Pilgrimage of Healing and Consciousness
For 2025, we’re embarking on a 52-week pilgrimage of inward healing, growth, and self-discovery…and ultimately, peace…regardless of whether the healing is related to addiction, grief, or any other challenge we seek to overcome.
Mile 42 of our pilgrimage we are encouraged to accept ourselves just as we are. This doesn’t mean that we give up on improving or taking care of ourselves. Basically, it means that we take an objective assessment of ourselves (internally, externally) and accept that as of right now these are the facts about ourselves.
The value we get from doing this assessment is that we can better determine what if anything we want to change, improve upon, or leave as is. Just as a store, the owner needs to know what their inventory is in order to determine what needs to be replenished, what’s okay as is, what needs to be disposed of, and what needs to go on sale.
For instance for me, I’m just under 5’2” tall—have been since the sixth grade. No amount of resistance to it or frustration about wishing I was taller is going to make me taller, if anything all it does is create more stress and anxiety. Thankfully, I learned to accept it at an early age and have actually used it to my advantage on occasion.
On the other hand, I currently weigh (as of this morning) 165.8 lbs, I was up as high as 175 about a month ago. I admit that a part of me has trouble accepting myself at this weight. But here, too if I focus on beating myself up about my weight, it doesn’t get me anywhere except to the kitchen where, out of frustration, I’ll binge out on bags of potato chips. All that does for me is give me more opportunities to be more upset with myself. Not helpful—at ALL!
A couple of weeks ago I decided to stop beating myself up and accepted the fact that yes, I am 40+ lbs overweight. That’s just the way it is right now. Then I asked myself: what am I going to do about it ? I have the option to stay at this weight and be okay with it, increase the weight, or work on releasing it. I chose to start a new-to-me program to help me release the excess weight. As part of this process I also have to accept that it’s going to take a few months (8-12) and, here too, I’m okay with that.
Essentially, self-acceptance is acknowledging yourself fully and treating yourself with compassion, regardless of external standards or personal expectations. And if it helps, here’s an affirmation we can all use to move ever closer to total self-acceptance:
“I am whole, worthy, and at peace with who I am.”
How about you ? On a self-acceptance scale from 1-10, with ten being the highest level of acceptance, where are you ? What’s your biggest challenge with self-acceptance ? Are you open to accepting all parts of yourself as they are right now, knowing full well that if you so desire, you could change any one of them or at the very least change how you see them ?
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Peace & Blessings,
Maureen
The Mandala Lady
TheMandalaLady.com
transforming soul whispers into mandalas and channeled messages
About the 2025 Mandalas of the Week
Each week I will create a new mandala design to color, along with my coloring of it, and a weekly message and prompt for us to continue on our quest throughout the year. All of which is inspired by Melody Beattie’s book entitled “52 Weeks of Consciousness Contact”.
I will be breaking down each week’s topic into daily insights and images (inspired by Melody’s book) on my blog site: MandalaoftheDay.com where I’ll be creating/building one giant mandala (48”x48”), one puzzle piece of it each day.
Mandala of the Week 