Episode 67: Choosing to Love What Is

Fighting reality is exhausting—and it turns out, completely optional. In this episode, I explore how accepting the present moment—imperfect and unfinished—can open the door to deeper peace, gratitude, and joy. You don’t have to wait for your life to be different to love it.

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Full Transcript:

You're listening to the Think New Thoughts podcast with Emily Ricks, episode number 67. Choosing to love what is. I'm Emily Ricks and this is Think New Thoughts, a life coaching podcast to help you find more joy in your relationships.

In each episode I'll share a simple idea that will help you see things in a new way so you can love God, your neighbor, and yourself more deeply than you ever have before. If you're ready to literally change your mind, I think you'll like it here. So in coaching, a big part of what we do is to set intention, to look forward, to envision the future and think through what you want to feel and create and accomplish so you can design the life you want to live.

And this is wonderful. It's rewarding. It's valuable and important work to do.

I totally believe in this. At the same time, there's another equally important element of the tools I teach, and that is fully leaning in and accepting what is in the present. Loving this moment as it is right now.

Embracing the imperfect, messy reality of your life exactly as it is. And these two elements might seem like opposites, but actually they work together. So I want to talk about this today.

Let's start with a very radical idea that I want to offer to you. This is a thought you can choose to believe if you want to. It's a powerful belief, but often we push it away.

We feel threatened by it. We don't want to believe it. We think it would be wrong to believe it.

We think that believing it would limit us somehow. Here's what it is. This moment is exactly as it's meant to be.

Or this belief might sound like this person is doing exactly what they're meant to be doing right now. This experience is exactly what I need to be going through right now. This event is turning out exactly as it was always meant to.

What is happening is what is needed. My kids are exactly as far along as they should be right now. My body weighs exactly what it should weigh today.

How do you feel as I'm listing these off? Are you uncomfortable? Do you like these thoughts? If you choose to believe really, truly deeply believe thoughts like this, that is called loving. What is it's embracing and accepting and being grateful for reality. What I've found and what I teach as a coach is that choosing to love what actually is choosing to love your situations as they are the people in your life, as they are choosing to love yourself as you currently are is one of the most powerful decisions you can make to feel more joy in your life.

But most people don't want to love what is. They actually feel uncomfortable accepting imperfection. A lot of people would rather believe no, my body shouldn't weigh this much today.

My kids shouldn't be making the decisions they're making. This event isn't turning out the way it was supposed to. I shouldn't be having to go through this experience right now.

This never should have happened. I should be further along. This kind of thinking is having a fantasy affair with what isn't.

I want what I don't have. What I do have is unlovable. But if I just had this or that, I could love that, but I can't love what I have.

So you can think whatever you want to, you can believe whatever you want to. I believe that fantasizing about what isn't thinking that things should be different than they are, robs you of joy. Byron Katie has a book.

It's called loving what is. And in it, she talks about the idea of arguing with reality, which is wanting things to be different than they are. And she says that arguing with reality is hopeless.

You might as well teach a cat to bark. The cat will look up at you and say meow, but it's never going to work. You can't make reality different than it is.

No matter how hard you try arguing with reality, wishing things were different, not accepting them as they are steals your joy because you can't be happy in this present moment because you want whatever is happening to be different than it is. And this is actually a very exhausting way to live. Byron Katie says, when I argue with reality, I lose, but only a hundred percent of the time embracing reality, accepting it is the path to joy.

So instead of arguing with reality, we can choose to love what is. And by the way, this doesn't crowd out the option of being able to set intention for the future and design how you want things to become. In fact, it actually frees up incredible amounts of energy to be able to envision and create what you want in the future.

I like to think of thoughts like sweaters as something that you can try on, see if you like it, see how it feels and decide if it's something you want to wear. So here's a thought that I'll bring to you in the dressing room that you can try on. This is exactly how it's meant to be.

Now, you might not like that thought at first. It might not feel comfortable for you. It might not feel true for you, but I have found in many, many cases that believing it can be very helpful.

So I'll share a simple example with you. This is a story about a vase that I bought at a furniture store. Okay.

So I have been doing some redecorating on my main floor and I wanted to get some large vases for my dining room. So I went to the furniture store and I found some that I liked. And so I to have two matching vases, one in each corner of my dining room, but the furniture store only actually had one in stock.

So they let me take the one that was on the showroom floor and we loaded it into my car, just as it was wedged it in between two seats. And then we ordered another one online. And they said that that would be shipped to the warehouse and that I could come pick it up.

So I went home with the vase and a little decorative thing that went inside, brought it home, set it up in the corner. It was beautiful. I'm like, great.

Can't wait to get that second one. So a few weeks later, I got a notification that the other one had arrived. So I went to the warehouse and I picked it up and I brought it home.

So the previous one, we had wedged it in, in between two seats. It didn't have any sort of covering or any sort of protection. It got to my house unscathed.

This one was wrapped in cellophane. It had a bunch of foam in the box. It was very protected.

And I carefully picked up the box and got it into my living room and opened it up. And the vase was completely shattered, totally cracked, even like it was still wrapped in the cellophane, but it was totally broken. So long story, and the details don't matter, but I get on the phone.

I let them know what happened. And they're like, okay, well, we'd be happy to issue a refund. And I'm like, well, I actually don't want a refund.

I really want the second vase. And they're like, well, we don't have any more. And this other store doesn't have any more.

And if we were going to get one to you, we could, but maybe not for another three or four months. And it's not really guaranteed. And so I was not going to get a second vase anytime soon.

And in that moment, my circumstance was a broken vase in my living room. And I had choices of what I wanted to think about that. So I could have chosen to think that vase shouldn't have come to me broken.

Someone should have been more careful. They should have wrapped it better. They should have more in stock in the warehouse.

They should have checked it before they gave it to me. They should get me another one this week. It shouldn't take that long.

And I can think any of those thoughts if I want to. It's just that all of them are an argument with reality. So in that moment, I was actually able to think really clearly and I decided to believe instead, I was always meant to have this one base.

Isn't it beautiful? This is exactly how it was always meant to be. I was never meant to have two bases in my dining room. Just this one.

Lucky me. I might decide in the future to try getting another one, but for today, for this week, for this month, I was always meant to just have one. And it might sound silly, but choosing to believe this actually brought me so much peace and saved me from a lot of unnecessary frustration.

So that's just a vase, but you can do this same thing with bigger frustrations. You can choose to believe it's okay when your vase gets cracked. It's okay when something you want doesn't turn out the way you envisioned.

It was always meant to be this way. And then you can spend your energy instead of pushing against a giant boulder, that's never going to move, which is the reality of what's happening right now. You can spend your energy deciding what you have control over, what you want to focus on next.

So when you love what is you invite gratitude and acceptance into your life and you gain perspective. You start to see how things are working together for your good. You start to understand how mistakes and disappointments and imperfections are actually a beautiful part of life.

One of my favorite scriptures is James chapter one, verses two through three, which says, my brethren, count it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations, knowing this, that the trying of your faith work with patience. I love this. Count it all joy, all of it.

By default, most of us think of joy as what we will experience when there are no broken vases, when every room in our whole lives has two perfect vases in it, exactly as we pictured. And then we can feel joy. But James says, count it all joy.

The broken vases, the unrealized expectations. This is how we learn patience. This is our curriculum.

It's how it's meant to be. So loving what is, if you want to try it is to count it all joy, to choose, to believe that whatever is or is not happening in your life right now is what you need to become the person you're meant to be. And it takes discipline to think this way.

It takes humility. It takes faith and patience, and it will require you to respect the agency of others, especially if they're making decisions you don't like. But if you choose to embrace what is, if you choose to be grateful for your broken vases and truly believe that every day of your life is unfolding exactly as it's meant to, I believe you can unlock the ability to feel so much more joy every day.

The alternative is you can resist reality. You can argue with what is. You can say the vase shouldn't have come to me broken.

Someone should have been more careful. This never should have happened. But all the complaining, all of that resistance doesn't change the reality.

It just makes you grumpy and it makes you feel powerless because you're pushing against something you can't change. So I like to call it loving what isn't. That's when you want things to be different than they are.

And it's easy to fall into this. Here's an example. I don't have enough time.

That's loving what isn't. It's an argument with reality believing that you should have more than 24 hours in a day, more than seven days in a week. Like that's an argument you're never going to win.

And to love the idea that you don't have enough time and that you somehow magically should have been given more is to love what isn't. To love a fantasy world that isn't reality. And it's this sneaky thing that happens.

But when we love what isn't, we slip into believing that we could be happy if we just had that second vase we were supposed to get when the reality is we have what we have. So what is your fantasy wish that keeps you from loving what is in your life? What is the second vase that you are fixated on thinking that you should have that's keeping you from loving what you do have? If you want to find out what this is for you, here are some clues. The words should, too much, or not enough.

Notice when you believe things that use these words. He should be more responsible. I don't have enough energy.

This is just too much to handle. I shouldn't have to go through this. She should be more helpful.

Do you see how these statements are refusing to love what is? It's like saying, no, I'm not going to count it all joy. Only the good parts count as joy. The rest of it is not joy.

I want perfection. I want life to be the way I want it to be. And then I can be happy.

But right now I'm just going to love what isn't. I'm just going to crave things that don't really exist that I want. And if you allow your mind to constantly think in this way, you actually deny yourself the happiness that comes from loving what is.

Paul in Philippians 4.11 says, for I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content in whatsoever state I am to be content. He taught the Thessalonians give thanks in all circumstances for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. So that's my encouragement to you in whatsoever state you are, you can be content, give thanks in all circumstances, count it all joy, or you can give thanks only in the circumstances that look exactly how you think they should exactly how you pictured them.

But if you approach your life this way, you'll rob yourself of the joy that is possible if you choose to love what is. So I give you permission to love what is in your life. You don't have to wait for your life to be perfect to love it.

You don't have to wait until your trials are over to be grateful for what you're learning through them. You don't have to wait for your kids to be more kind or more selfless before you choose to fully completely love them. You don't have to wait for yourself to have a perfect family or a perfect body or a perfect house.

You can love what is who you are right now today. But most people actually have a lot of resistance to this idea of loving what is as it is. A lot of times women that I work with are hesitant to love what is because they think if they accept life exactly as it is now, that means that they're surrendering hope of it ever improving, right? Like I need to be dissatisfied and judgmental of something in order to ever have it change.

And so they wait to love their bodies, to love their husbands, to love their kids, to love their in-laws, to love their homes, or to love themselves until things are better. And you can do it that way. If you want to, you can hold off on fully loving something until later when hopefully it magically reaches the threshold that you think is more deserving of love.

But I have found that if you choose to love what is, you can experience deep, real feelings of love all along the way in your life and also find ways to improve and grow and change. Both things can happen. In fact, I think they go together.

So I'm going to share another angle of this idea next week about choosing to feel love now rather than waiting until later to feel it. So be sure to tune into next week's episode if you want some additional ideas that might help you soften any resistance you have to loving what is. Meanwhile, Merry Christmas.

Whatever your Christmas looks like this year, whoever you're spending it with, however simple or complicated it is this time around, I hope that you can love what is this year and count it all joy, even the imperfect or broken parts. Thanks so much for joining me today. I'll talk to you next week.