Summer started with a bang for me and my kids. As soon as they finished school, we hit the ground running. I hosted my annual summer uBlossom retreat then we set off for a 2-week adventure back east, followed by 2 weeks of summer camps and sailing lessons. It was wonderful-it was exhausting.

Riding the ebb and flow of grief paired with increasing burnout, I became aware that I was finding it hard to tune into my needs. I felt like I was in constant free-fall, arms flailing. I could feel a wall of RESISTANCE building like a web, trying to save me from hitting rock bottom.

Sound familiar?

So I stopped, cancelled plans, rested and simply existed — without judgment. I began reading a book that a good friend lent me: When you’re falling, Dive by Cheri Huber. The timing couldn’t have been better. The message is about acceptance and why we resist. I am grappling with the loss of my husband and accepting my new reality.

My resistance is the threat I feel to my identity.

As Cheri quotes in her book:
“ACCEPTANCE LEADS TO CHANGE RESISTANCE DOES NOT LEAD TO CHANGE”

Writing and meditation are tools I use to foster awareness and hope.

Letting go of patterns that will maintain my resistance is the work I have ahead of me. The first step is to be aware that you are resisting.

Here are some simple questions (from Cheri’s book) you can ask yourself when you are stressed, angry and feel like you’re losing control. You can also take a few moments to journal about it:

1. Where do I feel the resistance in my physical body?
2. Listen to the voices in your head (why this particular “thing” is unacceptable)
3. Allow and make peace with the emotions that arise in reaction to these conditioned beliefs (I’m not enough, I’m not perfect, I have to please everyone)
4. Recognize the conditioned behaviours that follow these sensations, thoughts, emotions are just that – conditioned and programmed reactions based on habit.

When I switch from UNWILLING to WILLING or from RESISTANCE to ACCEPTANCE, I feel a tiny shift and my day flows. If I don’t acknowledge my sensations or feelings, my whole day feels sticky and like a ticking time bomb.

I like this example from Cheri’s book:

“Part of me wants to meditate, but I don’t. I know it would be good for me. I make plans, and agreements, make schedules, write notes, call myself names, beat myself up and feel like a loser. But I don’t meditate. I want to, but I don’t.”

Sound familiar?

RESISTANCE says:

“I don’t want to be the kind of person who can’t meditate if I want to meditate. I don’t want to be lazy and undisciplined. I want to be the right person who does the right kind of things.”

So I resist the way I am, the situation or the problem.

ACCEPTANCE says:

“I accept the way I am. I do not need to fight my conditioning. I do not need to hate myself. I accept that I am a conditioned human-like everyone else. I say yes. Yes, this is the way I am.”

When I accept ALL the ways I am -unwilling, undisciplined, lazy, guilt-ridden, resentful AS WELL AS willing, energetic, kind, compassionate, and understanding I am no longer tying my energy to fighting what is so. I have a lot of energy available to me.

What should you do with all that energy? Meditate?

I hope you find value in this little tool I have shared with you, and if you want to share your experiences, please feel free to reach out to me.

I look forward to connecting and sharing with you next month. Enjoy the hot days of August and get out in nature.

I am so grateful for you and the uBlossom community, together, we are stronger.