Having and Being Peace
Part Three: Peace Through Absolute Acceptance
by Thomas A. Leenerts, Psy.D. and Berta Stella Cantón
One of things that keep us from consciously being aware that we are indeed
peace are long standing feelings that give the opposite message. As we suffer
from emotions as guilt, fear, worry, inadequacy, and hate, it is common to want
to do any and everything to avoid them. We run from them, mask them over, and
try to ignore them out of our lives. But if we become silent, go inside and face
these demons with absolute acceptance, without the associated story, judgment,
or interpretation, something quite remarkable happens.
When we totally accept the feeling, witnessing what is as it is, we will see
that the physical sensation of the emotion sometimes moves about in our body,
shifting from one location to another. For others the sensation remains anchored
in only one part of the body. In either case, as we follow the sensation with
absolute acceptance, in time the feeling will begin to fade without us doing
anything at all. It fades because it is a phantom produced by an ego that only
disturbs us when we negatively judge and struggle with it.
Take for example Ryan, who had been battling for decades with oppressive
feelings of worthlessness. This made his life miserable and finally drove him to
seek counseling.
After exploring his situation, I asked him if he was willing to do an
exercise, one where he held himself in a state of absolute acceptance. He
agreed. I told him to close his eyes, go inside himself, and connect with the
sense of worthlessness that so distressed him.
“Stay away from all the stories relating to the emotion,” I said. “Experience
the worthlessness. Don’t run from it; let it be. This is a time for allowing and
accepting.” By his changing facial expressions I could see he was following my
suggestions.
“What is happening?” I asked after a moment.
“I found the sensation,” he said. “It started off in my chest, but now has
moved. It is like a slight headache right above my eyes.”
I encouraged him to keep witnessing. He continued to give me ongoing
commentary, saying at one time that he felt hot all over. A little later he
reported he felt pain in the back of his neck and had a headache. Then he grew
quiet.
“What is happening?” I asked. “Do you still feel pain??”
“Oh, I don’t have the headache anymore,” he said, “and . . . it’s like magic.
I’m calm and I don’t understand clearly what has happened. The worthlessness is
gone.”
This surprised him. He almost couldn’t believe that the feeling that had been
so much a part of him had disappeared in front of his accepting attention. I
told him the key was always awareness. The content of our confused, conditioned
mind (in Ryan’s case a sense of being totally worthless) has nothing to do with
the reality of who we are.
“When you don’t fight that emotion but simply allow it to be and accept it, it
fades,” I said. “Another way of expressing this is to say when we choose to be
absolute acceptance we are living in the now, which means we permit whatever
comes into awareness to be as it is. If we refuse to judge or fight it, we are
choosing to be the impersonal witness, to be as we were created.”
“It sounds too simple,” Ryan said, “but it worked. The worthlessness
faded....What a great tool!”
I cautioned Ryan about thinking of it as a tool for his toolkit. If we do
that, we fall back into trying to “get rid” of the feeling. That leads to
judging it and attempting to accomplish something, which means we are right back
in the ego mind. Instead, when we stay with the feeling, letting it be, not
judging it, we are being our real Self, the infinite field of consciousness. We
are not really doing anything, we are just being. The feeling fades on its own.
Each of us can make the choice to return to our natural state of peace. When
we do, we let go of ego perceptions of separation and return to being, the
totality of consciousness, the One.
Copyright 2005 by Thomas A. Leenerts <
to PART 4 >
Thomas Leenerts and Berta Cantón have new book entitled, Wellfolk, is expected
to be out by this summer. If you would like to know when it is available please
click here.
Please e-mail us about your experience with being peace as suggested in this
article. With your permission we will share it with others on the PeaceCenters
web-site. To send an e-mail
click here.
| 