I’ve been thinking . . .
We never outgrow the need to accept. Imagine we are together clustered in the corner of a woodsy coffeehouse warmed by the scent of fresh ground espresso laced with rich chocolate. If I asked you to tell about a time when you had to accept a living condition or a change in your circumstances, what would you say? How would you react? Would the conversation lean toward accepting a broken feeling or of remedy and repair? Would you tell me about what you lost or tell me about something you still have? We don’t mean to do it, but our thoughts take a nose dive straight into the pit when we think about how the word ‘accept’ affects us.
What if we could change all that? What if, despite what happens to us, we redefine acceptance as not something we have to endure, but as something we can grow into and improve with? Acceptance becomes a choice with boundaries. We can accept what happens to us on a sliding scale because we are influenced in varying degrees and levels. Acceptance comes in many flavors, but never vanilla.
Life is a contact sport and sometimes we get beat up pretty badly. We can’t always be ready for the punch to the gut, but we can be prepared by learning some coping skills. Grow your confidence.
Sometimes we win! We have victories to celebrate, reasons to rejoice, a promotion to applaud – then why can’t we quite accept them? What’s that all about? We look around and wonder when we’ll hear the thud of the other shoe dropping. That’s crazy dialog going on between your ears. Put the noise cancelling muffs on and silence the voices. Learn to talk back with affirmations. Remind yourself of the multiple times you have come through the fire stronger and wiser. Tell yourself, so what if I’m not good “at that”, I’m rocking “this other thing”.
Focus on what you have left, not on what you’ve lost. This is premier acceptance. Admit that what you lost was a part of you and losing it was like tearing your flesh away from your heart. Apply the salve of acceptance and the bandages of resolve and focus on what you can do now. Put your effort into repairing the hurt and filling in the cracks until your acceptance feels real. Sometimes, no, make that all the time, it takes our emotions a lot longer to catch up to our will. But emotions have a way of tagging along until that happens.
Life brings us options every day, some good, some tragic, some happy, some distressing. We react. The levels of acceptance, the degree of acceptance, the speed of acceptance will be different for everyone. It will be different for every circumstance. For every setback there is a choice. We can accept and move on. We can let the setback be a stayback, and give up. We choose. Acceptance comes in many flavors, but never vanilla.
Anyway … that’s what I was thinking.
This is a 5-minute Friday article. The word for this week is ACCEPT and I wrote for 5 minutes, no edits, not over thinking – just shoot from the hip prose.
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Because of Grace we Press On