2020 - accepting the good, the bad, and the ugly

 As I sit down to write this post today, my dog is at my side, cuddled up to me, in utter doggie contentment. I think to myself how I can relate to that feeling of being right where I most want to be, doing exactly what I most want to do. It is from that place of fullness that I write about 2020: a year that, for many, has been a horrific disaster from start to finish. 

There is no doubt that historically, the world has changed significantly in the last 12 months. Politics, pandemics, persecution, protests, posturing, and petulance have marked our Western society throughout the year. Many worldwide have felt hopeless, harassed, even hunted. And as we come to the close of it, there are some sparks of hope that the disease which has intensified our societal problems may have an end in sight. However, it does not mean that there are not still problems. 

There has been much to be sad about this year. People have died, either through illness or ignorance. But in the midst of it all, there have also been signs of life, light, laughter, and love.

For me, 2020 has been a time of great sorrow and of great joy. The great sorrow came in February when my brother passed away suddenly after having succumbed to an infection that left him too weak to get to a phone. Feeling empty and alone, I turned my attention to adopting a puppy, who quickly filled our home and my life with laughter, love, and life as he explored and learned each new thing. We got him in the early stages of the pandemic, before we got the hang of this whole social distancing thing. Fortunately, nobody was ill and we were even able to tend to his vaccinations and his neutering as time went on. 

In September, I began a new chapter for me as I started the long-awaited practicum placement that my university requires for me to get my Masters in Counselling Psychology. What I didn't foresee was how wonderfully fulfilling it was (and is) to be there and be present for each of my charges, to listen to them and to watch them grow in themselves and their relationships with themselves, others, and sometimes with God. There have been challenges of course, but I am doing something that I love doing. 

So for me, all told, 2020 hasn't been so bad. Sure, it sucks to not be able to see my friends and family as often, but I have my little family here, which includes a couple of other people in our bubble (the "kith" of kith and kin), and of course the animals. I get to do a lot of things that make me happy, and my stress levels are vastly reduced from a year ago. I guess it has to do with that all-important little word called acceptance. 

Photo "Sun Ray Behind Dark Cloud"
courtesy of Sura Nualpradid at
freedigitalphotos.net

When I accept the things that come my way and don't wish them gone or hurried up, when I receive them and enjoy whatever moments of goodness they bring to me, it is then that I can live in peace. These are lessons I'm learning in this new phase of my life - lessons like living in the now, doing what I can and letting go of what I can't, and making time to laugh and enjoy living without fretting about the future or regretting the past. Too long I have lived with those thieves of joy. It's time to step up, to move ahead, and to enrich my every day by seeing and believing the best, even if things seem bad or ugly. The truth is, there is always some good to be found if you look for it. If you look for bad things, you'll find them. So I choose to look for good things, and let the bad ones go. 

Onward to 2021 - a new year, a new decade. I'm grateful. If our paths cross and we walk together, be that virtually or in person, I hope we part ways encouraged and strengthened. 

Serenity to Accept

It's humbling to admit that you've lived most of your life in a state of denial. That's where I have lived most of my life. 

Mostly I've denied my own powerlessness to change one or more things about people - either myself or the people I love. I liked to think that I could manipulate a situation ... or a person ... even resorting to intimidation at times, so they would be funneled into a course of action that would benefit me. 

I was wrong. Yet it took me nearly five decades to realize it. 

My manipulation took the form of emotional blackmail, usually. It is something that I still struggle with, on occasion. I'd treat the behavior of someone else as an attack on me personally so as to make that person feel guilty and therefore do what I wanted. They'd do what I wanted, all right, and resent me for it. Or, I'd overreact to a decision someone else had a right to make, and refuse to participate in it, ruining their enjoyment of it. 

Occasionally, I'd even lose my temper and make people afraid to cross me in certain areas - ruling and controlling by making them feel threatened, unsafe.

It's not something I'm proud of. But it happened. Frequently. 

About two months into a healing process that for me took a total of a year, I was introduced to the concept of acceptance - an acceptance that is based on my total inability to change any person, any outcome, any situation - acceptance of what is and that which cannot be changed. It involved learning to let go of my need to control something - ANYTHING - about someone or something. 

Within weeks of that mental attitude shift, my loved ones - those closest to me - noticed, in a way bordering on astonishment. "What's with Mom? why isn't she freaking out?" I heard whispered behind me. And I'd smile to myself. Of course it wasn't easy to let go, to NOT "freak out" - but the dividends paid off every time, and the positive response was incentive to keep at it. I got to like the way my relationships strengthened when I let people be who they were without fear of my disapproval or my other equally unpleasant responses to their beliefs, choices, and words. 

In fact, the more I practiced the skill of letting go, the more I realized how many things there were over which I had no control, much as I would have liked. Even things I had always thought I could influence - and sometimes I could - I discovered that I had no right to touch. 

Having grown up in a dysfunctional home, I never knew that anyone had a right to have boundaries. Nothing was ever private; nothing was beyond the scrutiny and judgment of others who wielded power (real or imagined) over me and my brothers. Everything was everybody else's business. The only boundary there was pertained to the shroud of secrecy that covered anything that happened inside the four walls of the homestead. Everything else, though, was fair game. Every word, action, thought was subject to being evaluated, praised or condemned after it passed through the parental filter.... and by parental I mean that every adult in the whole family (and extended family: aunts, uncles, grandparents) felt he or she had the right to pass judgment on the appearance, words, and beliefs of everyone else, especially every child.  The children, on the other hand, had no right to do the same to the parents. Infractions of this code were met with swift and severe punishment.

Nobody ever questioned this fact of life. The attitude was that as soon as we grew up and had families of our own, we would have the same right they exercised on a daily basis, with our own children. 

When I began to heal from that toxic atmosphere, which unfortunately carried into adulthood, I realized more and more that this assumption of the right to pass judgment on others was not just dysfunctional, it was downright sick and wrong. I familiarized myself intimately with the notion that everyone has boundaries, and that these boundaries need to be respected - including mine. That knowledge helped me figure out what, who and where I needed to let go, to accept not only who and what I couldn't change but who and what I had no right to change even if I could. 

And even then, I had (and have) no power in myself to accept those things and people that I need to accept. That power comes from above - from the peace of my continued relationship with God. Knowing and resting on the fact that God looks after me, that He is calmly and lovingly in control of all things - including me, including those I love, including every circumstance - gives me the strength and the serenity to accept what I cannot change.

This is not a fatalistic acceptance either. It is an active choice to allow people to be who they are, to let them make their own decisions and to let them live with the consequences of their own actions, no matter how much I am tempted to make it easier for them. It is a decision to not rail against circumstances, to not take them personally, to realize that everyone has "stuff" and that it's okay to feel what I feel about it, experience it and then let it go. 

The lifestyle I'm learning is like being handed a new key ring that unlock doors previously closed to me, opening pathways I never dreamed possible. Acceptance was the first key I learned how to use - and I have used it every day since. I have discovered, over time, that it is the first key to something that eluded me before, but which I have been able to experience more and more: happiness.