Acceptance

This is an important thing for those of with MSA and our caregivers have to keep reminding ourselves about. Acceptance is just realizing that this is what we have and what we can do and this is what we cannot and then do what we can do with as much joy and pleasure that we can muster.

Granted, we may not be able to change our physical ability, but we can change how we view it. Change the frame around it, as my therapist says. Focus on what can be changed and let go of that which cannot be changed. Emotionally, we do have choices and it is up to us to choose how we look at our disease. How much it limits us or how much it frees us from conventional behavior. Like, I don’t want to go out to dinner with these people, I do not know them well and I am tired, so, choose to say no. If you do not want to be in the presence of someone who is negative or makes you feel uncomfortable, just say no when you might be forced into close contact with that person. I find it very liberating to finally be able to say no without feeling guilty. Time is too short to feel guilty; as is life.

I was treated today to a wonderful experience. A very dear friend of mine is an interior designer and decorator who has a client in Dade City, Florida. This friend raises horses and there were two new three week old colts and I was invited to come up and play with them. No, I cannot ride again, but one of the top things on my bucket list was to hug a horse as I used to have my own horses growing up and in my twenties. Well, I hugged more than one. I rubbed velvety soft noses, felt the smoothness of a foal’s skin, the delightful feel of a mane slipping between my fingers; I was in a state of bliss. I laughed hysterically as my friend drove a gator John Deere all purpose farm vehicle. I had a wet black lab held securely between my legs as we drove along. We had gone to a pond where a Florida Sandhill Crane was nesting and Prissy decided she would like a swim so, of course, she did and since she had arthritis, she needed to ride back in the shotgun seat with me.

It was a completely perfect day forged by friendship with my special friend and now a new friend who is gracious and charming and loves horses as much as I do. I cannot thank my friend enough for taking time out of her busy schedule to provide me with four hours of her time. Not only was she having to go almost straight to a client’s house as soon as we got home, she is also hosting a ninetieth birthday for her husband’s mother this weekend with an expected attendance of 50.

So, bless busy friends who take time to bring pleasure to another person’s world. Life sure is wonderful, isn’t it.

Acceptance Isn’t Surrender
By PAVEL G. SOMOV, PH.D.

Acceptance isn’t passivity or surrender, but an active engagement in reality, in real time, on its terms. As such, acceptance is realism, a seeing of reality as is, which, of course, requires existential courage rather than an escapist, idealistic flight into what should be.
Accepting the reality as it is now means just that: accepting the reality as it is now! If you don’t like the way reality is right now, change the future – but you first have to accept the present.
You might think: “If I am to accept that at any given time I am doing the best that I can, then how am I to achieve my goals? How am I to improve myself?” The false choice here is this: either accept or change. Acceptance of the fact that at any given time you are doing your practical (not theoretical) best doesn’t mean that you cannot try to improve the next moment. Of course, you can.
Accept and change: accept that at any given moment you are doing the best you can do and, having learned from the experience of this given moment, try to change and improve the next moment to the extent that you can. Automatic, reflexive, on-the-fly perfectionistic rejection of reality as not being good enough triggers a mindless rush to improve it.
Acceptance, that begins with the acknowledgment of what is as being the best that it can be at the given moment, is the beginning of mindful change.