There were days when I went home from school whinging about what someone had said or had done. And if you think of a Mum as being one who would sympathise and say there, there dear, well this wasn’t my Mum.
Not that she wasn’t kindness and love itself, it just manifested itself in a different way. Come home whinging and you were more likely to get knocked over by a feather than you were to hear anything other than “Don’t accept it.”
I never quite saw myself as Neo in the Matrix, being able to stop bullets, because heck he decided not to accept they were real.
What do you mean, I would wail, they did say it. Mum’s response was “We don’t have to accept all we hear, or even all we see.”
What? But it’s real…and I just didn’t get it.
This great inability to comprehend how to not accept something once it was done or said followed me around until I was….twenty…okay…maybe till I was thirty something.
And then I read the story of this woman who stayed behind after a seminar on the laws of consciousness to get the advice of the presenter.
She told him all about her dysfunctional family and what a difficult time she was having, and how she couldn’t get over what some in her family had done, or said and whilst she took a breath before launching into phase two of the story of her double dealing, rotten family, he responded…“Don’t accept it.”
She was annoyed and angry. She had expected so much more. Commiserations for her plight, or sympathy or kindlier words.
She didn’t feel that the response to not accept was very kind.
It was too forthright. Yet she had just spent an hour or so with someone who was teaching the principle that we should never think feelingly about wrong in any shape or form because it would then become a greater part of our reality.
A few weeks later, she returned to say she had decided to try and focus on how she wanted her family to be rather than always be complaining about how they were.
With a huge smile on her face she said things were better…not perfect…but better and she was going to continue keeping her attention on a happy, whole family.
Light bulb moment for me. Aha. Eureka…you get the picture. Woo hoo, I finally got it.
Not accepting wasn’t denying something happened, but engaging the most powerful forces at our disposal, our imagination and our thoughts; to see in our mind’s eye and focus our thoughts on the outcome we had chosen.
Dwelling on what someone said, or did, or trying to get other people to behave differently, “Fuhgeddaboutit” as Hugh Grant desperately tried to say in Mickey Blue Eyes.
Aah. Thanks again Mum. Flaming Ada, don’t you wish I had been a little quicker on the uptake?
For those unused to odd English expressions Flaming Ada is a less polite way of saying goodness gracious!
Encourage each other.
Love Elle.
xoxo
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8 Comments
The ability to disregard ‘physical reality’ and the circumstances we find ourselves enduring in favour of the imagined reality that is in fact the real truth of all will be humanity’s crowing achievement.
Another wonderful entry, Elle :0)
You put it so well Steven. Thank you. You are vey much appreciated.
What your mum said is powerful,” “We don’t have to accept all we hear, or even all we see.” And true!
I was raised by wise women Tess to whom I shall be eternally grateful.
I think my light bulb was realizing that it wasn’t so much about how I wanted my family to be as it was in how I wanted myself to be with my family. That one shift has changed everything.
Isn’t it great Alisa. A change of perspective and the world around is different.
Your mum was a woman of unusual insight and wisdom.
“Don’t accept it” , what an amazing concept!
Once again, you have provided a very thought provoking article.
Thank you.
Write on, Elle !
Joseph, I so appreciate your comments. You have a great insight into the workings of these laws of life. You must lead a wonderful life:-)