Acceptance

Life throws us a never-ending series of challenges.

The above statement is a fact, but people see (or feel) it differently, based on their perception. What is a challenge? Are challenges good or bad for you at the moment?

In a literal, biological sense, you could argue that maintaining your body temperature despite the changing environment around and in you, is a challenge.   Or you may define a challenge as requiring a certain level of conscious effort – getting out of bed was easy this morning: not a challenge. I didn’t want to go to work today, but I did anyway: challenge overcome. I’m reading a book with big words and complicated concepts: challenge accepted!

In whatever way you define “challenge” at the moment, I suggest to you that the best way to meet an “effortful” challenge that you don’t choose yourself (the hardest kind to deal with) is to work at accepting it. You may plan to change it later, but if this is where you are now, acceptance will give you the mental state to be able to cope, plan and change the future if possible.

My challenge today is to accept my Meniere’s Disease. No choice and no changing this one! I’ve done everything I should to care for my body, so I give myself credit for that. Yay for me! But sometimes people get sick – it might be the common cold, or as in my case, vertigo. Either way, I choose to rest, not to keep banging away until I can’t “go” any more. The challenge is also to be comfortable NOT doing what I had planned to do.

I do not get angry and rage against my situation, because that is a waste of my energy and makes me feel worse. I consciously switch my perception around by saying that this is an opportunity for me to rest and feel cared for. (In hospital, I enthusiastically informed anyone who asked that I was getting better every day.) All the stuff I had planned for now really can happen later.

You think you’ve got problems? Try being a paralysed Goshawk in the clutches of a mad human!

Do you have a recurring challenge that makes you miserable?

If you like, share your challenge, and we’ll see if we can create a thought – angle that helps you accept it when you need to. (Sounds like a nice challenge to me. ;-)) Acceptance doesn’t mean you can’t plan to change it in the future, but for now you can make sure that it doesn’t have such an uncomfortable impact on your life.