Live Inspired — acceptance

"Letting go doesn't mean that you don't care about someone anymore. It's just realizing that the only person you really have control over is yourself." - Deborah Reber Today I picked this quote because I wanted to talk about acceptance.  I think that acceptance of situations or ourselves sometimes gets a negative association.  People say things like, are you going to just let that happen?  How can you just accept that?, etc.  And we feel the need to always have control over situations.  Thinking that we can control the way the situation always pans out, or how the person on the...

The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves and not twist them to fit our own image.  Otherwise we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them. Thomas Merton I wanted to pick a quote this week on the subject of love because the Valentine's Day holiday is tomorrow.  I didn't want to focus on just the topic of romantic love, because there are many forms of love in our lives including love for our family and friends and even the practice of self-love. To me, this quote is about challenging us to...

"In order to love who you are, you cannot hate the experiences that shaped you." -Andrea Dykstra  In order to love ourselves fully, we must learn acceptance of everything that has happened in our past and shaped us into the person we are.  This includes accepting not only the good things, but the bad experiences as well.  If we cannot accept these experiences, we become a prisoner to our past by replaying them over and over again in our mind.  We cannot move forward with anything until we learn to release and let go.  No amount of hate, guilt or...