How do we accept things that are hard or new to us?
...usually, very slowly, if at all.
Sometimes it's not just a simple decision, but rather a combination of forces that prevail upon us, in one way or another.
As I watch my son struggle with the rehab work he is doing, I'm noticing something that resides in me as well. I have to accept something before it really starts to work for me. Otherwise, while it might look like something is resisting me, the truth might more accurately be that I am resisting it.
While I relish the idea of change, the reality is I'm not much better at accepting it than anyone else is. It happens, more often than not, when I'm pressed hard enough and I don't see another option. That doesn't sound much like the sound-bites of the successful. But, maybe they're not telling the whole truth either (it's often only the successful that get the air-time, what about the others...the rest of us?). The reality is that change often forces itself upon us and when it does, we come down to a choice — work with it or against it.
May we all learn to more accept what is because that actually is the route towards making things better. It is more honest. It requires more courage. It enables us to action of spirit, mind, and body. And, it allows us to change, especially where we need to (whether we want to or not).
Life sometimes presents us with the notion that we no longer have the option to return to the way things were. So, unless we accept that, we end up spending a lot of energy in counter-productive ways — ways that actually impede our ability to progress, to change.
Enhanced by our current experience with Conner, this is quite active in my consciousness right now. I would never wish for the circumstance, but I am thankful for the awareness it is bringing (hopefully, in the most spiritual sense, to both of us). I have to believe this is much closer to what much of the main-line faith traditions are really all about and, therefore, I find some comfort that I am simply encountering the essence of life.
