6 Ways to show unconditional love and acceptance

Unconditional love and acceptance may not come easily to you. Your role models may have sent mixed messages or, these may be strange or foreign concepts.  How you view your existence, purpose and interpret meaning can change dramatically.

Everyone can evolve to become more aware of the reasons for their behaviour. Knowledge can empower you, no matter where you are or how you currently view the world. You are in process of resolving inner conflict and developing new perspective.

What you choose to see relates to your beliefs as much as to hidden issues within you that often go unnoticed or ignored. As you choose to exercise kindness and patience with yourself, you are working through another stage in your growth process. Consider six ways to show unconditional love and acceptance;

1) Rather than ask what a person does for a living, inquire instead what evokes joy and contributes to a meaningful life.

2) Rather than value people based on what they do, opt instead to love and accept them because they exist as they are.

3) Rather than live your life to please others, choose instead to grow to understand and learn what it is to please yourself.

4) Rather than do what is conditioned or expected, swallow your pride or fear and choose instead to do what feels right.

5) Rather than criticize, reprimand and emprison the mind, decide instead to boost esteem and praise freedom.

6) Rather than highlight drawbacks of loss, mistakes and failure, concentrate instead on the benefits of all experience.

How do you discern your lessons?

You may have heard your lessons are supposedly within reach whenever you want them. You may also wonder how many exist and where. The prospect of unknowns may confuse you.

Part of you echoes it is not as if a knowledgeable individual is knocking on your door right now, or is he? Could help be much closer than you think? What if your life is meaningful as it is?

1) Open the senses. Your feelings and emotions reveal all you need.  Sensations are self-evident.  Trust the unseen.  Recall how to feel.  Even subtle feelings always offer direction.

2) Shift vantage points.  Whether you wear glasses, contacts or no visible frames, mindsets cloud your vision.  Learn to decondition your mind. Move to positions of greater clarity.  As you perceive every event a an opportunity to stretch and expand, you take charge and begin to master your true self.

3) Recognize wisdom is camoflaged.  Any negative feeling  or tension that echoes frustration, resistance, anger or doubt, distracts you from wisdom.  You hide from what you need.  Risking disappointment and anger are nothing in relation to the implications of what you overlook in the process.

4) Other people are also teachers.  People you know and strangers will encounter difficulties.  How do you feel and react in their presence? Do you impulsively help or seek to assist? Feel indifferent and walk by? Notice the feelings you generate as you contemplate your options. What are you ready to learn?

5) Understand choices exist.  More than one lesson is available to you wherever you are. If you sense you have had a similar experience already, even deja-vus offer gifts in disguise.  Each experience is a step closer to realizing your authentic self or a step away. You gain from every decision.

6) Have faith.  Your priorities are efforts to honor your true passions. Whether you are honest with yourself or not, you evolve to notice feelings, expectations and messages.  Decisions in your mind are not always aligned with feelings in your gut.  Believe you will get there.  You learn along the way.

Cherie Carter-Scott & 10 Rules for Being Human

Cherie Carter-Scott wrote a book called, If Life is a Game, These Are the Rules: Ten Rules for Being Human.  It grew out of  her desire for answers and messages about her own winding journey.  She moved for a sense of a single purpose to a deeper understanding of her own purpose-driven life.

These ideas became published in Chicken Soup for the Soul and also in Ann Landers' column.  Cherie inspires people to rethink how they think and feel about everything that happens. In which ways can you relate to these concepts? How do you interpret them? When will they assist you differently?

1) You will receive a body.

2) You will be presented with lessons.

3) There are no mistakes, only lessons.

4) A lesson will be repeated until learned.

5) Learnings do not end.

6) "There" is no better than "here."

7) Others are only mirrors of you.

8) What you make of your life is up to you.

9) All the answers lie inside you.

10) You will forget all this at birth.

Regain control over internal dialogue

Analysis of the week on dream submitted by Anonymous in New Brunswick, Canada.

Dream- I was in hospital speaking with an internist in his office. Everything was made of wood. My mind was aware of three levels of perception simultaneously; this man and what he was saying about the insides of the physical body, thoughts of my husband and then, a blur of an unfamiliar male spirit who beckoned me to follow him as he walked through the wall.

Predomiant Emotions- surprise, wonder, desire, acceptance.

Interpretation- The body, mind and spirit require balance to function most effectively. You recognize imbalance in your life and strive to change this. Accepting who you are requires you learn to feel whatever you are feeling now without judgment.

The presence of a physician reminds you of your desire for healing. You may also sense reason to consult a specialist for a health condition.  Review more specifically possible situations you are meant to face. It is impossible to argue with what is without consequences.  As you allow, your true nature arises.

Natural surroundings remind you of the importance of relaxing and learning what it means to just be. You may ask yourself what it would require to release distractions in your life. The very fact you raise awareness to recognize them is enough to disrupt their control over you. It is part of a process.

Engaging in deeper reflection prevents previous experience and emotions from controlling your inner dialogue. You choose not to perpetuate misplaced assumptions. You no longer identify the same way with past interactions with others. You realize when old emotions no longer serve you as you view yourself.

To choose to identify with the source of your discomfort causes suffering in yourself and others. This prevents you from staying non-reactive and absolutely alert and rediscovering true abilities of your spirit. The more limited, ego view you maintain, the more you will fall into the traps of the physical world and prevent yourself from moving beyond them.

5 Tips to manage awkward moments

Everyone you interact with will not always agree with your views. In fact, some people may seem like they only know how to disagree, criticize or misunderstand your point. This can lead to awkward moments.  You may not know what to say.

You may be in a car accident and be blamed for what you feel was not your fault. You may waiting for the bus and find another person blames you for missing it when that person did not choose to check the schedule.  You may attempt to convey an experience that someone else chooses not to accept or understand.  The negative vibes or silence speak volumes.

You can be well-meaning in your gestures and still be treated in ways you do not feel you deserve. How do you deal with situations that you almost wish were dreams?

1) Be grateful. Step back to realize how this situation offers you priceless wisdom.  This is an opportunity to realize the world does not revolve around you. This is a situation meant to show you everyone will not think and act like you. The reactions of others teach you more about what you are not. In turn, you are invited to learn more about what you are.

2) Learn tolerance. You are not expected to agree with everyone or be understood by everyone all the time or even some of the time. Each person views the world though their own experience, expectations and assumptions. This can lead to your view of disagreement or misunderstanding. You are given the gift of options.  You have choices to live and let live.

3) Expand your perspective. However you believe you are being treated, you are missing something. You are not seeing how the other person does. Your judgement is based on a limited view. Relish a chance to expand your perspective. Imagine yourself in their shoes and imagine why they might feel as they do. Learn power in opening to possibilities.

4) Love people as they are.  You embrace life as you learn to love and appreciate people for who they are. Insodoing, you discover new reasons to love and accept yourself more fully. Part of this process offers insight into forgiveness. As you forgive a person for what he is not, for things he did not do or say, for all that he is, you evolve to value your mistakes and imperfections.  You expand and grow in love.

5) Decide to be the bigger person.  You always have choices about how to expend your energy.  Where it makes sense, you may determine a battle is warranted. You can exert effort to convince the other person of your position or point of view. Yet, stepping back may help you realize it makes more sense to let it go. Even silence has timeless, intrinsic value.