It seems to be quite common these days. People who advocate the rejection of the negative and the total support of the positive. In fact, I read some interesting material this weekend on the web about a minister of one of the largest and fastest growing churches in America today. His critics were criticizing him for being too positive. For watering down Christianity by focusing only on the positive aspects of life and of God.
This got me thinking about how easy it is to reject the negative aspects of life. To attempt to push them aside. Avoid them. Run from them. Call them evil, and attempt to "act" our way out of them.
And yet, in my experience, that rejection of the negative is one of our greatest problems - both personally and collectively. In other words, when we reject or rebel against negative emotions, negative experiences, negative people, or negative events in the world, we are actually rejecting a huge part of our lives. We are rejecting the very emotions, people, and situations, that are there to teach us. That challenge us. That invite us to wake up to more of our greatness. And that invite us to new levels of growth.
Putting aside the fact that we wouldn't know the positive, the joyful, the pleasurable without its opposite, it is important for us to recognize the tremendous value of the unpleasant aspects of life. We suffer and stress through those moments primarily because we resist them. We don't want anything to do with them. And yet, they are the gateways to a greater experience. To more profound growth. To a larger experience of life.
When we accept both the "positive" and "negative" aspects of life, we can then embrace ALL of life. Then, life stops being one battle after another, and becomes one moment of instruction and learning after another. I have yet to experience a pain - rather physical, mental, emtional, or spiritual - that is not attempting to communicate something profound to me. When I reject it - call it bad or evil - I reject the message that it has for me. In a sense, I empower it to continue by resisting it.
So where am I headed with all of this? Embrace life. All of it. It is not an enemy. We learn our greatest lessons in life through the challenging moments. And when we accept them, embrace them, and listen to them, we will learn even more.
I challenge you today, this moment, to begin to embrace all of life. Allow Life to flow through you more naturally. See the unpleasant and painful aspects of life not as something bad, but as a way that Life communicates with you. See it as Life's way of loving you, of waking you up, and inviting you into a greater expression of the fullness of who you are.
This got me thinking about how easy it is to reject the negative aspects of life. To attempt to push them aside. Avoid them. Run from them. Call them evil, and attempt to "act" our way out of them.
And yet, in my experience, that rejection of the negative is one of our greatest problems - both personally and collectively. In other words, when we reject or rebel against negative emotions, negative experiences, negative people, or negative events in the world, we are actually rejecting a huge part of our lives. We are rejecting the very emotions, people, and situations, that are there to teach us. That challenge us. That invite us to wake up to more of our greatness. And that invite us to new levels of growth.
Putting aside the fact that we wouldn't know the positive, the joyful, the pleasurable without its opposite, it is important for us to recognize the tremendous value of the unpleasant aspects of life. We suffer and stress through those moments primarily because we resist them. We don't want anything to do with them. And yet, they are the gateways to a greater experience. To more profound growth. To a larger experience of life.
When we accept both the "positive" and "negative" aspects of life, we can then embrace ALL of life. Then, life stops being one battle after another, and becomes one moment of instruction and learning after another. I have yet to experience a pain - rather physical, mental, emtional, or spiritual - that is not attempting to communicate something profound to me. When I reject it - call it bad or evil - I reject the message that it has for me. In a sense, I empower it to continue by resisting it.
So where am I headed with all of this? Embrace life. All of it. It is not an enemy. We learn our greatest lessons in life through the challenging moments. And when we accept them, embrace them, and listen to them, we will learn even more.
I challenge you today, this moment, to begin to embrace all of life. Allow Life to flow through you more naturally. See the unpleasant and painful aspects of life not as something bad, but as a way that Life communicates with you. See it as Life's way of loving you, of waking you up, and inviting you into a greater expression of the fullness of who you are.
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