Acceptance

Welcome to day one of acceptance. Now, usually when we talk about acceptance in life there's a sense of wanting to be more accepting. Maybe we need to try to be more accepting, but actually with this exercise, it takes a slightly different approach. It's more about noticing what we resist. There's an assumption that acceptance is an inherent part of being human, an inherent part of the mind. And it's only when we resist things in life, resist people in life that it obscures or somehow blocks that feeling of acceptance. It might be that we resist our thoughts, our emotions. It might be that we resist physical sensations, perhaps pain, discomfort. It might be that we resist people in our lives, places, situations. There are so many different opportunities for resisting things in life but every time we do resist something we move one step away from that place of acceptance. So with this technique, it's just reminding ourselves of what that feeling of acceptance is. As always, I'll guide you through the exercise. All you need to do is to sit down, take a moment to get comfortable. Starting in the usual way with the eyes open, nice, soft focus. As you begin with some deep breaths. Breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth. And with the next out breath, just closing the eyes, allowing the breath to return to its natural rhythm. In and out through the nose. You just start to be more aware of the different physical senses, the weight of the body pressing down, the contact between the feet and the floor and the weight of the hands and the arms, just resting on the legs. At the same time, take a moment or two, just to notice any sounds. Just becoming more familiar with the immediate surroundings. And then just bringing the attention back to the body again. As you just start to get a sense of how the body feels right now. Sense of heaviness or lightness, of restlessness or stillness and just to get a clearer picture, starting off at the top of the head, just gently scanning down towards the toes. It's building up a picture which parts of the body feel comfortable, relaxed and which parts feel perhaps a little tense in some way. At the same time, just becoming a little bit more aware of the underlying mood or emotion that might be around right now. Having got a sense of how you're feeling, just pausing momentarily, just to be clear about your motivation for doing this exercise. Remembering as always, to include those people around you in your life, the people who will in some way benefit from you doing this exercise. And now you can just allow the attention, the focus to shift back to the bodies. You just start to notice the rising and falling sensation of the breath. It's taking the time to notice where in the body you feel...