Self acceptance is recognizing your own individual perfection. It doesn’t mean trying to achieve perfection, but realizing that you already have. For most of us we spend our life delaying our happiness and basing our worth on external factors we feel we haven’t quite mastered yet. We might be striving for a promotion at work, struggling to shift the last few kilos we are trying to lose or desperately seeking  “the one”. There is always something we feel we need to do or be before we consider ourselves the successful person we so dearly wish to be. Self acceptance is recognizing that we are invaluable just as we are right now, even without those factors, and allowing ourselves to feel content with exactly what we have. After all if we don’t know where we are starting from how can we work out which directions to take to get where we want to go. Not knowing where stand now is like trying to book a plane ticket to one destination without ever specifying where you are leaving from, you just can’t do it.

Imagine if you saw someone falling over the side of a bridge, you run over grab their hand and haul them back to safety. Your ability to change someones life, or even save it, wasn’t dependant on whether or not you were a top level executive or whether you  had thin thighs. It was about your ability to realise that right in that moment you were powerful. That you were exactly where you were supposed to be to be part of a miracle, and that you had everything you needed within you to create it. Self acceptance is recognizing ourselves as that special and powerful all of the time, just as we are.

Without self acceptance, contentment is something you could achieve only if you could just tick all the boxes on your checklist. You feel disconnected from the world, and self conscious around others. You don’t value this moment right now and put off truly living until you have gained the external gratification you think you need.

Feeling a sense of acceptance within ourselves allows us to enjoy every moment, knowing that we are where we are supposed to be and that we are always growing and learning. It allows us to recognise our true value in this world, not just as what we have, but as who we are. With it we feel connected, we feel we are here for a reason and we recognise our own magical ability to elevate and inspire others not tomorrow, or next week, but right now.

Self acceptance doesn’t come easily. Unfortunately in todays world we are conditioned by advertising, media and society to always want more external gratification and live up to a certain ideal that doesn‘t take into account our own individuality, so we often feel lacking. But we don’t need to.

You can start cultivating your own self acceptance today. Take a deep breath and allow yourself to just be in the moment. Look at the blessings in your life and how much you have achieved to date. Feel your body. Try not to judge it, just be grateful that you have it. Be aware of the weather, the birds singing, where you are sitting or standing and the people around you. Say a little thank you for being given the blessing of experiencing today. Even if you have faced challenges, try to see them as the learning opportunities they are. Try and take a moment each day to do this. At first it may be difficult, but as you continue to do it more often your acceptance and confidence will grow. You will start to feel lighter and freer as you lift the weight of expectation off your own shoulders. You will begin to notice just how connected you are to life and recognise the uniqueness that each of us possess.

You are a blessing to the world and you deserve the best it has to offer.

For most of my life this went on. I would analyse and probe, looking to see what made things the way they were. I’d use that knowledge then to try to figure out what the next logical occurence would be. I couldn’t just wait for things to happen. As you can imagine this lead to a great deal of frustration when things didn’t work out as planned, so instead of enjoying whatever came my way I would be brooding about what should have come my way. Or so I thought.

It took a long time for me to realise that there was no way I could comprehend or predict what was going to happen. After all, my knowledge was only limited, yet I lived in an infinite universe. I began to understand that even when situations didn’t work out as I had hoped, I wasn’t a victim of misfortune. My expectation simply didn’t match with the destiny I was always going to have. It wasn’t that the experience didn’t turn out the way I’d planned. It was that my plan was based on only a small amount of individual knowledge versus an infinite plan that encompassed far more than only me, and far more than I could ever imagine.

Once you start looking at yourself as a part of a greater destiny, rather than a victim, you begin to see where those experiences that seemingly went wrong fall into place. You can look back and see how a certain door closing allowed for far more potential and a greater joy than you could ever have anticipated. Its hard to let go of the need to control your own life, but its a false reality to think that you were ever in control. Struggling against what comes your way is like fighting in quick sand, the more you wriggle the more you sink. Ride the wave. You don’t know what wonderful surprise is lurking around the next corner. You can be sure though that if you are only focused on a spot straight ahead, never looking around, you won’t see it. The world is a wonderful place, filled with unlimited possibilities. Drop your expectations and you can see those opportunities clearly.

As Alice Walker wrote,  “Expect nothing. Live frugally on surprise.”

Enjoy the ride,

Kate

- Buddha

I like to see prioritising as an opportunity to avoid regrets. By choosing what matters most in each moment, we never have to look back and say I wish I hadn’t missed out on that.

In my experience it is when we prioritise something other than love that we regret the most. We choose to work overtime instead of spending time with our family, decide our car really needs to be washed so sacrifice the afternoon with friends or feel that we really need a partner in our life and so hold onto an unfulfilling relationship. Love is the only inifinite in this life.  Our precious time is finite, and when we have a chance to look back and review our life it won’t be how we spent our money or how successful we were at work that matters, it will be how we spent our time.

The decision to choose love over obligation is never easy, but the rewards are immeasurable. If you don’t believe me take a moment and imagine yourself in ten years time from now – what matters most to you then? Where would you love to be? Who do you treasure most and want with you? Standing there as your future self look back to now. Look at how you use your time. Look at what matters to you most. What choices does your future self regret making now? You may not like the answers, and choosing a different path may be difficult, but once you have been enlightened there is no going back. You can choose to keep going on the path you are, but do you really want to add not following your heart when you knew you could have to that list of regrets?

Sieze the moment. Make love your priority. Stop reading and pick up the phone to a long lost friend. Visit your parents. Play with your children, play with the dog. Its these precious moments you won’t regret.

- Oscar Wilde

Finally, it all fell apart. I couldn’t achieve the results I wanted with my studies. The relationship I thought was the answer to all my problems disintegrated right in front of my eyes.  My weight was fluctuating like a yo-yo. My family dramatically broke apart and my mum, who had always been my rock, got so unwell she needed my sister and I to support her physically. The family home was lost, along with most of our personal belongings. Everything external was no longer what it seemed, and I fell into a deep depression.

Through a lot of intervention from my wonderful mum and sister I started the climb from the darkness, but the problem was I still viewed those same external factors as the measure of success. I got my weight under control, started my own business with my sister, and was enjoying going out for nights on the town with friends again. But I still didn’t feel right. I felt like a fraud and the panic attacks had become severe because I was obsessed with how others perceived me. It looked like I had it all sorted, or at least on the right track, but I couldn’t work out why it was I still didn’t feel like enough. Why I wasn’t happy, content, living the life?

As you know those who don’t learn from history are condemned to repeat it. As I hadn’t learnt what I was missing the first time, several years later I was once again thrust into a situation where my external success measures were taken away.  This time though I had had enough. I didn’t want to feel like a fraud anymore. I didn’t want to be anxious all the time and afraid that someone would find out I was playing in a successful world I felt I never belonged in.

So began my journey to find my Lulu. To find and accept myself and who I am. To find out whether the things that I valued and that made me happy were the same things I had thought for so long I had to have to be considered successful. My journey to find the courage to be true to myself first and foremost, valuing my own peace and sanity over the social acceptance that I had for so long craved.

Its been a long road to here, but it has all been worth it. I’m still learning every day, but I’m delighted to say that the panic attacks and depression are factors of my past. I’ve realized that I have a place in the world. I’m not just here as a spectator looking out for my own interest, but an active participant in Life. I’m more than how I look or what I do for a living. I’m a living, breathing person that can laugh, love and learn. I can make someone else’s day with my words and actions, just as I can make my own day more beautiful by simply shifting my perception. I feel lighter, freer and more connected with those around me. I recognise that the challenges I’ve faced have been essential teachers to get me to here, and I view them as blessings because I’m happier and more content now than I have ever been.

As I’ve become more open and honest with those around me, I’ve realized that many people feel the same sense of confusion and discontentment that I did. My hope with Finding Lulu, is to create a space that inspires and supports those on a similar journey. Those looking for more self knowledge, self acceptance and meaning from their lives.

I hope that you find something within this blog that helps you find contentment and joy. If you’ve already found it, please drop me a line I’d love to hear your story or comments. We are all teachers as much as students.

Til the meatball bounces,
Kate

Why are we so scared to ask for more? To ask for contentment and joy. Why do we postpone those sort of gifts until we decide to retire at 65 years of age. There is so much more to life than just existing. There is so much more to life than merely ticking the boxes for acceptance of our peers. Its time to start writing our own checklist, rather than societies, and begin ticking off our own boxes. We all deserve happiness, peace and contentment. Our lives and relationships would be much better for it and, if that is not what this journey is all about then I don’t know what is.

Everything in this life is but a moment away. From sleeping to awakening, we need only open our eyes rather than pull the covers up over our heads. For as much as bed is comfortable for a while, none of us wishes to be on permanent bed rest.

- Marcel Proust