The Art of Acceptance

Being a single girl in her early 40’s tells you a bit about myself.  I’m ambitious, a hard worker, self-sustaining, and independent.  As I ramble off that list, it may seem like an interview response.  But the more I think about it, when we want to be accepted don’t we all feel like we are in some type of interview?

The dating world has its ups and downs.  I’ve dated a fair share of guys.  In each relationship I learned something new. I had an enjoyable time getting to know some great guys and developed some deep feelings for a couple of them.  However, it seems many ended the same way: “I think all I can see you as is a friend.”  It’s like the word “friend” would somehow soften the blow.  It made me start to think….am I long-lasting relationship material? Or the real question: am I marriage material? Do I only qualify as a friend?  Could I ever be accepted- or more desirable, wanted- as a wife? Then I decided their opinion has nothing to do with my potential.

Maybe dating wasn’t or isn’t your “cross to bear”. My challenges are unique to me.  But I think we all come across those moments where we wonder if people will accept and want us for what we truly are. In the world of social media we portray ourselves as a person that people will most likely accept.  I’ve had many friends post picture after picture of their amazing life.  (Many of us do to some degree.) I wondered if their life could really be that great.  The answer is no.  Gary E. Stevenson said, speaking to a congregation about a social media post, “However, it doesn’t quite capture the full picture of what is actually going on in real life.”  

Sometimes, just like in social media, we put our best selves forward so we can hopefully be accepted by the other.  We don’t always show what’s actually going on. This is not abnormal.  In fact acceptance is one of the basic needs for survival, according to the American psychologist Abraham Maslow. But why do we want others to accept only part of us, not the whole of what’s really there?

For many people, opening up is hard.  That feeling of vulnerability is uncomfortable and life seems so much happier when we move along with that part pushed back into the shadows. But the ironic truth is that we are not happier, just insecure. I sat next to a man the other day who spoke about his struggle with acceptance.  He said he went along life going to work and earning money. He was very successful at what he did. He thought he was happy.  But he said the truth was he was just hiding.  He had anger from his childhood that was still very present in his heart and he came to a point that he couldn’t love.  The more life took its course, the more rocks he encountered on his journey. He came to a point that in order to be happier he had to be vulnerable.  He had to open up, forgive, and relearn to love.  He had to put down his guard and allow people to love him, the whole him, back.

Now, you may wonder what this story has to do with feeling accepted.  Well, because of the harsh things that happened in his childhood, he didn’t feel accepted by his family.  He chose to push them away and hide the hurt.  He chose to allow only one piece of his life to be portrayed and not the whole picture. I’m sure he thought why would anyone accept a broken man? And since he didn’t feel accepted, he chose to not fully accept others. Sadly, just like this man, many people struggle with self-love and acceptance. You can’t accept another’s whole self until you love and accept yourself.

The challenge is not to worry about how or if others accept us.  Rather, the challenge is to fear not, show your whole picture, and love yourself and others no matter what. In my case, I am in contact now and then with a few of the guys I dated.  I sometimes wonder if things could have happened differently.  Maybe we will never know.  And that’s not what is important. But, it has awakened me to realize that if I want someone to love me enough to be marriage material then I need to love myself enough to show them the true, whole me.  And yes, that shouldn’t all come shining forth right when I meet someone new.  But, I can’t hold back or cater to their opinion of me.  Either they love me or not.  That is their choice.  I can, however, show genuine love, kindness, and non-judgement towards them and anyone in my life, no matter what happens or happened in the past.  To me, that is what real acceptance is all about.

The Power of Grieving

It’s interesting to see the twists and turns life throws at you.  One such “turn” in my own life happened fifteen years ago from this summer.  I was in my later 20’s and a few years into my social work career. The future looked hopeful.  One day, while I was with my mom cooking dinner, she turned to me and said, “Dad was diagnosed with stage 4 kidney cancer.” At that moment I didn’t know what to think or feel.  The grieving process for my dad had just begun.

As the days and months followed, I watched my father progressively get worse.  He was in and out of the hospital working so hard to fight this horrid disease.  I noticed his body getting weaker each day as we fed him though a feeding tube.  He was losing the battle and there was nothing I could do about it. The sorrow intensified as I said goodbye a little each day.  Towards the end, I listened to his pain as the tumors close to his heart gave him small heart attacks. Then the moment came….He was done fighting the battle.

Someone once told me that loosing a loved one suddenly is harder than loosing them to an illness.  I was troubled by that statement.  It saddened me to think that they only took their experience and feelings into account.  Life should not be a contest that we are trying to outdo someone on the struggles that we’ve been through.  Grieving is grieving. We do it in our own way and time with varying feelings and expressions at different levels according to the loss. In other words, we never grieve the same way twice or like another person. So no, it’s not harder, it's different.

Grieving is a part of life.  We do it with any kind of loss.  In fact it is necessary and healthy.  It helps us understand our situation. I remember a few years ago when I was looking to buy a new car, I decided that I would trade in my old Corolla.  I had grown attached to that car.  It was green, a standard stick shift (which I love to drive), and I had been through a lot with it. It was even given a nick name- the Turtle. My heart hurt a bit as I drove away from the car lot knowing that piece of my life was over.  Even though the grieving was on an absolute different plane and field from dealing with the death of my father, it was still a loss and something I could allow myself to be sad about.

Grieving gives us the ability to let go of what we are losing or have lost and then heal in order live a healthy life.  In the case of my car, from the moment I knew I was trading in “the Turtle” I had to grieve so that I could be excited about my new car.  For me, it was necessary to move on.  All our experiences change us in some way or another.  Grieving is the process that enables us to reset our life.  Sometimes we need to change our thinking patterns, directions we were going in life- such as goals- and the way we do things.  Allow it. Life changes and we must too. It takes time and self-discovery. On their website, the American Cancer Association stated, “Many people think of grief as a single instance or short time of pain or sadness in response to a loss... But grieving includes the entire emotional process of coping with a loss, and it can last a long time. ” [i]

I started to wonder why we don’t let ourselves grieve the amount of time necessary.  It’s almost like if we grieve too long then there is something wrong with us.  There are times I still grieve the loss of my father and I don’t think that makes me a “messed up” person.  That led me to wonder why some people don’t allow themselves to go through the necessary steps.  Grieving is expressed in many ways.  No way is better than the other.  And sometimes losing the “small” things can be more challenging than losing the “big” things.

Most people are aware of the 5 steps/stages to grieving or loss: 1-Denial and Isolation, 2- Anger, 3- Bargaining, 4- Depression, 5- Acceptance.  Some people go through all the stages and others may hit only a few. And we hardly ever go through them in order. And sometimes we may feel when we had already been through a stage it comes back (sometimes even years later) and we have to go through it all over again and sometimes with a whole other set of issues. Life is messy and so is loss.

The amazing thing about this whole process is that it is just that… a process.  We get to do it our own way and time and there is no need to feel pressure from others. They can help us understand our feelings but don’t get to tell us how we are “supposed” to feel. (We, likewise, need to offer them the same respect and allowance.) We need to permit ourselves time, space, and the ability to be sad, angry, in denial, at peace and the list goes on.  Emotion is not bad.  It is good.  That is why we are blessed with it, even though it may seem like a curse at times.  What we choose do with that emotion is what makes the difference. I feel the more we allow ourselves to work through the process, in a thoughtful and prayerful way, the better off we will be.

---

[i] The American Cancer Society (2016). The Grieving Process. Retrieved on August 7, 2018 at https://www.cancer.org/treatment/end-of-life-care/grief-and-loss/grieving-process.html#written_by

The Bike in a Bowl- An Anology on Comfort Zones

In a class I took this summer, I was reminded of Newton’s first Law of Motion or otherwise called the Law of Inertia.  In this law its states, “An object at rest tends to stay at rest, and an object in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.”[i]  This law reminded me of a discussion on comfort zones my mom and I had last year.  She told me about an analogy of a bike in a bowl.  The bike was in a continuous cycle of riding around and around the outer rim of a bowl. It was headed nowhere. There was only one way it could get out of the so-called rut, or pattern, it was in.  The person riding the bike had to muster all the strength he could to turn the handle bars.  That small yet significant act would change his direction and he would fly out of the bowl.  I started thinking about the areas in my life I considered a comfort zone and the consequences I’ve had to deal with because I chose to say. It is always easier to stay, but the question I had to ask myself was if it was worth it. 

Sometimes comfort zones are a good place to be.  They help us recover from a tragedy or loss.  They give us time to breath and strength to stand back on our feet.  But what about those times when we get stuck, like the person on the bike?  I think we sometimes choose to say in our comfort zone because it is just that….comfortable.  Life is hard. I think we can all agree to that.  But I think it was meant to be.  Otherwise we wouldn’t grow.  And growth is a huge part of what this life is all about.

In the book “The Connected Educator” the authors Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and Lani Ritter Hall talk about the difficulty of change.  They state, “Change is hard because it involves re-culturing --re-examining values and dispositions and letting go of what we are vested in…. We all have a choice: A choice to be powerful or pitiful.  A choice to allow ourselves to become victims or activist” (145).  Now obviously it was addressing teachers but the more I reread and examined the statement the more I realized that it applied to the everyday person.  It applies to everyone. Why? Because change is hard and we do have a choice if we want to change or not.

For several years I was in a comfort zone with my career.  I was stuck in a place where I didn’t feel good about myself.  I would go to work emotionally numb because I didn’t want to feel the hurt when I was put down.  I stayed because I knew the routine and knew what was expected of me.  The problem was that I was just going through the motions.  There was no progress in my life.  Depression was present and I just accepted the fact that this is the way my life was going to be.  I was in a speed of motion going in no direction which felt bleak but familiar.  I was scared of what was “out there”.  I constantly asked myself if I was worth bigger and better.  I wondered if I could handle different or change.  I needed help but didn’t know how to ask for it or if I should even ask for it.  I was comfortable in my mindless but miserable state of motion and nothing but an “unbalanced force” could get me out.

An “unbalanced force” happened and at the time I wasn’t sure if I liked it.  But I knew something had to happen.  I wasn’t happy and deep inside, under the numbness, I wanted to change that. So one day I went to a friend’s house and received help on updating my resume.  I didn’t think anything would happen from it, but it was my small way to take a step in a different direction.  That small act of faith made all the difference.  A few months later I applied for a job that I had desired for many years.  The results: I got it!  I refer to it as a tender mercy. But it took my small steps (all that I had to give at the time) that turned my course in a different direction.  It got me out of my comfort zone.

I’ve learned that any small act will change your destination.  It will be that “unbalanced force” to get you out of the bowl and someplace where you can progress.  Digging in your heals and turning the handle bars may take all the strength you can muster.  But the good news: it is enough. 

Have you ever felt like you took that leap of faith and now you are in unchartered territory? In all sense of the word, you feel utterly and completely lost and wondered why you even tried. You feel that this lost feeling means you made the wrong choice and you desperately want to go back to that familiar zone because at least there you know what to expect. Maybe you even felt like there you were in control of your life.  Ironically, the harsh reality is that you didn’t have control.  You were just riding in circles letting the vehicle you were on do all the work.

Even though it may be a fearful place, the unknown can be good.  It helps us discover new things about ourselves, those we are in contact with, and our environment because we get to learn to make new choices.  We get to be in control again.  Although it is a very scary and uncomfortable feeling, sometimes there is no other way to lead us in a better direction.  We need to learn those things about ourselves.  They help us change and become stronger.  The key is to be prayerful and keep doing those small acts of faith.  Involve God in your choices.  And you will be on the road to progress…. out of your comfort zone.

---

[i] Nussbaum-Beach, S & Ritter Hall, L. (2012). The Connected Educator: Learning and Leading in a Digital Age. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.