I was home sick with a cold for much of this week and this gave me some time to think and reflect.  Memories of time when I felt betrayed by a friend rose to the surface.  I felt waves of disbelief and anger rise within as I allowed myself to relive old memories.   How could this have happened?  How could someone I trusted turn on me in such unexpected ways?  Questions surfaced and feelings of blame arose:  How could she have behaved that way?

And then I remembered hearing that when we are feeling anger, sadness, regret, blame or any imbalance to turn to deeper levels of self acceptance and it is there that we will find peace.  This advice made no sense to me on the surface and I found myself thinking, what, my friend betrays me and I need to focus on greater levels of self acceptance??  But despite my skepticism I found myself curious about what would happen if I focused on accepting myself more in this moment.  And so I turned my attention away from my former friend and began to fill myself with a feeling of complete self-acceptance.

I repeated the affirmation:

I accept myself completely.
I accept myself completely.
I accept myself completely.

As I went more deeply into self-acceptance I had a sudden flash of insight.  I realized that the original imbalance lied within me.  I realized that I had a habit of seeing the best in people.  An admirable habit except that I also had a habit of not honestly looking at their weaknesses.  As I result I’ve been blind sided when the weaknesses revealed themselves.  I realized that in this case I had given my trust to someone who wasn’t trustworthy.  This friend has left a trail of broken hearts behind her and I knew that but hadn’t registered that she would ultimately do the same with me.  I hadn’t been willing to look honestly at this persons strengths and weaknesses.

I had a choice, I could blame her for betraying me or I could accept myself more deeply and take responsibility that I hadn’t been discerning enough in the relationship to see this persons strengths and weaknesses.  If I had looked honestly I wouldn’t have been surprised at all by this persons actions.  I would have expected it and seen the potential all along.

We always have a choice.  It is easy to blame others and focus on “what they did”.  And we may even be justified.  But their imbalance is their imbalance and their karma too.  Experiment for today with dropping the focus on them (whoever they might be ) and bring the focus back to yourself.  Fill yourself with a feeling of complete self acceptance and affirm:

I accept myself completely.
I accept myself completely.
I accept myself completely.

What is it that you need to accept about yourself?  What are you dodging by focusing on them?  What is it that you are to learn from this situation?

And so go deeply into self acceptance. Instead of focusing on the imbalances of others learn instead to focus deeply on accepting yourself.  Every time your feathers are ruffled, every time you find yourself focusing on what they did experiment with turning your attention back to yourself and accepting yourself on deeper and deeper levels.  This does not mean to turn a blind eye to the imbalances around you. Look honestly but then return to a place of complete self acceptance.  As you accept yourself on deeper and deeper levels you will grow calm.  When you are calm you will see both yourself and others more clearly.  When you see clearly you will have a deeper understanding of your own responsibility in the situations that you find yourself in and you will feel less blaming and judgmental of others as well.  When you accept yourself you will see the lessons that you are learning.  You will see the purpose of all that is transpiring.  And so make this a daily practice.  Fill yourself with complete self acceptance as you go through your day.  When faced with your various challenges of the day turn to deeper self acceptance.   When faced with the imbalances of others accept yourself on deeper and deeper levels.  Again, your increased self acceptance will bring you calm and your calm will bring you greater levels of clarity.  And so make this your practice for today.  Be gentle with yourself for learning to accept yourself in your entirety is a process.  Learn to accept both your strengths and your weaknesses for everyone has strengths and everyone has weaknesses.  Learn to accept the fact that you, like everyone else are learning and growing for the earth is a school and you have come for learning and growth.

Accept yourself on deeper and deeper levels and learn to look honestly at those with whom you relate.  In this way you will not be so caught off guard by the imbalances of others but instead aware of the nuiances of each relationship, aware of the strengths and weaknesses of those which you engage and aware of level of trustworthiness of those with whom you interact.

Affirm frequently:

I accept myself completely.
I accept that I have strengths.
I accept that I have weaknesses.
I accept that I, like everyone else, am learning and growing.
I accept myself completely.