As I’ve grown through this spiritual awakening I’ve been experiencing over the past several years, I’ve finally come to the understanding that the simplest sounding concepts—the ones that “don’t feel like I’m doing anything” are actually some of the most powerful.

Acceptance is one of these.

How do I know? Personal experience.

I fought with my body image and my body hatred for years. From age 12 to 36—2 dozen years—I struggled and wished I saw something different in the mirror. Or, I looked in the mirror downright hating what I saw. I was ruthless with myself and my body. No one could be more cruel, cutting, and caustic than I was toward myself.

Until one day, at a moment I thought I was at my most grotesque, intuition finally took over. I climbed out of bed, where I’d been bawling under the covers again, and I dragged myself in front of my bathroom mirror.

I hated the results of my first plastic surgery experience and I felt disgusting nearly all the time. But something in me demanded change. Something wiser than my monkey mind—my beautiful heart—knew that I couldn’t continue like this. I was going back under the knife in a few months to fix the surgical aspect, but something inside of me knew that I couldn’t wait for the outside to look the way I wanted it to before I started loving myself. Part of me knew that I had to start right in that moment. It was a life-changing moment for me.

I looked into that mirror—and I still didn’t like what I saw—but I accepted myself exactly as I was in that moment. Instead of believing I couldn’t accept myself until I reached some nebulous concept of perfection (that doesn’t exist), I accepted what I was and decided to love her and the body with which I was gifted, no matter what. I burst into tears at the enormity of the emotions flowing through me. Something changed at that very moment. Something shifted—and I changed.

It was unbelievably powerful, even if no one else could understand, experience, or see the change in me the way I could feel it.

You see, I had always believed that if I accepted what was then I would be stuck like that forever. But in reality, it’s actually the opposite.

We must accept what is—even if we don’t particularly like it. Because that acceptance is actually what allows the energy of change to flow in.

After that moment in front of the mirror, I became someone new. My lifestyle changed. My habits changed. I started really caring for and loving my body. We became friends for the first time since I was 12, instead of being enemies. Everything else changed as a result and the things I didn’t like about myself faded away until I loved what I saw in the mirror and couldn’t believe that was actually me.

But it all started with acceptance. A little thing that feels like “doing nothing” that has the power to change your whole life.

After all, what you resist persists.

What do you need to accept so you can see things differently and welcome much-needed change and love into your life?