Acceptance for everything you hate about your life

Remember when I said I was going to write about the fourth agreement of the book The Four Agreements? And then remember when I said I sat down to do that and had been having all these peaceful thoughts and out of the blue I had some sort of anxiety or panic attack?

Well, I'm back and ready to write about that again.

But first, I'd like to take a moment to comment on the Oprah episode today that featured Stephanie Nielson and her family.

Stephanie is a blogger and a Mormon who survived a plane crash a year and two months ago.  The news quickly swept through the blogosphere and people raised money and sent money for her medical bills and whatever else it was needed for, as well as cards and gifties and lots and lots of prayers.

Stephanie was a very pretty woman before her accident and she is now scarred up and has had to have many surgeries to reconstruct her face.  I was so, so happy when she said, comparing her old physical make up to her new physical make up, "That was then and it was beautiful and lovely and this is now and it's beautiful and lovely."  I hope people who heard that will sit with it for a while and think about how that kind of sentiment could be true for many situations.  She was pretty before, true.  But so are lots of people, big deal.  How many people can say that they survived an exploding plane and burns on 80% of their bodies?  How many people could say that they made a choice to fight for their lives so they could struggle to open a bag of carrots?

1.  I think Stephanie actually does look great.  Her medical team has done a great job.  2.  Her face tells a beautiful story that I'm sure she probably feels privileged to tell.  Where before she was a very pretty girl who wouldn't really stand out in a sea of pretty people she is now a beautiful hero who stands out in the blogosphere, in her community, in her family, on OPRAH!, at church....  And besides, she now has luscious Angelina Jolie lips and she only had to get into a plane crash and almost die to get them!  ;-)  It's all a matter of perspective.

Which brings me to the woman who visited with Stephanie in her home.  She had written to Oprah saying that she hated being a stay-at-home mom, that it wasn't creative, that it was boring and menial labour, basically.  So, Oprah sent her to Stephanie's home and she came away with a new perspective.

I felt for this woman because I've said those same things myself.  I've even said something similar to her statement that playing with play-doh makes her want to kill herself, being facetious, of course.

The Fourth Agreement is to always do your best.  But the key to remember is that your best is going to change from day to day, from year to year.  And the point is not to strive for excellence so that you can have something to point to in order to receive admiration or to avoid judgment.  It's so that you can have peace, fill the measure of your creation, and grow. 

In order to do your best you have to have the ability to give yourself an honest appraisal.  A lot of people struggle to be truly self-aware because it hurts too much.  You have to be able to look at what you're not doing without falling all over yourself in remorse and hate for how imperfect you are.  And that's where acceptance comes in.

I wanted to say to this woman on Oprah who went to visit Stephanie:  It's okay that you don't like play-doh.  You don't even have to like Go Fish or eating breakfast with your kids.  You don't have to like staying at home and you don't have to be Stephanie.  Stephanie always wanted to be that mom.  The things that you don't like to do she has always liked to do and this is no different than some people having a natural affinity for writing and other people having a natural affinity for sports.  You don't have to be good at writing or sports.  You don't have to stay at home.  You don't have to do anything you're not capable of doing.  Once you accept that where you are is okay, that you're a good enough person as you are, only then will you be able to have enough inner peace and love for yourself to freely give it to your children.  You can't force yourself to love something or someone.  If you are self-critical, you are not loving yourself.  And if you're not loving yourself, where is this love supposed to come from to give to your family?  It's like proposing to give a gift that you don't have and you can't buy on credit.

And that's where my new peace has come from:  Acceptance and Lower Expectations.  It's not a land I've completely immigrated to but I visit about six times as often as I ever did before.

There's one thing that's harder for me to accept than anything else and that's that I'm not a particularly healthy person.  For one thing, I look healthy, so I forget.  For another, I'm only 29 so I feel like I should be healthy.

When I went to see the "voodoo doctor" though I was so depressed I wanted to die, there were only two things he said that instantly made me cry and one of them was, "Everyday is a fight for you."  It wasn't a question.  It was a statement, something he felt he could intuit however he does that, without knowing me or talking to me about what's going on in my life.  He just got down to business as soon as I got there and he said this almost casually like it was no big deal to be able to read a total stranger.

People, I've never quite put it that way because I always felt like a bit of a loser, because it's not like I'm a plane crash survivor or something, but it's true:  everyday is a physical, mental, and spiritual fight. Because I'm crazy exhausted, my meds were probably making me bipolar (news! to follow at a later date), and I ache.

I used to do SO MUCH.  I made great meals and great desserts, things like stuffed apples wrapped in pastry with little pastry leaves I veined to look leafy, with clove stems.  I used to whip up all sorts of crafty things and like Stephanie Nielson I delighted in making things beautiful and homey.  (I actually used to love this stay-at-home gig. Did you know that?)  I made a built-in bookshelf for my bathroom while 8 months pregnant with three kids with nothing but a hand jigsaw. (I fixed all the bad cuts with putty and paint.) I just decided one day to make it so I took the kids to the hardware store, bought my lumber, loaded it into my van and on my front porch in a day I made this 8-foot high bookshelf with crown moulding and yellow-painted beadboard backing.  I painted it all creamy white and made fabric pleated "doors" for the bottom two shelves and when Jude came home from his trip away it was done. But that's just one example of the things I used to do all the time.  And that was when I had little kids.

Now?  Jude makes breakfast.  He often makes supper.  He comes home from work (usually with a few things from the grocery store) in time to take the kids to their activities on Tuesday and Wednesday nights.  He does most of the laundry and the dishes.  He walks the dog almost exclusively.  He often puts the kids to bed.  He'll do anything I ask him to, really.  And he rarely complains. 

Sometimes I just feel so terrible about this state of affairs.  And the kids don't understand why I'm so tired, even if I explain it.

This weekend we are having Jude's family over for Thanksgiving.  In the past I would have planned the meal out by now.  I would have made some desserts in advance.  I'd be feverishly cleaning the house, making it perfect.  I'd be placing gourds and pumpkins on my front porch and buying flowers.  And I'd love every minute of it.  Now, it's Wednesday, they're coming on Saturday, my place is a mess and I still haven't fixed the toilet paper holder and reinstalled the towel rack, from the last time they were here. And what they don't know is that it was broken even months before that.  (Jude doesn't do it because he doesn't know how I want it done and I've always done most of the fix-it jobs myself.)

I badly want to get up and clean and prep but I have no energy.  I tried to nap this morning but I suck at napping because I think too much.  I don't want his family to come over and see the messy house and feel like I must not be doing well so I'm put out by having to host dinner that I'm only hosting because my mother-in-law is dying a slow death and can't do it herself. 

I can't adequately explain what it's like to be chronically exhausted.  I don't even know where to begin. I can at least say that there's a difference between being exhausted and being tired and sometimes I feel them both at once and I'm able to sleep.  But most of the time, I can't sleep.  I just exist in this heavy shell I lug about.  It affects how I feel about everything.

Everyday my neck hurts but some days like today, it's worse than others.

My feet and calves hurt everyday because my muscles are too tight because of my back.

My hair is falling out and not growing back.  For almost three years I've been concerned about this but I've never cried until I found a small bald spot right in the front.  I cried for hours and hours.  Half of me was crying for my vanity and the other half was crying out of fear of what's going to happen to me.  I'm 29 and I feel much, much older.  If this is how I feel now, what's going to happen when I'm 40 or 50?

The hair falling out and the bit of weight gain I still have left to lose, are the only physical signs that anything is wrong.

Everyday, at some point, I have felt like a loser for not being able to keep up.  And I've been afraid that if I just accept these problems, then I'm going to be resigning myself to them and they'll never get better.

But I realised that it's the lack of acceptance that's keeping me here-- my high expectations. My feeling of entitlement.  Which of these things are godly?

Jude gave me a priesthood blessing and said that my hair would grow back and that I'd feel and look the way I want to.  But I have this feeling that until I'm okay with being 50 lbs overweight and with patchy hair all over, until I'm okay with the consequences of life and at peace with whatever lies in my path, my hair is not going to grow back.  If for no other reason than the stress that plagues me. 

I think any time we are fighting instead of accepting, we will be stagnant.  All this negative self-talk about getting ready for Thanksgiving supper is not giving me energy. 

When I think about NOT fighting every day, I feel peace.  When I feel that peace I feel God's love for me and love for myself.  That makes me happy.  It makes me want to do what I can, to give my very best and to be proud of it.

One of my favourite quotes is from Garrison Keillor explaining a Scandinavian life philosophy:

"The Good Enough principle is... a belief in mediocrity and an antidote to envy. Nobody is better than anybody else, superiority is mostly an illusion, so don't think you're a big shot because you're not. We're all about the same when you come right down to it. Don't look back with regret — your life was good enough. Your parents were good enough, so was your school, so is your job. So quit belly-aching. Don't sweat it. Good Enough may seem like faint praise, but some things really are good enough. Don't make a big deal over it. Don't try to make it the best that ever was or could be. It's good enough. And that's good enough."

Don't you LOVE that?  Doesn't that make you feel GOOD instead of lacking? 

Until we're willing to accept our spouses for who they are, where they're at, we won't be able to love them or have blissful marriages.  Until we're able to accept illness as our challenges, we won't be able to heal from them.  Until we're able to accept that we can't control what other people think of us, we won't be able to be happy with ourselves and confident in our choices.  Until we're able to accept that a sexual assault happened or an unhappy childhood took place, and stop wishing we could change it, we won't be able to forgive and move on.  Until we're able to accept that we can't be and do everything at once, we won't be happy being stay-at-home moms. 

And here's the clincher:  Until we can be happy with being unable to accept all these things, until we can look at ourselves in all our patheticness and say that it's good enough because it's the best we can do, we won't be able to get to a place of acceptance.

There has to be beauty in the imperfections, difficulties, and tragedies, I'm sure of it.  But we won't be able to see it until we learn to live with the pain and stop fighting against it.

And you know what?  I think I can honestly say that I will be okay with being a fat, bald chick. 

Lovely song.

Daily Gratitudes

1.  Just one major gratitude today.  The way that Christian looked at Stephanie on Oprah today?  Jude looks at me that way.  The way he's proud of her little (but HUGE!) accomplishments, Jude is proud of my little ones too.  He has no idea how I feel physically yet he's still able to feel compassion and patience. :-) He is the most Christlike person I know and yet he's also sexy.