as I wrote the talk – is the willingness to allow the possibility for something to happen. When we make a change in our life, there is a natural backlash of fear that we must encounter and move through in order to go forward in our life.  As we accept the feelings and emotions of fear, they dissolve and transform into energy and excitement.  The fear comes to us when the mind or ego is not willing to accept the possibility that things could work out badly.  When you open yourself to accept the possibility of the worst and the possibility that things might turn out magnificently, then the fear releases and there is a sense of peace. Acceptance is simply a state of allowing for all possibilities.   As in life, stage fright and fear of public speaking comes when we are not willing to accept the possibility that we might fail and also that we might speak brilliantly.  We freeze up to brace for the worst to happen, that we might blow it badly.  And of course, then we often do fail.  But if we can accept the fear as a natural part of our sensitivity, we can relax and let ourselves give our best, letting go of the outcome.  If you open to the possibility that you might fail, you can then open to a more wonderful possibility that you might be brilliant.  And brilliance happens when you are authentic and open to be real with listeners.