The 101 on Love, Bravery & Inspiration | from The Unfu*kwithable Life | Amber Hawken | MINDFULNESS COGNITIVE BEHAVIOURAL THERAPY

When we swap fear and resistance for love and acceptance, we end up with inspiration. And instead of being motivated to be better or because you don’t feel enough, you are being inspired by love and gratitude for yourself and life, and you access a magnificent flow. You work smarter, and the body, the money, and the success become bonus side effects of this flow.

Knowing yourself and knowing what you are inspired by means that you can live from a place of pull towards something rather than a place of pushing against yourself and against life to get somewhere else. The first is moving towards life; the other is shrinking away.

So, how do you tap into the flow of life and embrace love and acceptance rather than living into the resistance and fear of shrinking away?

1. Embrace Empathy and Compassion AND Embrace Boundaries:

Love and acceptance aren’t an excess of empathy or compassion. No, they are simply the gatekeepers that open the doors to inner freedom and healing. Love and acceptance are not giving up, being walked over, being weak, or blindly being a doormat.

2. Cultivate Inner Discipline and an Open Mind:

Love and acceptance require a deep amount of inner discipline and strength to let go of a perspective that sees a person, an event, or an item and challenge an emotion.

3. Be Bold, Live Empowered:

Love and acceptance are bold; they’re powerful, and it takes a lot of courage. Like water, it can cut through even the toughest of elements, through persistence and dedication.

4. Embrace Paradox (or Embrace Being Whole):

Love and acceptance are about integration, and they’re about understanding the reality of our lives, which are made up exclusively of equal opposites. Emotional pain rises when our perspective is lopsided. It’s missing a piece of the pie, so to speak.

5. Be Brave:

Love and acceptance require courage because the strongest parts of the human identity are often made up of the negative stories playing on repeat in our subconscious mind. The stories are so intertwined with who we think we are; we tend to defend the pain by blaming others, never wanting to let go of that part of us. Pain is like super glue. But love, like water cutting through stone, can loosen the deepest of sufferings with persistence and patience.

6. Learn to Let Go:

Love and acceptance are about letting go of painful stories that have held together part of an identity that’s been living in pain, stimulated from said stories.

There are three ingredients to letting go of any pain:

• Knowledge
• Compassion
• Empathy

And the element is the application. 
It takes courage because there seems to be the belief within us that anger, blame, and shame towards another lessens the painful blow. It isn’t true. Holding onto blame, shame, and anger towards someone whose action has left you feeling hurt or uncomfortable is like holding hot coals and excepting that other person to get burnt. It only affects you.

“Because one believes in oneself, one doesn’t try to convince others. Because one is content with one- self, one doesn’t need others’ approval. Because one accepts oneself, the whole world accepts him or her.”

—Lao Tzu

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