This past week I heard from someone who is enjoying the “pity pot” way too much. It reminded me that whether it’s aging, living with a chronic condition, having an acute illness, or experiencing a life changing event such as Covid, we can either accept the situation as it is or obsess over why it’s unfair. Accepting and moving on with one’s life is the approach that is going to yield the best results ultimately.
It’s important to note the difference between being complacent and acceptance. Complacent is the inactive form of acceptance. Basically acceptance is understanding how things are and recognizing you do have choice in how you interpret the situation, take actions etc. Acceptance is the middle ground between dissatisfaction and complacency.
And just to qualify it a bit more, there is contentment. I wrote a post Contentment is Happiness, which I reread it and still like a lot of what I wrote, particularly the line, In short contentment is finding our joy and happiness in our lives as they are. Think that pretty much sums it up.
This winter, my son, who has a chronic condition, was badly injured-the right place but at the wrong time. He was pretty much immobile for the better part of two months, as he had to have surgery on his ankle and foot. A very active person, I was worried how he’d handle it.
We texted and talked a lot through those two months. While he could work from home, that only took up so much time. He read Western Philosophers-I gave him a book of Stoic philosophers for Christmas-and turned to music.
He didn’t want to take a lot of pain meds, so music helped to divert his attention. I’m happy to say, he weathered this storm by being present to the situation. He listened to his body, didn’t spend a lot of time on self-pity but rather focused on healing, becoming a better musician, doing his job, and when he felt strong, tried new recipes and learned new things.
His musicianship has expanded by leaps and bounds. He’s a good example of learning to deal well with the negative so you have more time for the positive, which has improved his life on multiple levels, as well as strengthened his resiliency.
Ways to Have More Time for the Positive
• Take the Self Compassion Quiz from Greater Good: What goes through your mind when things are not going as planned? Does your inner voice sound like a caring, supportive friend—or like a pestering, harsh critic? Having yourself as a supportive compassionate friend is a must.
• Recognize that how you perceive and believe a situation to be determines how you will respond. Emotions follow your beliefs. Nothing either good nor bad but thinking makes it so.” Shakespeare.
• Check out the Secret to Never Being Frustrated Again It's an interesting summary of Albert Ellis’s, the founder of Rationale Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT), How to Stubbornly Refuse to Make Yourself Miserable About Anything Yes Anything. Lots of tips and practical suggestions. An aside, Ellis was frustrated with the lack of success he was having with traditional modes of psychotherapy and so went back to the Greek and Roman philosophers. Both his work and Beck's (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) are based on the work of the Stoics. If interested in this topic, check out Stoic Philosophy as a Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy.
• Contentment is Happiness contains lots of tips.
Keep your head up and your heart strong.
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