“It is what it is.” Does that mean I know this is true or does it mean that I accept it? Knowing is easy. Acceptance means getting to the other side.
It means when there is a hard to swallow reality such as having a chronic, progressive, incurable smoking related illness I allow myself to process the grief of that until I reach a stage of acceptance and actually integrate the totality of it, feeling okay about what it is, and turning my focus back to what I can do instead of what I can’t.
It means learning to live a nourishing healthy lifestyle that incorporates my COPD but doesn’t forfeit my essence to it. For me that has taken a long time beginning with Smoking Cessation and still evolving through the progressive nature of illness.
Each year I’m just a bit less able to breathe and control my coughing. Each year I have a few more sick days and even “sick” takes on a whole new meaning. Each year I have to reform my household hygiene,push myself to EXercise and eat right, accommodate my lack of stamina, prepare for sick days…
I have learned that whatever I choose not to accept is likely to continue kicking my a$$ until I get right with it. Getting it right takes me back to the Serenity Prayer over and over again because I may have it right today but next Month may bring new realities – new acceptance challenges.
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
Always sorting….
What is gone and won’t come back ever?
What might I be able to reacquire with concerted effort?
Knowing the difference I challenge myself to hold onto what I do have until the day comes when it really is gone for ever. (I was going to say for good, but I don’t see anything good about it! My acceptance isn’t that complete!)
When we find something to be unacceptable, how are we to accept it? I start by acknowledging that I am powerless to change it. Not hopeless or helpless but simply unable to control it. Then I consider that while it is not how I want it to be, that perhaps it is how it is supposed to be…
Acceptance is the answer to all of my problems today. When I am disturbed it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation – some fact of my life – unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment.
…Unless I accept life completely on life’s terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes.” – Alcoholics Anonymous
Add “Grrrrr” to “attitude” and it comes out gratitude. Recovery from anything including Nicotine Addiction and COPD involves overcoming a “disease of the attitudes.” I get in my own way when I choose to blame others, wallow in self pity, or focus my energy on what I cannot do. When I do that I feel stressed out, depressed, and anxious. All of that energy wasted just to avoid the daunting possibility of change.
Old adages ring true, “Most folks really are about as happy as they make their minds up to be.” I have every right to be angry and to express my needs and feelings. In fact, anger is one of the Stages of Grief.
But I also have the right to heal, to adjust (change), to overcome, and to transform. Simple choice: stay stuck or grow?
EXperience teaches me, guides me, and offers me wisdom. Just as acceptance is always optional, so too is making sense of life’s lessons. Choosing to live in the present without regret and as little resentment as possible affords me greater opportunity to gain wisdom.
The lessons get a little more painful each time they come around until I learn to accept. Now, I’ve learned to laugh at my own folly.
“I did then what I knew to do. Now that I know better, I do better.” – Maya Angelou
Please Join me in Celebrating on the Freedom Train Today!
