ACCEPTANCE MONTH: DAY 14: “Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it’s less good than the one you had before. You can fight it, you can do nothing but scream about what you’ve lost, or you can accept that and try to put together something that’s good.” ― Elizabeth Edwards
Yeah, I think this is more about acceptance than resilience. Resilience is how accommodating we are in accepting things, by my way of thinking.
But this is the crux of addiction. We are so stuck in fighting life and its circumstances that we believe and buy into the crap that we ARE the creators of our destiny.
The truth is this: You may work all your life and end up broke anyway. That is life. You may put all your effort into a relationship, and they die anyway. That is life. You may be the nicest person we ever met, but you will still have a flat tire on occasion, or someone may break into your belongings and steal from you.
Life is not about rewards for when we do the right thing. It is all about how we navigate the circumstances of what we encounter each and every day. What is our attitude? What can we do to change the way we think about those circumstances?
If I something changes, it is because it serves something far greater than we can know. That is all. None of your business. The Universe does NOT owe us an explanation for why this person or that person dies and someone else did not. When I hear that kind of questioning, I see the immaturity of that thinking. It is not my business WHY things are as they are. That kept me drunk and loaded.
The Universe just IS. All of it…every moment, every hour, every day. When I can just sit still with that and get on with what is in front of me TODAY, I am good. It might be that what I do today seems wasted next week when my life shifts into a different mode, but that is NOT the case. I am fulfilling my obligations and commitments TODAY. That is all.
Addicts tend to want a reward for doing what is in front of them today. Some kind of guarantee that it will pay off somehow and their future will be more secure or safer or have a blanket covering them from harm. NOT!
We must do what is in front of us today…every day! And that is what we can be grateful for at the end of the day. When we do that 10th Step in the evening, we can be integral with what our day was about and how we performed.
Most of us have at least one thing each day we DO NOT want to do. That is usually my first task each day. Why? Because then I can enjoy the rest of what follows without thinking about that thing. I find there are fewer and fewer undesirable tasks on my list as life goes on.
What I believed was something to avoid is usually not what I believed it to be. A difficult phone call or a challenging conversation or a meeting or a trip to the dentist, etc. Most of the time, the story in my head is much worse than that task. (Almost always, really.)
So, I am resilient, because I can bend and flow with the course of life. Flexibility is actually stronger than a steel girder. Why? Because I never break or fall when stuff happens. I can bend and accept and stand back up and bend another direction when the winds of change (LIFE!) blow through my day.
What is taken is always ready to be gone. What is left is useful until it is taken. Remember to use what is left well and you will not have regrets when it is taken. Everything is impermanent and transient. When we flow with that, we are happy, joyous and free! That’s what I’m doing here!
Dolphin Hug 