Accepting Reality as a Starting Point for Openness

Lately, I’ve been seeing an uptick in memes or comments on social media to the effect of “it shouldn’t be this way” or “this is the way it should be,” depending on the subject and one’s POV. This kind of thinking leads to a lot of dissatisfaction and stress because you can’t change how things are at any given moment. The reality is that things are as they are. You can work for change by changing yourself and being an example of how you want the world to be. You can share your opinions and experiences and dialogue with others. In this country, you can vote and contact your government representatives. You can protest. If you are living and doing from a place of fear of things not being the way you perceive they should be, all this will only lead to anger and bitterness . Charlotte Joko Beck said:

Joy is being willing for things to be as they are.”

If we can all accept reality as it is, whether we like it or not, we stand in a place of joy and power. We are free from the limits of fear of not getting what we want or losing what we don’t want to lose. This is where change can happen in extraordinary ways.

I see a lot of talk about systems being broken. This strikes me as a misnomer, and I’m inclined toward the post-it message shared by Brene Brown. If things aren’t supposed to be this way, they wouldn’t be this way. This is karma. We all change the world by our actions whether we intend to or not, and the systems we have grow out of the actions of humanity. We change the system by changing the people, and the only one any person can change is oneself. I pledge to keep growing and learning so my best becomes ever-more guided by wisdom.

One final quote from Pema Chodron on using all the things in your life that aren’t the way you want them to be:

The idea of karma is that you continually get the teachings that you need to open your heart. To the degree that you didn’t understand in the past how to stop protecting your soft spot, how to stop armoring your heart, you’re given this gift of teachings in the form of your life, to give you everything you need to open further.”