To Accept or Not to Accept

I haven't written in a while. I have been waiting for some sort of inspiration. That inspiration hasn't come. I've just been living life on life's terms and waiting for something magical to happen to be able to write. well.  Life is magical. Being able to live life on life's terms without the shackles of alcohol is magical. So I'm gonna write about my life. My everyday mundane life.

This is the first week back to work after the holidays. and I am refreshed and ready to go. when I was drinking. That was never the case. I was always full of dread and anger. I never wanted to get out of bed and get the day started.  Let alone the year. but now without drinking. I am ready.

I am ready to focus on making moves in my life. Last year, I spent so much of my time learning, building and rebuilding my life. Don't get me wrong, I made a lot of intense progress last year. I am beyond proud of that progress. But I was so focused on one day at a time that I could not see the forest for the trees. I am ready to look at my life in a more broad sense again. Look at the big picture as well as the nitty gritty details. 

So, my first priority for 2024 is to make a list of goals I want to accomplish this year. All of these goals need to fit into my Big Picture: Acceptance. The word I have chosen for this year is Acceptance. I chose this word because after all of that deep down intensive work I did on myself, acceptance is still a major roadblock in my healing journey. Without true acceptance, I have been able to accomplish a lot so again I am not discrediting my journey so far. But I am now aware of the roadblock, so what else is there to do but unblock it! 

–Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better. – Maya Angelou

Radical Acceptance: Radical acceptance is a distress tolerance skill that is designed to keep pain from turning into suffering. - Andrew Harris, MS, LCMHC

My goal of 2023 was to continue my sobriety journey and my recovery in order to reduce the suffering in my life. Now that 2023 has come and gone, I am finally able to see that my drinking, although it was the gasoline to my fire, it was not the sole cause of my suffering. Pain. Unavoidable pain. Distress. Unavoidable stress. Pain and stress that morphed into suffering was at the heart of my unhappiness. So, it became crystal clear when the thing I thought was causing such feelings was eliminated and I was still finding myself suffering in many ways. I need to be clear about my use of the word suffering here. I am only saying that I know there is a more peaceful way of living and I want to find it! I am an incredibly blessed and happy woman overall. I am just looking for more out of life and to become the best version of myself I can be.

I first heard of the term radical acceptance in my IOP program. Unfortunately, I was not ready at the time to accept that acceptance was a major block in my recovery. I knew it was hard for me and I listened to others say they also struggled with accepting the world as it is. They would talk about how their boss was awful to them and how devastating that was for them. I understood their pain and related to them as they spoke about how it caused them anxiety around going to work. I listened as they spoke about parent issues and how that left them feeling alone and depressed at times. I empathized with them on how the actions of others would come into their lives like wrecking balls and they found it hard to pick up the pieces. I spoke about my own events that triggered my anger and resentment and how those feelings would consume my thoughts. I would talk about ruminating on my own parenting mishaps or coparenting difficulties. I would talk about the emotional and at times physical toll those events that caused those feelings took on me. 

But for me, I really was not able to see that it had been impeding my progress. I thought I had enough coping skills in my toolkit to skate by without the total destruction and that would be enough. I thought I could control it. (sound familiar?) I thought I had it under control. But I was wrong. I was not able to see that by resisting reality and ruminating on my reality I was only causing myself to suffer more. 

So, here I am a year later, ready to try. I am ready to practice acceptance of issues and events rather than resisting them. Instead of resisting the pain, stress, disappointment, anger, or insert negative emotion, I am going to practice radical acceptance. Instead of resisting support, love, empathy, joy, happiness, or insert positive emotion here, I will practice radical acceptance. 

As I head into this part of my journey, I will remember that acceptance is not approval. I do not have to approve of the actions of others or the situation I find myself in in order to accept it. I will recognize that the facts of the given event are reality and fighting reality does not change it. Resistance has not and will not lead me to peace. So, I am going to try life with acceptance instead.

This yearś intention: I will accept the things I cannot change. 

Hereś to closing out 2023 (the year of intense exploration and growth) and to jumping into 2024 with an open and accepting heart!