Embrace life, all of it

I realised last night that there is something more to going with the flow.
It is not quite enough to stop resisting the flow. We need to actually embrace it. And then it all makes sense.
You see I was kinda raving about how I got myself all stressed out last week, and actually by refusing to stress out anymore, and forcing myself to relax, I realised that only pushed the stress deeper into myself, but it stayed there. Saying: "no, I won't feel stressed, that's it, I've had enough of it" only meant refusing, denying what was there. So yes, I relaxed, but I didn't get rid of the stress. Far from it. When I looked at it last night, I discovered it had actually grown, hidden somewhere deep in my stomach, not unlike an alien ready to burst out with its hungry double jaw...
So I tried a different approach and I embraced the stress. I welcomed it, all of it, everything that was coming my way. And guess what! The more I embraced it, the less I could find it. It was as if it just withered away before my eyes. Wow!!
That felt like it was the missing link for me.
I had spent many years trying to surrender, to let go, and feel at peace, but really last night I realised that stressing out and relaxing are just the two sides of the same coin. And embracing all of it, no matter what it is, and how it feels, is very different.
It reminded me of an instance two weeks ago, when I could feel I was coming down with some kind of flu. So I kept telling myself for two days "my health is perfect, my health is perfect, my health is perfect". The third day, when my throat was still sore and hoarse, and I still felt feverish, I gave up and embraced the illness. Wow. That felt beautiful. I allowed myself to be sick, and only then I realised how much I had tensed up trying not to be sick.
Last night, I realised I had tensed up as much trying not to be stressed out. Amazing, huh?