A Word for Your New Year’s
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Hi community:
There has been a member of my family sick since December 9th. Around our house, it’s felt like groundhog day, lockdown all over again and these last few weeks have brought out some of the worst of us. Canceled plans, delayed celebrations, and a lot of disappointment were the outcome of dual-demic 2022.
Tonight, I write this not quite remembering what it feels like to feel like myself - it’s been a while since I slept through the night, had the energy to exercise, or had a mind not foggy with sickness, parental overload, and exhaustion.
And yet, in spite of all the mess of this month, I’m really, really, terribly happy.
It has to do with one word.
TOOLS
In therapy circles, we talk a lot about ACT: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. If you’ve met with any modern therapist chances are they incorporate ACT within their toolbelt of treatment styles. The reason is that it’s really powerful.
Early in my career I listened to a talk by Dr. Carl Jung and remember hearing the line, “what you resist, persists”. I come back to this phrase over and over again for myself and my clients.
See, ACT helps us understand that there are normal afflictions of living: boredom, loneliness, anger, resentment, grief, worry, low self-esteem, doubt, guilt, aimlessness, dread, disappointment, hopelessness, apathy, apprehension, envy, change, crisis and tragedy. The problem is that we see any of these things as a problem in the first place that needs fixing. ACT teaches us that we can experience them as they are, move through them, and not need to escape or avoid such inevitabilities.
What we understand is that the more we try to solve the normal conditions of being human, oftentimes the more they persist. We fixate on preventing, avoiding, and repressing normal living states and they persist. In truth, we cannot “get rid” of these experiences. We must learn to live with and in relationship with them.
GRATITUDE
In our fundamental Mindfulness 101 workshop, I teach our signature Cycle of Stress model and how to intervene within the acute and chronic states of stress in our lives. The first way to intervene and really change our experiences with stress is what I call “Life Philosophy”. I always then quote this line from Dr. Wayne Dyer: “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change”.
When we change how we view life, the experiences we have in life change.
We can see the normal afflictions of living life as a human as stressful, or, we can simply see them as just a part of being alive. Take, for example, the pain of loving someone. How vulnerable it feels. How desperate you are to hold onto that love forever. How anxious you are about that person’s safety, well-being, and future.
And yet, loving is an act of vulnerability. Loving is living. Wouldn’t you rather live and love than resist life itself? We cannot truly live if we’re just trying to avoid pain.
Life is beautifully, amazingly full of pain.
But it’s us that decide whether that pain is suffering.
When we resist what is - we suffer as we are just trying to get rid of what is.
INNOVATION
I have witnessed so many times that people want to control for happiness.
If their kid gets into a certain college = happy. If they lose 15 pounds = happy. If they get that new job, partner, dog, trip, or raise, then they’ll be happy. If their kids are happy, healthy, and thriving, then they’ll be happy.
All of this control for happiness means a lot of focus on control.
We try and control others’ reactions to us. We try to control events, experiences, and outcomes. We try and control our reputations, appearance, and security. We move, get divorced, travel, write angry emails, debate, and argue so that we can feel right, justified, safe, and in control. Maybe THEN we’ll be happy.
We never want to feel the normal emotions that come up in various moments and stages in our lives: boredom, loneliness, disappointment, regret, fear, sadness, complacency, purposelessness, and panic.
And yet there’s an opportunity here - where we can turn this natural human instinct to flee these experiences around and instead welcome it all in.
The past 3 weeks in my household have SUCKED. There was fighting and yelling and overstimulation and claustrophobia and so much laundry. But it was my husband who said it perfectly like day 8: “This is just my job. My job is the kids and the house and this just is what it is right now”. For someone who notoriously resists the 6 am wake-ups, he was able to turn his resistance around and eliminate any suffering over our circumstances.
Has this month been painful? Hell yes. But miserable, depressing, mood-altering, impact all those around you? No. Not at all. Because it was what it was. Temporarily hard, exhausting, isolating, and relentless. And so it was.
FEELS
In a world of uncertainty, chaos, and heartbreaking truths, acceptance is what can bring us peace.
It is the acceptance of unpleasant experiences and emotions that allow us to ride them out. When we resist and struggle against them, when we try and control them, we use so much energy, time, and resources. We suffer and feel completely defeated by the very thing that is living.
Many, many years ago I heard one of now my all-time favorite metaphors. I remember it whenever I’m near water and it always helps me feel into the practice of acceptance.
Say you are flying a kite on the beach and the kite lands in the ocean. The waves are tumultuous and the current pulls the kite further out to sea. You really, really want that kite. You need that kite back. You have two options:
Option 1: you swim out to get that kite. You crash against the waves, swallow salt water, get pulled under, and work really, really hard to try and reach it. You struggle and you may never actually retrieve the kite, despite your best efforts. But you feel the need to do something, to control the situation, to fix it, and have that kite back.
Option 2: You sit down on the shore. You dig your feet in the warm sand. You feel the sun on your face. You watch the waves. You wait. You ride out the changing tides until, eventually, with patience, the kite returns to shore. You didn’t know if it would, you might have felt grief, disappointment, and fear, but you waited it out without putting any more effort into the experience.
Which would you choose? Which do you normally choose? Which option has defined your path in life?
So, with all of this, I offer you this: whatever you experienced in 2022 and whatever you are hoping for in 2023, perhaps try acceptance during this New Year transition. Let go and be okay with what was and be open to what will be. You’ll get through it, especially if you make an intention to actually go through it.
This is life. It’s messy, hard, unrelenting, disappointing, lonely, vulnerable, scary, and painful. It’s also the gift of living: feeling, experiencing, loving, losing, risking, and challenging.
Whatever you wish for 2023, I hope you can wish to just embrace this one life you’re given and find happiness in the fact that ALL OF THIS is living. And how grateful we can be to just be alive. It’s a good life if you allow yourself to ride the waves of it all.
Life isn’t supposed to be perfect, it’s just supposed to be lived.
Go live it.
PS- if you’re curious about how my 2022 Resolutions panned out, stay tuned. Looking forward to catching up more in 2023.
