Thoughts on Acceptance

I'm Lisa 👋 Welcome to the latest edition of Stream of Consciousness!

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[Full disclosure: This post is mostly notes to myself as I am working through some things but thought I would share in case this real-time processing is something you relate to and that might help you in some way.]

I have trouble with acceptance.

I'm awesome at thinking about the future and dreaming.

I suck at accepting how things actually are, today, in reality.

I think it's because sometimes when the present isn't what you like, it's hard to look at clearly, let alone accept.

I don't mean accept like acknowledge - a nod of the head and now we're carrying on.

I mean accept like deeply understand what right now means and engrain that in your cells.

Hope is something that keeps me going majorly - whenever I am going through a hard time, thinking about a better future always makes me feel better.

But I have learned that I can't rely only on hope and ignore the present. It's like running on fumes. And the fumes run out.

To a large extent, a lot of the things I've done in my life were because I was completely delusional.

Someone told me it was impossible? I'll figure out a way.

This is how I navigated through my personal life, sports, and career.

But it's come at a very high cost - one that I'm not willing (or frankly able) to pay anymore.

I never properly assessed my current circumstances as the first step and then bridged the gap intelligently to do the impossible thing.

I just threw myself into the fire.

I learned SO MUCH which I am grateful for.

But I incurred stress during the process and often did this in several areas at the same time. That was a bonehead move that I would not recommend.

I didn't really look at where I was struggling and where I needed help first.

I didn't properly assess my physical and mental capacity.

I didn't look at the support network I did (or did not) have in place.

I didn't do a resource reconciliation.

Sure, I did the things.

But most of them didn't feel good while doing them.

I was stressed out, in pain, and very often felt isolated and alone.

These are hard lessons I have learned.

I need to get better at accepting my current state, no matter how painful or ugly or how far away from how I want show up in the world that is.

It's the only way to get to where I want to go and actually enjoy it and build confidence along the way.

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Here’s to navigating life off of autopilot together.

Lisa ✌️