Acceptance & Resourcefulness

Well, it’s week one of knee rehab – don’t you love the sound of that … it’s as though it’s been badly-behaved and I’ve had to send it off for a bit of correction, which isn’t far wrong, really – and I’m hobbling about with some skill now. While I enjoyed a few short moments of lounging about the house, clad in a velvet dressing gown, zoned out on daytime TV and fully loaded on painkillers, I just can’t hack that as a lifestyle choice. So I’ve been out and about challenging the local pensioners to a race by the river on crutches. Sadly, some of them appear to be winning – that’s so not good for the self-esteem!

In the drug-induced haze of the early days post-surgery, I swear I had a vision of angels – real, life-sized ones bearing cake and flowers. They may not have wings, but my friends sure know what matters most at times of crisis and cake is always the answer du jour for whatever ails you. Doesn’t matter if it’s pain or pleasure – any major trauma or achievement can be soothed or celebrated with the healing powers of cake. Of course if that doesn’t do the trick, there’s always champagne … possibly a tad too risky a cocktail with the industrial-strength painkillers, but it does give me a little something to look forward to when the bandages come off.

Before I went under the knife I was getting a bit skittish about the whole thing. It’s not that long since I’d had to have some corrective surgery on a broken ankle and I remembered all too clearly just how painful and tough it was to haul myself around on crutches. Until it’s happened to you, you have no idea how exhausting it is or just how much it limits your capacity to take care of yourself and manage the day-to-day stuff we all take for granted. For someone who loves their independence as much as I do, it’s the ultimate frustration. So, I wasgetting pretty antsy about the whole deal and more than a little stressed, until I decided to just go into total acceptance and choose to see it differently.

I couldn’t change what I was up against, but I could change how I was planning to deal with it. Instead of being miserable about being stuck at home, I opted to view it as a long-overdue opportunity for some real rest and a level of peacefulness that’s been missing in my life for a while. I also decided to dedicate the time to doing some deeper spiritual work and meditation, for more clarity and focus. This may sound terribly Pollyanna-ish, but instead of being something I was dreading, this time of enforced rest became something I was looking forward to and, as a result, I’ve actually enjoyed it. OK, the pain wasn’t a walk in the park, but I’ve had some beautiful, peaceful days and an opportunity for reflection that hasn’t been available to me for quite some time.

That leads me to a piece of inspiration from an I Am Fabulous reader, who wrote in response to the call for communal wisdom last week. She said, “Live life to the full as if each day is your last. Enjoy all that is around you. Take time to sit and stare about you. At the sky, at the trees, at the people who are close to you. Stop and listen to what people say to you. Smile even when you don't really feel like it.”

Given that I’m moving at a pace that snails would find leisurely, I’m certainly getting an opportunity to stop and smell the roses. When you can’t run around like a mad thing, you begin to appreciate what’s around you, all that you miss when you dash from one thing to another. I live only a few paces from the river, but I hardly ever go down to the bottom of the garden to see it. This week, I’ve watched the tide rise and fall, seen rowers gather for a regatta, and simply just stared at the sunlight on the water for ages. Sometimes that’s just the best meditation there is.

I’m sure that an extra benefit has come out of my willingness to just accept this period of rest, because my knee seems to be healing incredibly quickly and at this rate I’ll be bounding about in no time. Hopefully I’ll take this renewed sense of peacefulness with me as I head back into a busy life again. What this whole experience has really reminded me of, most deeply, is that attitude is everything. If you’re faced with the unchangeable, then you still have the power to change the way you choose to deal with it. It can be an easy ride or you can make it tough going – it’s all about how you’re willing to approach it.

So where in your life is there something you’ve been resisting? Is there a circumstance that you can’t change, but that you’re willing to see differently? Can you turn what looks like an inconvenience into an opportunity to try a new approach? At a bare minimum, can you just accept the way things are and stop wishing they were different?

This week pay attention to how you’re approaching what comes up – are you seeing things as problems or opportunities? Get creative and see how you might put a completely new spin on things. If it looks like things aren’t going your way, how could you see a benefit or a new chance in the way things have shaped up? This is about being both accepting and resourceful. Acceptance doesn’t mean just putting up with disappointment, it means taking the cards you’re dealt and making them serve a positive purpose.

Finally, a huge thank-you to all of you who’ve sent in words of wisdom - they’ll be appearing here in the weeks to come. In the meantime, get out there and do some artful acceptance and some radical resourcefulness … who knows where that might lead?

Click through to the Coach Fabulous advice column by using the link in the Favourite Sites section on the right or by going to http://coachfabulous.blogspot.com.
For alert emails on new postings, email subscribe@iamfabulous.co.uk.
All material © 2006 Alison Porter. No article may be reproduced in full or in part without the express permission of the author. (Originally posted 20 Nov 06)