Acceptance vs. wallowing

[cjsmith]

Sometimes I'm very unhappy about something and I know there's not a darn thing I can do about it except come to some kind of acceptance. (People who have never had a problem outside your power to solve, stop reading now; save your innocence.)

I don't know how to accept something I loathe except to face it over and over and over. Otherwise, I go into denial, not useful long-term. So I keep repeating the unpleasant truth to myself until it doesn't hurt any more. I analyze. I try to find loopholes. I want to know just where the boundaries are. I want to know how bad it is, and I want to face that.

I wallow in it. If I don't, I keep getting unpleasantly surprised when it slaps me in the face.

So far there are not many things in my life that are bad enough that this technique doesn't work. But there are a couple... and it isn't working... and it's been years.

I am quite tired of being unhappy about this crap. If wallowing isn't going to work I can sure be happier day-to-day if I ditch it. Any other techniques??

Comments

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I decided it was a waste of my time to mourn not being able to do [thing X], so I may as well divert myself by doing [thing Y], which I CAN do.

What I don't have is a formula or method for reaching this realization. It just ... happened.

Yes. This realization has to be deep in the emotions, not just in the head, and that's exactly where I need to get to -- I just don't know HOW.

[dizzdvl.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I just went back and read the comments and I was totally off track I think. Anyway, I think I understand as much as a non-affected person can. CB broke his back. He can't do what he wants to do workwise anymore. That sucks. He's spent a long time figuring out what he can do instead and he's slowly getting stuff done. But he kind of explains it as relearning everything and resetting his brain. He had to learn to walk again and he said learning to think different is much harder than learning to walk.

He's got his moments, but I didn't know him when he broke his back. I knew him after and he said he is a whole different person than before. He's made himself think different.

So while I don't get it in my head I think I get what you are saying. And I will ask him what he thinks. Although he may just repond with something along the lines of "it sucks."

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Oh I don't think you're totally off track -- I think there's a lot to be said for letting go. Sometimes it truly is the only thing to be done.

It would be cool to hear what CB has to say about the process of learning to think differently. I wish him the best of success with that, too, by the way. I may whine a lot about my feet but my God, the SPINE. There are people with much tougher problems out there.