Let’s pretend that you’re going through a rough time. You decide that your life sucks enough to book a therapy session. You sink down in the chair and tell the therapist your secret, expecting her to hold your unpredictable monster in the safety net of her hands.

What if, instead of doing this, she responded with, “Well what if it was okay?”

You might be thinking.

1) I don’t know how I’m going to pay my rent this month.

How is that okay?

2) I just got divorced, dumped, or had my heart mooshed by the person I most loved in the world.

How is that okay?

3) I’ve been diagnosed with something wrong in my body or my mind.

How is that okay?

4) I have an eating disorder or an addiction.

How is that okay?

No really, how are those things okay?

You might also be thinking that you could take her blue pen and smash it in her jugular for having the audacity to ask you such a question.

Doesn’t she know that none of these things are okay?

“But what if it were,” she says. “What if these things were okay?”

Let’s pretend that you don’t pick up her pen, but instead slump back in your chair. Your mind would spin because that is what the mind likes to do best.

The mind might say, “Well it’s absolutely not okay for you to have this eating disorder. Duh. That’s why is called a disorder. There is something fundamentally wrong with you.”

Did I neglect to mention that the mind is a bully? It can be mean, and says things to us that we wouldn’t say to our friends, perhaps not even our enemies.

The mind can tell us that we are not okay, that we are damaged, broken, or fractured. We may have things that we would like to change in our lives but cruelty is not the best method for change.

Sure, we can be bullied into doing something out of fear or self-loathing, but think about the last time you were the person being bullied. Did the bullying promote long lasting change? My guess is that the change was short lived and underneath festered the seeds of resentment.

In my experience, acceptance is the soil where love begins to grow. This is where the simple answer lies:

What if it were okay that you (fill in the blank)?

What if it were just okay?

Instead of all the judgments, complaints, and loathing that our minds throw at us, what if we could be okay with the fact that, at this moment, we are imperfect?

What if we said to ourselves, “Yes, right now I have an eating disorder and I’m not sure how to be free. That’s where I am right now. And it’s okay.”

When we are okay with something, it doesn’t mean that we accept it as permanent. It is a fact. This is the place we’re at, in this moment in time.

If we accept ourselves exactly where we are, we can then build a ladder to where we’d like to be.

By giving ourselves permission to be okay with who we are and where we are, we give ourselves a breath of love.

And in the end, life proves that things grow better from love, not cruelty.

With Love,

Z :)