Trust and openness are antidotes for anxiety. If you need an easier way to access them, try acceptance. If acceptance is difficult, try allowing. Allowing is a preventive measure. Allowing is creating the space for everything to be what they are. When we have allowed something to happen, it would be easier to accept when it happens.
Ask yourself.
· Do you allow yourself to make mistakes?
· Do you allow yourself to make a ‘wrong’ decision?
· Do you allow others to make mistakes?
· Do you allow your plan to get messed up?
· Do you allow your effort to yield nothing?
· Do you allow things to go wrong?
· Do you allow disasters to happen?
· Do you allow others to behave the way they do?
· Do you allow others to feel the way they feel?
· Do you allow others to distrust you?
· Do you allow others to criticize you, to challenge you?
· Do you allow others to reject you?
· Do you allow others to dislike or even resent you?
· Do you allow yourself or your loved ones to get sick?
· Do you allow yourself to die? Do you allow your loved ones to die?
· Do you allow what is happening in the world to happen?
Contemplate these questions and find out the answers from your heart. If your answer is a “yes”, look deeper to see if it is true. If your answer is a “no”, find out why and work on it till your heart has made space for it. Your heart has immense capacity to allow everything unconditionally. When we are able to allow things to be what they are, we will not resist anything or be afraid of anything. Acceptance will come naturally. This is the foundation for trust and openness.
Yuan Tze
