Can I accept and welcome the present moment as it is?
When I try to force an experience to be different from it, I don't get to see its true nature. Fighting or resisting the pain allows it to dominate and control me; it creates tremendous friction and pressure. Whispering "yes" to whatever I am feeling/experiencing - allowing it as it is - is an honest and courageous acknowledgment or an active recognition, not a passive resignation. It opens me into presence and will enable me to respond to this moment with full intelligence and compassion. The athlete isn't trying to fight the pain; he is trying to move with it. A pregnant woman is working through contractions to give birth and not fighting against the contractions.
I accept all thoughts passing through me, positive and negative. I accept all of my emotions right now as they are, whether they are frustration, anger, worry, anxiety, happiness, fear, or anything else I might be feeling. I accept the pains and aches in my body. I am the one who observes; I am the witness to the weather passing through me. I infuse loving energy, compassion, and care into it all. I let it all go. I am spacious awareness: the clouds and bubbles of pains, emotions, and thoughts emerge, pass through me, and dissolve.
Acceptance is the gateway to freedom from suffering. It shifts my relationship to what is happening. It is healing and transformative. It unblocks ideas and insights to change my circumstances.
Eckhart Tolle:
Stress is caused by being 'here' but wanting to be 'there.'
Give up waiting as a state of mind. When you catch yourself slipping into waiting, snap out of it. Come into the present moment. Just be and enjoy being.
Tara Brach in Trusting the Gold on whispering "yes" to whatever she might be feeling:
I started noticing more space in my mind around whatever was arising. And then, slowly, that space began to fill with tenderness. I could see those inner weather systems of aversion and reactivity rising and passing away on their own. They weren't targeting me or happening because of me; they were just part of the nature of life, playing out in this body and mind. Saying yes, letting them be revealed skylike awareness this changing weather was passing through - the wakeful and compassionate awareness that held it all.
Each time you say yes to what's arising inside you, you deepen trust in the gold of your intrinsically openhearted awareness. This is inner freedom: rather than tensing against whatever may be next, you can open the gates and let the ten thousand joys and sorrows move through you.
Quote from Eckhart Tolle:
To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease, and lightness. This state is then no longer dependent upon things being in a certain way, good or bad. It seems almost paradoxical, yet when your inner dependency on form is gone, the general conditions of your life, the outer forms, tend to improve greatly. Things, people, or conditions that you thought you needed for your happiness now come to you with no struggle or effort on your part, and you are free to enjoy and appreciate them - while they last. All those things, of course, will still pass away, cycles will come and go, but with dependency gone, there is no fear of loss anymore. Life flows with ease.