Acceptance is the Clean Water in the Pool

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. -The Tao

I love this quote as it rings so true inside me. When I am not so attached to my beliefs, my emotions, my perceptions, I free myself up and can enter into just being. My heart is open and the lens of criticism, righteousness, and distance fade.

I feel like a vessel. And clear and strong.

And sometimes strength means knowing how to let go.

Letting go sometimes is closer to a state of filtering.

The filtering is a constant sifting out of that which keeps me attached and suffering, while concurrently and peacefully allowing for true being. I imagine a pool vacuum that is always on, incessantly crawling to find the gunk in order to keep the water clean. The process is neverending and quietly works.

When I think of Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross's '5 Stages of Dying', denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance, I note that four out of five of these iterative stages are the sifting through the detritus. Only one stage, acceptance, is about being.

Acceptance is the clean water in the pool. Denial, anger, bargaining and depression are all being vacuumed up and freed into non-ego states. As Elisabeth said, these states come and go constantly. They are not fixed.

Dying is the ultimate vacuum.

Acceptance of death is the ultimate pool.

We let go so that we can truly be.