What does acceptance feel like?

I don’t know or care about psychobabble but I had an ah-ha moment with acceptance today. Recently I had yet another unpleasant experience at the hands of the medical establishment. I spent a whole week of trying to communicate, while the people I was talking to continued to disregard my concerns. I was flaming mad about the whole situation for about a week. Then life happened. I gained perspective, and eventually this week, I realize I’ve moved on. I’ve accepted the whole thing as a mess, my part in it (whatever part that was), and it’s over. Finally.

When I accepted that the world is ruled by natural laws and that there is no God I felt a sense of amazingly remarkable relief.

Somewhere along the way I realized that 100 years from now, a whole new set of human beings will be walking around, and certainly almost the same ratio of them will be wonderful or awful, natually giving or very selfish, thoughtful and polite or thoughtless and rude.

So it only makes sense to pick your spots, and enjoy all of the great moments which life has to offer while accepting all of the unavoidable crap you must sift through to find them….

When you can get through one day without thinking about what has been bothering you. And then another day . . and another . . . and another, you’ll find you’ve accepted it. If you can’t do that by yourself, talking therapy may help you understand your feelings and speed up getting to the days you can stop obsessing about it, and accept it.

Acceptance is a mixed bag for me. It is a relief and at the same time full of dissappointment. It is a moment of giving up usually after a struggle, and almost always for me is a loss of idealism. But, the acceptance can set you free and let you finally put something behind you.

“Learn this from me. Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from inside. We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harm we do, we do to ourselves.”
― Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven

“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.”
― Reinhold Niebuhr

Thank you all.

A big, warm hug for your brain.