Ricocheting Between Stages of Acceptance
What does acceptance mean to me?
Hi friend,
I hope you are having a wonderful week.
When it comes to Long Covid, I have known for a long time that acceptance is something I should do. That it is something I could strive for. Something that I would be doing if I was better at this thing we call “recovery.” Could should would are the words that come to mind when I think about acceptance. It is always in the context of something that I am aiming for rather than something I actually feel. On some days I can tell myself that even though I didn’t choose what happened to me, it is where I am now. On other days I struggle through the day fed up with living a limited lifestyle devoid of surprises and adventure.
Perhaps acceptance would mean no longer fighting with my body and mind to fit into the constraints of my old life? Or maybe being free to let go of expectations of where I need to be and by when?
A big part of the challenge in reaching acceptance, is that I worry that it would be giving up. Giving up on the life I used to want and all of the hopes I had for the future. Or maybe I’m getting it wrong entirely and accepting isn’t giving up, but just being. Being in the present, enjoying the small joys that come up day to day and not constantly obsessing over the past and future. And learning to love my body and myself in its current form. While acknowledging that we did not choose this. It is simply where we are.
Some of the challenges also lie in how I view myself and my identity. I have always thought of myself as a problem-solver. Someone who gets out of situations that are not serving them or finds a solution to improve the problem. But a health challenge is not a problem to be solved, but something to move through.
What if I could view acceptance as a way to live a happier life rather than as giving up?
I recently came across a quote from Maya Angelou’s All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes, “The ache for home lives in all of us. The safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.” Angelou is the kind of writer that I can turn to when words fail me and it got me to thinking that I need to reframe acceptance as more of a refuge rather than something to fight against. As home. A place where I can go after the end of a long day.
Perhaps for me there are several levels to acceptance. The first is accepting that this illness has happened in the first place and making accommodations to aid recovery. The second is accepting that the process of recovery happens on its own schedule. It’s not something I can will into existence next week. The third level (which I have yet to reach) might be allowing myself to stop obsessing over when this recovery might happen and trying to enjoy the here and now. All I can say is that I am not at the third level yet. On bad days I can find myself ricocheting between levels one and two, clinging to the possibility that I can set a timeline or a “goal” for when my recovery might happen.
As I write this I am simultaneously reminded of how much further there is to go, but also how far I have come.
I hope you have a wonderful end to the week.
Naïma