Brilliant One,

>> Here’s the AUDIO for today’s Transformation Tuesday.

To those in the know, my dogs don’t look like full-bred pugs. 

And they’re not. They are half pug and half Japanese Chin. That’s how they got to be so glamorous.

But when people ask me what they are I usually say something like: 

“They’re half pug, and all underbite.” 

Exhibits A and B: The Girls and their underbites
Note: You’ll have to turn images ‘on’ in your email to see this photo.

I was watching them wield their underbite superpowers on College Avenue in Oakland the other day, walking up to all sorts of people they do not know and receiving what The Girls do know is their Divine Inheritance: the adoration of their human audiences. 

These two move through the world with regal self-assuredness as they receive yelps of delight, lavish head pats and unfettered cheers from people taking in the splendor of their God-given dental apparatus. 

I marveled, in that moment, at how a human with similar dentistry and the means to do so would almost certainly have their bite corrected. 

And I wondered, in that moment, what my Girls would say if they could talk, and heard that a human was about to have her underbite erased. 

I’m certain they would wonder why on earth someone would want to do that. 

Because in The Girls’ experience, this so-called “flaw” of an underbite is the same thing as the keys to the kingdom. 

Their underbites have unlocked thousands of head pats, belly rubs, human smiles, treats on treats on treats and limitless opportunities for The Girls to do what they were bred to do: warm the hearts and laps of royalty (including people who just feel royal, like me).

Exhibit C: A normal Tuesday at my house
Note: You’ll have to turn images ‘on’ in your email to see this photo.

Case in point: My blonde dog, Aiko, smiled one particularly potent smile for her pound puppy mugshot, ten years ago. 

The volunteers at the San Francisco SPCA posted that photo on Craigslist, and it found its way to me, deep in the throes of grief from having put my last canine child down, just having sworn to never get another dog.

That single snaggletoothed smile scored both Aiko and her sister, Sumiko:

• a beautiful home (if I do say so myself)
• a lifetime of the best grain-free dog food money can buy
• two sets of generous godparents
• local celebrity status
• regular guitar serenades by their Dad 
• daily cranio-sacral massages
• and travels and adventures beyond what many humans will ever experience. 

So here’s the question: What might you unlock if you accepted every single thing about yourself, right now, exactly as it is? 

Well for one, you’d eliminate the constant mental chatter of self-judgment. And you’d unlock the energy that’s been siphoned off by the drain of self-criticism. 

In other words, your inner atmosphere would shift. You’d unlock a new level of Inner Peace. 

And Inner Peace allows you to hear your Inner Guidance at a level of volume and clarity you might never have experienced before. 

So if you decided to radically accept everything about yourself, in that atmosphere of Inner Peace you might receive guidance like Aiko and Miko did, the kind of guidance that brings you to a whole group of humans who are thrilled at the chance to revel and delight with you in your Youness, so-called flaws and all.

And listen, you don’t have to worry that releasing self-judgment will make you lazy, or passive, or unmotivated. 

In fact, the opposite is true. 

Radical self-acceptance is the most powerfully transformative basis for a relationship between you and you. 

When your relationship with your own body and your experience of life is one of true self-love and acceptance, you are much more likely to care for your body in all the ways that are truly nourishing, and your body will respond to you with vitality, energy and real wellness. 

But the most compelling reason to radically accept everything about your body, your Being and your experience of life is this: It’s just a delightful way to live.

It unlocks your ability to be present and powerful in this season, in this life, in this body and in this moment. 

It just feels good. 

This reminds me of one of my favorite poems: 

My beloved child, break your heart no longer.

Each time you judge yourself, you break your own heart;

you stop feeding on the love which is the wellspring of your vitality.

The time has come. Your time to live, to celebrate.

And to see the goodness that you are.

You, my child, are Divine. You are pure. You are sublimely free.

Do not fight the dark, just turn on the light.

Let go and Breathe in to Goodness that you are.

— Bapuji

I invite you to try it, even for one moment, right now.

Look in a mirror, if you can. 

Meet the light behind your own eyes with all the love and appreciation you can muster. 

Fill your lungs, then empty them, three times. 

Then whisper the words “I love and approve of myself, right now.”

If the spirit moves, hit reply and let me know what this practice unlocks for you. 

P.S.: Here’s a quick video I shot a while back on the concept of Radical Acceptance, if you want to go deeper. 

Head up + heart out,

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