One of the key abilities that separates spiritual travelers from the mainstream zombies is the ability to accept life circumstances without complaining, denial, and pessimism. The virtue of acceptance is an important pursuit that helps us reach new heights of inner understanding.

This concept may appear to be in direct contrast to my writings on manifesting your desires. Perhaps it is, but paradox is a valuable part of the expansive process.

I’m certainly not talking about seeing yourself as powerless and unable to change. Acceptance just means to be in the moment, to look with clarity on your life and not try to distort or deny what you see.

When we find ourselves in a challenging situation, or when we fail repeatedly to create a specific outcome, we are experiencing some sort of lesson.We have something to learn in such scenarios and this learning will always foster growth.

Instead of whining and fantasizing about another situation, the spiritual thing to do is accept what is, and then to ask: “Where is the lesson in all this?”

In the case of continual failure, it’s quite possible your higher, unconscious mind doesn’t really want what you claim to want at the ego level. It’s also possible that you need to explore all aspects of a process, even the dark side, to be truly fulfilled with the object of your desire.

We won’t always know exactly why things appear to be going wrong. But what we can do is accept the truth that things are always perfect just as they are.

The goal is finding the lesson and understanding ourself better than we did prior to the challenging event.