There are many things we may want to change about ourselves or our circumstances at any given moment but change must come through acceptance. When we rail against the strictures of our life they bind and become tighter, like trying to stretch a muscle while it’s tense.

To make change you must first accept yourself as you are. And make this acceptance like relaxing a muscle. You must practice acceptance without attachment – because often though we struggle against one way of being we are afraid to depart from it because at least it is known. Our struggles can become as much part of our identity as our strengths and leaving them behind can be scary for who knows who the new you will be?

A mantra for change: “This is who I am now, and I accept, acknowledge, and love me now, but I am not attached to this version of me, I am open to all the me’s I might be, and the growth that will take me to them.”