Archive for category: Overcoming Obstacles

When you look at the ocean do you judge it for being too big, too small, the wrong shade of blue, not quite magnificent as you had expected, or perhaps too magnificent? Do you say, “this ocean isn’t good enough for me!”

Unless you’re a surfer and always looking for that perfect wave, I would venture to say probably not. If you’re like most of us, when you go to the ocean, you probably pause in awe of her majesty, beauty and perfection.

In feng shui we look at the yin and the yang, dark and the light, the hot and the cold, and the hard and the soft. We don’t say that one is better or worse than the other, but instead we focus on the interplay of these two energies and the perfection that emerges from their dance.

We have an innate acceptance and appreciation for nature. Even when there is an obvious imbalance, like a tidal storm or an earthquake. There is still this part within us that accepts it as having to be so. Yes sometimes we scream at g-d and maybe even blame the eco-system, and yet there is a silent understanding an immediate forgiveness of nature, right?

These last couple of days I’ve been comparing myself to my friends who I think are “making it,” or to the girls on the beach who I think have “hotter bodies than mine,” or to all those people already where I want to be. I even found myself comparing myself to the idealized version of me in my mind.

Until today.

I sat on the beach, took in a deep breath and looked at the ocean. I looked at her and was overcome with a sense of compassion.

Why is it hardest to find compassion and acceptance for ourselves?

It isn’t.

It’s as simple as giving yourself permission because if you don’t no one else will. You have the turn key that can make that change. You are the master waiting for yourself to wake up.

Roberto Assiogoli, modern psychologist, student of Freud and Kabbalist, would do this exercise where he would have you imagine the ocean. Feel the love, the appreciation and acceptance you have for it, and then turn your eyes back on yourself and look at yourself from that perspective.

Try it now.

Imagine you are sitting on the sand and you see the sparkling waters. The ocean stretches farther than you can see. Past any limits and any parameters. Endless flowing love. Feel the acceptance.

Once you have created that feeling within you..the feeling of peace, acceptance and gratitude, now get up and go to the mirror. Look at your face as if you are looking at the ocean. Can you see the perfection? The grace with which it was created. Can you see how every line, pimple wrinkle, freckle and dimple were stamped there by the hand of the creator?

If you can have acceptance for just one thing in this life, be it an ocean, the way your husband snores, or the cellulite on your rear end, then you can find acceptance for all things.