🌿 Beautiful September: Embodying Acceptance 🌿

daytonfxmed
Sep 9
3 min read

Welcome to Beautiful September! Our theme this month for reclaiming and embodying vitality is Acceptance.

When I began to consider how to write about this, two other themes showed up with great insistence, so we will also explore them together with acceptance. These related themes are Reverence and Building Capacity, and they will be explored in future blogs.

A Question for You

Ask yourself this—for just a few moments, what would it feel like to not need anything in your life to be different than what it is right now?

Stated again: not needing anything at all in your life—all the things that are good but “could be better,” all the things that are terrible that you wish were fixed—to be different than they are right now.

I’m curious, when you say this quietly to yourself, what feelings or thoughts rise up in your mind and body?

Does a flash of anger ignite because it feels like I am suggesting you should accept pain, illness, and chronic symptoms?
Does fear close in because it feels like I am suggesting you stop reaching for the life you are dreaming of and settle for the one you have instead?
Maybe you are filled for a moment with overwhelming relief and the tears come unbidden because your body has been trying so hard for so long to do everything right, and no one has ever suggested it is ok to rest?

Maybe you feel a mix of all of these—or something else entirely—all of which is completely normal.

It is this last feeling of relief that I’d like to ask you to lean into. Not forever, just for now.

Embodying Acceptance Feels Like...

Your eyes widening and turning up to the crisp blue September sky where you see the outline of the still leafy trees. Looking far beyond the trees, you become aware of the beauty and vastness of nature.
Your shoulders drop down, your body is thankful to set down the weight of your world for a moment.
Perhaps a small feeling of lightness bubbles up in your chest near your heart. Is it joy? You feel like you can take a deep breath.
Your hands tingle as they loosen their grip on the list of things that need your attention. The tingling invites you to stretch your hands up over your head and bend your waist from side to side in a full body stretch.
The stretch initiates a yawn—which is your body's way of signaling the change from nervous system activation (fight/flight) to calming (rest/repair).
The stretch loosens your hips and you feel like wiggling your toes and rotating your ankle joints.
Your stomach and jaw unclench.

Welcome to the present moment, where for right now, there is nothing to do and nothing to change.

Just hang out here for a moment with your body.

Acceptance and the Bigger Picture

Working towards our dreams, healing our bodies, growing into the kind of human beings we want to be are all worthy pursuits. A life spent exploring, growing, and learning is one well-lived. Indeed, this keeps life interesting and refreshing.

Sometimes though, we just need to rest in the place we are in—even if it is not the place we are trying to reach.

Think of it like college: it’s a marathon, not a sprint. You have to pace yourself. You still have to sleep and visit with family, exercise, and take care of life while also working toward the goal of graduation. The same is true for raising children or anything else that takes time and has a learning curve.

When healing the body from chronic symptoms, developing new health habits, remodeling your home and space to better reflect your authenticity, checking off your bucket list, or any other life up-levels that are important to you, there are periods of activity—and there need to be periods of acceptance, which can include rest and even play.