A lot of spiritual traditions like to talk about the power of “acceptance,” but these days I’m more interested in “allowance” than acceptance. I don’t know about you but I remember fondly the allowance that my parents gave me. It wasn’t as big as other kids but I also didn’t have to do any chores to earn it. It was unearned and undeserved and it just came every week. And it makes me wonder how big my allowance is these days and what else is possible?
So what’s the difference between acceptance and allowance? This was first called to my attention by people trained in Access Consciousness (which I am not). Acceptance as an idea contains within it the power of not struggling with what is, but it has a stuck energy to it. It is hard and fixed. If I could easily upload a sound to this blog (I should figure out how to do that, I LOVE sounds) it would be “Uhhhh” or as my wonderful energetic psychic therapist Chandra Swedlow says “Stuuuuuuuck.” Most of the things that I have to accept are not things I want. The reason I might chose to “accept” them anyway is that when I behave as if whatever I don’t want to accept isn’t the current reality, I am in denial about it. So, for example, I seem to be a person who cannot eat just one chocolate chip cookie. Whenever I decide that I’m person who can eat just one and I try it, I end up eating an amount that makes me sick. So I choose to accept that that’s my current reality and one day at a time not eat even one, because I don’t want to feel sick. However, at the same time as I’m doing this, I remain interested in what else is possible and how does it get even better than this? (also Access Consciousness questions)
Allowance, on the other hand, has a light, free quality or energy to it. More of an “ahhhhh” than an “uhhhhh.” When I allow, I give up all opposition to the “reality” that I’ve been experiencing. I stop using any of my precious energy or life force or Chi or whatever you want to call it resisting or defending or denying that concept. But at the same time I don’t pour concrete over it and say “this is a thing that will never ever change period end of sentence.” I allow it to be the way it apparently is. I allow it to flow through me rather than to get stuck on my brick wall of defenses. I lay down my arms and surrender sweetly.
Can you feel the difference? It’s more of a feeling than it is a thinking or intellectual experience. I am allowing myself to be a person who cannot eat just one chocolate chip cookie. I am allowing Donald Trump to be the current president. But I don’t accept either one.
Allowing isn’t particularly easy either but it also needn’t be particularly hard. I find that the more things I allow, the bigger my allowance is. As I give up using my precious reserves to fight against what is, my health grows, my relationships deepen, my bank account grows, my career prospers, like for real, no shit. That makes me pretty interested in allowing even more, and, perhaps, accepting less.
