LoveForward: The Way of Acceptance

Acceptance: Embracing Life and Who We Are

Welcome to the fourth installment of my LoveFoward blog series, in which I explore the seven ways of living in Divine Love that I describe in my new book, The Divine Heart. This week the invitation is: Acceptance.

My relationship to acceptance—self-acceptance, accepting others, allowing myself to truly accept God’s love—is an ongoing journey, as it is for most of us. In the current journey I’m on, bringing my new book into the world, I am experiencing Divine love meeting me with acceptance time and again.

Just last week, I came to a place of deeper acceptance of who I am, after losing my way through comparing myself to others. A dear friend finally said to me, “Colette, I see you as a boutique spiritual writer and teacher.” I loved that! It was such a permission to be on my own path, and to let myself be fully embraced by divine love.

“For it is the unaccepted self that stands in my way—and will continue to do so as long as it is not accepted,” wrote the Christian monk, Thomas Merton.

Pause for a moment, and ask yourself in prayer or in your journal: “Are there any unaccepted parts of myself that stand in my way?”

The more we accept and appreciate ourselves, the more we can live life fully. The more we accept others, the more we can open our hearts to love. With the Divine, we gaze at our stories, at the hidden places within, and listen with an open heart. Blemishes and scars become beauty marks, and humility gives texture to our lives, revealing the spiritual sweetness of Love’s embrace.

I invite you into this practice for the week:
When you notice an impatient, critical, or negative voice within, listen instead to the Divine whisper in your heart, “I accept you.” Pray for this grace.

As well as accepting what is difficult, we are also being called to accept what is good. Can we celebrate who we are—our nature, our gifts, our uniqueness? We’re born as a unique thumbprint of creation. Acceptance calls us to embrace our nature, appreciate who we, and express our gifts.

I hope you find that opening yourself to “The Way of Acceptance,” with yourself, others, and circumstances and situations, this week will bring you deep peace. Allow yourself to listen to the call of Acceptance in your life, until my next installment on Vulnerability.

Together with you in the circle of love and acceptance,
Colette