I have been voraciously reading everything I can find on the topic of Cheerful Acceptance and acceptance in general. At this point, I have read book from the Buddhist tradition and the Psychotherapy domain and while they provide some interesting insight, they have not really been exactly what I am writing about. In them, I have found some valuable nuggets of wisdom that have helped to shape my thought process. But by the end of each book, I still feel my work in Cheerful Acceptance is unique in its presentation of the topic….and then I encountered the writing of Debbie Ford….
Yesterday, I began reading The Dark Side of the Light Chasers, by Debbie Ford (1955-2013). As I began reading the book (and by reading I mean listening….books on CD are a brilliant concept) I began to recognize a very familiar theme… She called the weaknesses shadows, but she was discussing how to embrace and bring our shadows to the light and use them. One example she used was the acknowledgment that she was a B*!@H. On example she used was when she needed to return something because of substandard quality, being a B*!@H came in handy. The more I read, I felt my own defensive mechanism beginning to kick in…Did this mean that my own concept was just a restatement of the work she did 15 years ago….Without missing a beat, I was starting to doubt the strength of my own process. I spent a significant portion of last night stressing (at least on some level) about this new found information. I really let this get under my skin!
When I woke up this morning, I found it very difficult to begin blogging….perhaps on some level it was because of the “defeat” I felt I had suffered the night before. And then I had a realization. It was okay that there were other writers related closely to my concept. I believe it was during my reading of The Millionaire Messenger by Brendan Burchard, that I came across the idea that there will always be others writing/talking about your topic… Your job is to be able to talk about how you perspective on the topic is unique and valuable on its own merits.
This morning I decided to find out more about the work of Debbie Ford. After some searching through her website, I found what I believe to be a fairly representative statement of her message. Debbie’s message in part is represented by an excerpt from her website.
As we all have heard, love is the answer. Indeed it is, but it’s not just the loving of our good self, of our good qualities. True love is embracing our dark impulses, our imperfections, our mistakes and our heartache. That is when one reconnects and experiences the love that is truly the answer.
It is my mission day after day to find new ways to inspire others to go on this lifelong journey to clean up their past, to forgive themselves for their flaws and shortcomings, to make peace with their humanity, to open up to their divinity and allow themselves to be guided by a power greater than themselves.
In this message, I was able to identify the critical difference between her work (and the work of The Ford Institute, which continues to advance Debbie’s message after her death) and mine is how we look at the weaknesses (my word) or shadows (Debbie’s word). Debbie wants you to forgive and make peace, whereas I am suggesting that it is more important to acknowledge and accept without judgement. I believe that when we start talking about forgiveness we are assigning a negative value to our shadows and that opens us up to the opportunity to determine that we are bad because of our shadows. Cheerful Acceptance asserts that it is far more powerful to remove the judgement from the conversation entirely and simply exist that these parts of us exist. The do not define our inherent “goodness” or “badness,” they are just there to be accepted.
In the end, I am grateful to have encountered Debbie’s work. This topic is important enough that there should be many people writing on it so that we can see the concept from many different angles. If you only look at something from one angle….then you can miss out on all of the facets of its beauty. So I will continue to forge ahead to see what other facets of Cheerful Acceptance I can find.
Just like my journey in finding other facets of Cheerful Acceptance, how can you find different facets of what is true today and accept them?
Have a GREAT day!
Cheerful Acceptance 