Quotes About Acceptance

I presented this game to one of the accomplishment groups after we had been working together for several months, and I gave them the choice, collectively, to fill out the phrase, so they could set the ante for themselves. Together they decided that "sex" was the only word in the entire English language worth putting in the blank. So, "Have the Best Sex Ever" became the game of the week.

BEING WITH the way things are calls for an expansion of ourselves. We start from what is, not from what should be; we encompass contradictions, painful feelings, fears, and imaginings, and—without fleeing, blaming, or attempting correction—we learn to soar, like the far-seeing hawk, over the whole landscape. The practice of being with the way things are allows us to alight in a place of openness, where "the truth" readies us for the next step, and the sky opens up.

There is no such thing as bad weather," he used to say, "only inappropriate clothing.

If I cannot be present without resistance to the way things are and act effectively, if I feel myself to be wronged, a loser, or a victim, I will tell myself that some assumption I have made is the source of my difficulty.

We keep looking so hard in life for the "specific message," and yet we are blinded to the fact that the message is all around us, and within us all the time. We just have to stop demanding that it be on OUR terms or conditions, and instead open ourselves to the possibility that what we seek may be in front of us all the time.

Being present to the way things are is not the same as accepting things as they are

When you give an A, you find yourself speaking to people not from a place of measuring how they stack up against your standards, but from a place of respect that gives them room to realize themselves.

The rain in Florida may be bad for us and good for the citrus crop. A canceled flight may wreck our schedule and bring us face to face with our future spouse in the airport lounge. A forest fire may seem to destroy an ecosystem in the short term, yet renew it with vigor for the long term. When a splendid osprey eats a beautiful fish, it is neither good nor bad. Or, it's good for the osprey and bad for the fish. Nature makes no judgment. Humans do.

She remembered him smiling, and realized that time, that great old healer, had finally accomplished its work, and now, across the years, the face of love no longer stirred up agonies of grief and bitterness. Rather, one was left feeling simply grateful. For how unimaginably empty the past would be without him to remember.

Grief was like a terrible burden, but at least you could lay it down by the side of the road and walk away from it. Antonia had come only a few paces, but already she could turn and look back and not weep. It wasn't anything to do with forgetting. It was just accepting. Nothing was ever so bad once you had accepted it.

Grief is a funny thing because you don't have to carry it with you for the rest of your life. After a bit you set it down by the roadside and walk on and leave it resting there.

Soon she cried and farted herself to sleep.

And Doris had offered to pick up Valentine and Valentine had said, "My friend Pixie is on the way too, if you . . ." And included her, which was what a best friend should do, but then ignored her and refused to use her real name, her confirmation name, the name by which she would—maybe embarrassing to say but she thought it anyway—the name by which she would rise in the world.

which...to kill yourself means never having to say you're sorry.

She was just glad he hadn't come back to life, which did make her sad. How sad it was not to be sad.

But also, he resisted the idea that his endless work, the warmth of his family, and this identity that got him followed in stores and ejected from restaurants and movies, this way he was, for good or bad, was just another thing for a white man to acquire. "No," he said gently, "you could not be an Indian. But we could like you anyway.

couldn't do the touch for Grandpa, though. He was a hard nut. You know, some people fall right through the hole in their lives.

And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.

Once in a while I encounter that oblivion in the form of an unreal me. This unreal me is paralyzed by one bottomless thought: I didn't choose this format. I didn't choose to be organized into a Tookie. What, or who, made that happen? Why? What will happen if I do not accept this outrage? It isn't easy to stay organized in this shape. I can feel what it would be like to stop making the effort.

So you see, once a person drops the scales of prejudiced certainty and doubts appear, there is no telling how far a heart can open.

there was no place as unknown as grief.

There was still blood going down Henry's chin, but he didn't notice it and no one said anything, even though every time he took a bite of his bread his blood fell onto it until he was eating his own blood mixed in with the food.

And although the mourners well hid their irritation, it was inevitable that there were some who were impatient. If you are dead, stay dead, someone muttered.

It was this immense resignation to the shape of his life that opened him every day to the experience of joy.