"...Don't go to sleep at night. What you most want will come to you then. Warmed by a sun inside you'll see wonders.." (Rumi)
How often, in moments of challenge, uncertainty and most likely battling tiredness, do we say to ourselves ‘Why me?’ and ‘I wish things had been different?’ Some people struggle to admit this to themselves and others, but I never have. I believe that it is at these moments, when those feelings of regret arrive, we meet our ally ‘Acceptance’.
Some of us meet Acceptance and choose not to acknowledge its presence. I feel this is most often due to a fear that by doing this you may not be moving forward or you are accepting that things may never change. However in my journey with Chloe and with life in general, it’s been essential to embrace the need to accept that some things are just the way are and the ability to move forward comes from evolving how you manage and deal with that.
I find myself reflecting on Acceptance as I approach writing about my journey at the point I am confronted with the reality of Autism diagnosis for my child. I am pausing, refraining even distracting myself from getting to this point in the story and I have been trying to understand why. My son’s last day at school is the trigger for me understanding why this may be the case. Time flies and with the rapid passing of time, sometimes you can forget about everything that has happened in between where you were and where you are now - especially painful moments. At these points, you often reflect on that bit in between and realise how much has happened.
It was a painful time in my life at the point that I realised Chloe was going to be different. It’s also a time when I occasionally did ask myself ‘Why me?’ and ‘I wish things could be different.’ However I also realised it was a time when I found myself learning how to see the other side of the coin; that it was me because I had something to learn and that by accepting it was me and that things were not the way I expected them to be, I was able to enter into a period of amazing growth and development as a human being and a parent.
My son is now approaching his 16th birthday and he was 5 when this journey began. He is a good human being and a caring individual. If I had not embraced my ally Acceptance, things could have actually been a lot different and not necessarily in a good way! Regret is a painful emotion: Acceptance allows you to manage this. It’s about not denying what you feel or trying to pretend to yourself and others that you are not unhappy at times and don’t feel the pain that regret can cause. It is important to call on your ally, Acceptance, at these moments so that it can help you manage the feeling when it arrives and then ensure you allow it to leave and so you can move forward.
Moving forward is essential for human progress and evolution however it is important to be kind to yourself in the process and not prevent yourself from feeling what you feel. Acceptance can ensure you don’t stay in that feeling; that you face it, even embrace it and then move on taking one step at a time.