Ah sweet wabi sabi
To embrace what can break
To come to terms with death itself
And not our lives forsake
To find the juxtaposition that
Controlling is not power
But letting go & letting life
Decide our final hour.
To be in awe and wonder
Have curiosity
And see the world for what it is
Much bigger than me.
- Adjoa Skinner Webb
Photo by Sarah Shreves DTLA circa 2018
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Hello friend,
Welcome to Now I Found My Voice. Its our third week into 2021. Does it feel like three months to you, or three days? Probably both right? If its your first time reading, WELCOME. This is the third edition so of you want to catch up check out these before reading this edition.
Since 2020 was a year that rocked the world, I’ve been sharing my poems and opinions on the cycles of grief stages. This week I’m focusing on “acceptance”. Acceptance comes in many forms, but I’m going to align with the idea that coming to terms with what I can and cannot control is acceptance. I can’t control someone’s opinions or judgments. I can control my own. I can’t control someone else’s emotions, I can control my own. I can’t control the weather, or the news, but I can control how I respond, react or adjust because of them. I can’t control the day that I pass on, or when others leave their earthly bodies, but I can decide to live my life in a posture of loving acceptance.
“Baby hold on to me, whatever will be will be, the future is ours to see. So baby hold on to me.” - Eddie Money
We can ask others to join us in accepting the reality we choose, but sometimes they won’t hold it. They’ll likely work things out in their own way. Grief looks different for everyone. Some want space, others crave embracing. For some they work out grief through doing, or over doing. For others its pausing and doing nothing at all. When I can grow in my ability to come to terms with how I need to grieve, I’m more apt to embrace how others need to grieve.
My therapist Dr Therese shared her opinion that the most important thing in our mental health journey is to learn healthy boundaries. I believe that acceptance is a type of boundary. Acceptance says I don’t need to break down a wall on someone else’s property. The wall has been placed there to protect and I respect that person’s desire to protect their property. Likely the acceptance stems from respecting my own property and wanting to protect my own.
About a decade ago, mentors of mine led a group of us through the book “Boundaries” by Dr Henry Cloud. Now many years later being a mother to a toddler I’m growing in greater understanding why boundaries are so important. I simply cannot allow my toddler to do anything he wants. I have teach him the value of boundaries so that he won’t get himself killed running into streets or playing in electrical sockets.
Acceptance is understanding the greatest boundary of all. Coming to terms with my own lack of control over a situation or person helps me see what I can do, rather than feel overwhelmed by what I cannot do. Acceptance keeps me from fear. It keeps me from projecting what others might be thinking or reading into what they’re saying and creating false scenarios that bring harm.
Taking this feeling
Taking in this feeling
Allowing it to inspire
That we are moving forward
And its a consuming fire.
Everyone celebrating
The energy released
Balanced and submitted to
A beautiful state of peace
- Adjoa Skinner Webb
My Pastor, Rev John Rittenhouse shared a sermon last Sunday that spoke about the opposite of acceptance and coming to terms. This my friends, is Expectation.
“Bitterness grows in a garden of expectation.” - Rev. John Rittenhouse
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Acceptance is to receive what is
While not allowing unmet expectations
To change the way I feel about
Myself despite frustrations.
I will be sustained by glory
By heaven come to earth fulfilled
Where my deep needs will certainly be met
despite if my wants happen still.
I’m guilty of rehearsing expectations
Repeating why they are legit
Saying aloud why they’re an injustice
With reasons why I don’t deserve this.
How did I get to this expectation?
Where’s its root or origin?
What promises were given here?
Where’s a new way to begin?
Begin in a posture of graciousness
Ask if agreements were made
Ask myself what’s truly broken
Ask if my ego can fade.
Ask if communication was clear on all sides
Or if I did not hear or speak
Knowing that fear cannot live in the space
That’s shared with curiosity.
- Adjoa Skinner Webb
————-
Practical steps I’m taking…
I’m choosing the meditation practice of speaking out and believing the best for others, even when I disagree or have a history of being at odds with them. I’m learning how to pray this over them when they come to mind.
May you be
Safe
Joyous
Prosperous
Healthy
Another step I’m working on is by way of a tool my life coach gave me, which is…
To believe that I am: Whole, Complete, Capable
Regardless of what others have said about me
To believe that others are: Whole, Complete and Capable
Regardless of what I have believed about them in the past.
Within
Within the grief cycle experience
There is a coming to terms
A glorious acceptance
Of life lessons we have learned.
A deeper joy and happiness
That doesn’t need it’s way
A place of gratitude
During the bleaker days.
A searching for the silver line
A true and warm embrace
That comes from facing up to things
After looking at our face.
And having honest conversation
With our own fine selves
Reading our own thoughts
That our stored within our shelves.
Instead of looking outside
Acceptance comes within
Leaning into pain and knowing
We’ll find a second wind.
For surely we don’t know the time
The winds of change will come
And if with their appearance
That will mean suffering is done.
For suffering is funny
It appears in many forms
Even when we’re strong
It tells us that we’re worn.
But what if greater courage came
In ways we never knew?
Cause we were busy searching
For answers to tell us what to do?
When all along the answers
Were inside the core of us
When at the end of everything
It was us we had to trust.
I’m learning how to do this
Won’t you learn along with me?
Together we might find ourselves
And live as truly free.
- Adjoa Skinner Webb
Now I found my voice
and they can’t silence me
now I found my voice
I don’t need the world to see
that I found my voice
oh now I finally am free
cause I found my voice
and there’s nothing wrong with me. - ASW
Til next week my friends remember
There is nothing wrong with you!
Much love,
Adjoa