The dichotomy of acceptance & change

Whatever you accept completely will take you to peace, including the acceptance that you cannot accept, that you are in resistance.”    Eckhart Tolle

As you guys know, I have been undergoing different forms of treatment since last September. I seemed to have put a lot of things on hold for the treatment and believed that once done I could somewhere begin my life again.

During last week’s chemo session, we happened to ask the doctor on the next steps. I waited for the word “August : end of treatment” to be heard. Instead I heard all sorts of words and ended with “hopefully around end of 2021”. Also, my blood test results showed increased activity; could be a blip or actual, she couldn’t say. What the hell was happening!!!

Now there was a dichotomy going on in my head. I thought I had accepted that I would just go with the flow and whenever things would change, they would. So why was I feeling let down? Why did I spend the next 3 days wallowing in self-pity.

A quote by Buddha states – “Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional”

It’s then I realised, acceptance often can be extremely difficult. How do you accept that you have no clue or control over what’s ravaging your body or your situation.

We all go through this don’t we? We keep telling ourselves we have accepted our fate or what is happening to us but deep down, we are in complete resistance to it. And the trauma or situation continues to have control over us.

Also, very often we feel that accepting something means we are weak. Almost like resigning to fate or something. Actually, it’s quite the opposite. Accepting something means you are making peace with what is happening which will help release its stronghold on you which in turn will help you evolve in life. They say, “Acceptance is the first step to change or self-improvement.”

Sometimes things that hurt you most, Teach you the greatest lesson in life   – Lord Buddha

So that’s when I started digging deeper. As a person, I always look for some rationale or some purpose of everything. Something that will help me understand what is happening and thereby make peace with it.

One of the exercises my counsellor made me undertake was, what are the life lessons this period is trying to teach me. It completely opened my world. It helped me see my predicament in a completely new light. Honestly, it’s quite humbling and sometimes life altering.

A friend of mine who has a child bordering on autism, once told me that she cried for a long time when her kid was born. Blaming her fate and her child’s. But as she learned to accept the situation, she slowly underwent an amazing transformation. She started devouring books and research on adult & child nutrition and well-being. She turned around a life-threatening disease which had caught her in her 30s and helped me so much during my initial days as I struggled to fight the cancer. She was learning and doing so many things she never thought she would or could do. And through all this, she never let her professional life suffer. Even at work, she championed the cause for diversity. We were absolutely in awe of her.

I know it’s hard, trust me, I’m still trying everyday but often we can’t change our reality. I certainly can’t change mine. So, after 3 days of mulling over my fate, I stopped overthinking my current. It is what it is! And within a week, I started getting insights on what all I could do in this period. So many things that I had been postponing suddenly started opening up. Suddenly I met people who gave me insights on areas I needed help on.

I don’t know what all this means, just that I probably the universe wants us to be open to its mysteries. Well! here goes another try! 😊