manner reflective of our own past conditioning, requires unequivocal
surrender to the wisdom of who they are, who they are yet to become,
and what they can teach us about ourselves in the process.THERE’S NOTHING PASSIVE ABOUT ACCEPTANCE
Acceptance is often considered a passive matter. This is a gross
misunderstanding. Acceptance can’t just be an intellectual decision, but
must involve our entire heart and mind. I want to emphasize that
acceptance is anything but passive. It’s a highly active, intensely alive
process.
To illustrate what acceptance looks like in practice, let me share with
you how John and Alexis responded to their son Jake, who was growing
up in ways that weren’t typically boyish. Not into sports or loud games,
Jake was quiet and artistic, preferring the arts and dance. As a
consequence, even when he was a small boy, his parents had to endure
seeing him come under fire from his peers. It occurred to them that he
might be gay, though they didn’t want to typecast him just because he
evinced more typically feminine than masculine traits. Although at times
they struggled with wanting him to be like most other boys, they held
their concerns at bay, nurturing his love of music and dance. As they
watched and waited, he began to blossom into the kind and sensitive
male he was destined to be.
If Jake was to be gay, John and Alexis wanted him to enter into his
sexual orientation for himself. Who he was in this aspect of his life was
immaterial to them because they saw his sexuality as one of the many
magnificent manifestations of his essence. When Jake received hurtful