{"id":46464,"date":"2022-03-20T13:26:30","date_gmt":"2022-03-20T13:26:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/?p=46464"},"modified":"2022-03-20T13:26:34","modified_gmt":"2022-03-20T13:26:34","slug":"can-you-really-accept-yourself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/2022\/03\/20\/can-you-really-accept-yourself\/","title":{"rendered":"Can you really accept yourself?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For a long time, I thought life would become much better if I\u2019d just accepted myself.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Accept the good, the bad, and the everything in between.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The whole damn thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It sounded pretty profound and seemingly healing, but there has always been one big problem:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It requires two entities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a flawed, imperfect, struggling self, and then there\u2019s the perfect self that is generously accepting (and forgiving!) the first one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is simply not true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I do agree that within our experience there is the sense of a person with all kinds of traits and a past and a future, but that is not what we really and essentially are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is just one thing going on, all the time, seemingly divided into parts like me, you, the world, a seagull, and the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This makes \u2018accepting yourself\u2019 an impossible thing to achieve, simply because the required components don’t exist, but that doesn\u2019t mean that there is room for (at least illusory) growth and progress and liberation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This actually happens when the self we are so identified with, the flawed and human one, is seen for what it is: an experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This self is not a thing, but an amazing and very convincing projection of flesh and blood and cognition and senses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would say that spiritual awakening means getting a direct and unfiltered sense of the real Self, that which makes it possible to be aware of life in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s already there, it has always been there, but it’s not an experience itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s the space for experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We KNOW we are alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We feel stuff, notice stuff, can talk about it, can forget it, can oppose it, or we can try to hold on to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And all of those things come and go, while the sense of being alive is always there, unchanged, subtle, modest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Literally invisible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The personal self, this perceived entity, is part of that world of creation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is created at the same time as the body and the thoughts are created, and it is always in motion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As long as we are living life through the body and mind of the person whose name we respond to, we can never fully be or consciously live as the real, the bigger Self, the Self that is everything, the universe, me AND you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But we can get a profound notion of that bigger Self by connecting to the divine awareness that is always, always there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a recognition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s like a click, a connection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And when it happens, you just know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So let me suggest an alternative to \u2018accepting yourself\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What sounds way more practical and doable and logical to me, is something like \u2018self-recognition\u2019 or \u2018self-realization\u2019 (even though we can’t force it).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is what happens when consciousness, this absolute power of life, somehow stumbles across itself, as the human.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s like being aware of awareness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It feels like home: sweet, simple, warm, not euphoric per se, but safe and promising and exciting and free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the realization of Oneness, something that never lasts but always leaves its marks, and gets to grow in your awareness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a universal Knowing, not of something, but AS something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And no acceptance is needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the signs that this is going on for you, that this is somehow waiting for you to happen, is an intrinsic interest in the matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The intellect doesn’t make up a yearning for spiritual truth, this most profound recognition: it’s consciousness trying to find itself that creates the longing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No worries: it WILL happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

—<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Photo by @marcospradobr, for Unsplash)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For a long time, I thought life would become much better if I\u2019d just accepted myself. Accept the good, the bad, and the everything in between. The whole damn thing. It sounded pretty profound and seemingly healing, but there has always been one big problem: It requires two entities. There\u2019s a flawed, imperfect, struggling self, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46465,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[97,117,100,105,116,113,103,112],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46464"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46464"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46466,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46464\/revisions\/46466"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}