Do you agree to be here?

Are you walking around alive on this planet, but are in constant rejection of your life or aspects of it (your work, your relationship, your family, your body, your health… ) – either silently or complaining openly? Then chances are you don’t fully agree to be here. You are likely either missing the “good old days”, or yearning for some sort of better future, where everything will be different and you can finally be happy, be the “real you” and live the life you are truly supposed to live.

However, the constant wish to be somewhere you are not creates feelings of frustration, resentment, regret, anxiety, and disappointment… in other words, a lot of stress. It is not unusual to drop into long-term depression or some sort of long-term disease as a consequence. If you are not completely here, your body will simply work less efficiently. You might also (unconsciously) self-sabotage or punish yourself by making dietary or lifestyle choices that you know are not good for you, but that you can’t seem to change. You might then blame it on lack of willpower or motivation, when in fact it’s more a lack of sense, a lack of inspiration – a lack of understanding of “the bigger picture” of your life. An extreme form of not agreeing to be here is suicide – or eating disorders such as anorexia, where you are literally trying to disappear. In a way, every time you eat you, you say “yes” to Life – and the more you take care to nourish yourself, the bigger the “yes” is.

Attention: agreeing to be here doesn’t mean you have to LIKE each and every aspect of your life, but to ACCEPT it the way it is right now. Simply giving up rejection frees up a lot of energy that can now be used for change, if you feel that is what is needed.

Agreeing to be here is about considering that you are in fact living exactly the life you are supposed to live. If you are experiencing something right now, it is apparently what you are supposed to be experiencing, otherwise you wouldn’t be experiencing it. So instead of wishing it away, you can also just accept it for what it is and move from there.

It helps to take a step back and look at the bigger picture of your life. Can you see how everything that ever happened to you shaped you in some way and brought you exactly to where you are today? Can you see how even what seemed “bad” or “wrong” at the time oftentimes turned out to contain a hidden gift, to serve a purpose, to help you learn a lesson and to grow as a person? Can you trust that the same is true for your current life experience?  

I share some examples from my own life, to help make this point clearer:

• My anorexia made me get into nutrition and holistic health, and is the reason I am trained as an Eating Psychology Coach now.
• My knees breaking down forced me to slow down and literally saved my life by stopping me from destroying my body with excessive running. They freed up time and space in my life for friends, “soft” exercise, such as yoga & pilates, meditation, enjoyable movement, such as dancing…
• My >10 years with Bayer (yes the pharma one) allowed for huge personal and professional growth. Even if sometimes I wondered, what if I had studied medicine or nutrition instead, I learned so much in these years, that by now there is no regret anymore. I had the chance to live and work abroad. Studying Business Administration helps me run a business today. Having gone through Sales (in another country) forced me to open up, become more extroverted and develop more confidence. Knowing how things work in this industry (for the good and for the bad), on the one hand gives me credibility when I question the reliability of some “studies”, on the other hand makes me cautious when it comes to demonizing everybody and everything connected to this industry (things are hardly ever just black or white). Who knows, I might even be inspiring ex-colleagues with what I am sharing…

Agreeing to be here means to say YES to everything that you are: your body, your parents, your family, your partner, your job, the place you live… as if you chose it – because in fact, that’s what you did at some point (yes, you even chose your parents ;)). Own those choices. Make them yours. Take the responsibility for them. Stop complaining and making your life and who you are wrong. Make them RIGHT instead. It all happened for a reason and in your best interest. TRUST that you are exactly where you need to be and that somehow all of what you are living serves your true purpose.

As an exercise, write down all the ways your current job, relationship, partner, body or even a disease have served you. Even though you may not particularly like them (anymore), honor them for the lessons they taught you or are still teaching you, own them as steps on your very personal path – and maybe even use them as “hints” what your purpose is about.

If you know that this is not where you want to be anymore, but are frustrated that you can’t seem to initiate changes right now, trust that process, too. The Universe heard your wish and when the time is right, it will happen. Just keep your senses and heart open and you will know when the moment comes. Don’t stress about it. Everything will show up exactly when it has to. Agree to be here by agreeing to what life is right now and what it asks you to do right now. That’s all. When you agree to accept your life as it is right now, you tell your metabolism that you can handle it all, so it will follow and live up to that expectation.