Anything can be an opportunity for self-observation and radical self-acceptance.  Anything.

My best friend recently learned that she hosted a very large, invasive, aggressive, cancerous brain tumor. She is recovering remarkably well from surgery to remove part of the tumor, and is awaiting the commencement of chemotherapy and radiation – along with the possibility that this treatment will only be buying her time. I have watched the grace, faith, courage, and good humor that she has brought to this challenge. And, I have watched the parts of me that have shown up in relation to her challenge. 

For starters, I will own that “grace, faith, courage, and good humor” are projections.  Here are some other aspects of my personality that have shown themselves since she told me her news.  I have found myself:

• Grateful:  I’m extremely grateful that she has a large, close, skilled, devoted family and community of friends who can be there to meet her needs during this time.

• Left out:  Because of these family connections, it can seem that there is no room for a best friend to be helpful.

• Angry:  How can anyone get such a horrible illness and how could it happen to my best friend?

• Jealous:  Even though she has to face this challenge and could die, she is getting a lot of attention.  I sense there has always been a part of me that thought if I just got sick enough, everyone would love me and I would have all the attention I need.

• Present and willing:  I’ll just be available and offer whatever support I can, in whatever ways are needed.

• In awe:  I’m awed by what life can hand us and am brought abruptly back to the preciousness of each moment we have to live. 

• Committed:  I want to let get go of all my petty concerns and self-hate and be fully present and available to life.

What is most amazing to me as I observe these parts of me is that I am simply aware of them.  There does not seem, this time around, to be any judgment.  I am not beating myself for the “bad” reactions or praising myself for the “good” ones.  They do not even appear to be personal, to have anything to do with me.  They just sort of roll through, to be replaced moments or hours later by another.  It feels more like “human acceptance” than self-acceptance, as in “Wow, this is what human beings do!  Isn’t it amazing!” 

It is radical/awesome/amazing to me because of the new and unfamiliar lack of judgment.  Never before have I so clearly seen the “how” of me around a particular situation.  Never before has it been so clear that it is not “me” that is left out, angry and jealous.  Only egocentric karmic conditioning would arise in those ways under these circumstances.  And it is not “me” in the personal sense that is grateful, present and willing, in awe, and committed.  The “me” that is part of the “one” is all of those and more, even when I fail to notice.

My friend’s prayer through the month she has been living with this new knowledge is “may only good come of this.”  That’s the kind of radical acceptance I commit to bringing to every moment of my life.  Radical self-acceptance.  Conscious, compassionate awareness.  Being in the moment.  Saying “yes.”  Living Compassion.  All the same thing.  All the only way to live, no matter how long we may have.