A patient came in for my opinion. He had been through 8 years of downward-spiraling health, a half million dollars of doctor visits, diagnostic tests, and supplements. He was desperate to change how he was feeling. Despite the constant search for answers, his quality of life kept getting worse.
After hearing a short version of his story, I could see his pattern of not tolerating his illness and desperately seeking one fix after another.
The unfortunate downturns in his health came when he thought a new modality would fix the symptoms created by the last treatment that tried to fix the previous treatment, and so on, but he just kept getting more debilitating symptoms.
A way out?
I saw that breaking this pattern could be his answer.
If only he could make it simple, and quit grasping for something else. He had to do the one thing that he could not face doing – to let go of the desperate search. In my opinion, that was keeping him stuck.
He felt his strength was in not accepting his illness. It was what he thought he had to do to get well. He felt he had to push and try everything under the sun in order to get well.
When he was not getting well, all he could do was despair then redouble his efforts in a new healing modality. All sorts of alternative treatments from Shamanism to homeopathy to herbs and supplements, doing some hundreds of times, still did not improve his symptoms.
When I reflected back to him this pattern, I asked him to do that thing which was the last thing that he thought he could do.
I asked him to stop this desperate search and change his mindset about how he thought he could get well. He was at the end of his rope with looking for a modality that would work, and I asked him to stop for a moment.
In a moment of rest, I asked him to accept what was happening. I asked him to stop resisting and embrace his illness just for a moment, even if it was unthinkable. But he thought I was resigning him to his illness.
Acceptance is not resignation
My friend Oliver Seligman made a clear distinction between acceptance and resignation:
Acceptance is not the same as resignation. Resignation is passive and feels hopeless. Resignation gives up easily and can lead to resentment, whereas acceptance is active and empowering.
If I accept a situation, I have more energy to change it if I can. If I resign myself to a situation, I can’t be bothered to try to change it.
Resignation says, “I don’t like this, but I have to put up with it.”
Acceptance says, “I will change this if I can, but if I can’t, I will make the most of it.”
Oliver Seligman “Befriending Bipolar”
I emphasized to the patient that acceptance did not mean that nothing would change. However, without acceptance of what is right now, we cannot create the dynamic tension of contrast that propels us to change, for better health. Without acceptance of what is now, whether it is uncomfortable or painful, we lose the leverage for change.
Whether we accept or not, it is here
Of course, the reality of acceptance is that it means that we are fine whether the pain or illness is here or it goes away. Acceptance means that we want what exists right now is to be the way it is. We are in agreement with what exists right now for us without resentment. That sounds crazy, right?
How can we possibly accept pain and illness?
The reality of the situation is that when we experience pain and illness, we are experiencing it. When we fight the experience, we are spending precious energy to try not to experience it. But the experience is here, now, whether we accept it or not.
Why not drop the resistance and accept?
Acceptance is realizing this and acknowledging there is a greater force at work than our immediate plans and wishes. Acceptance means that we don’t always know ahead of time what is best for us in any particular situation.
It is bowing to a greater wisdom. And the next step is looking for the gift of that wisdom.
A victim can’t accept
How did it come about that we refused to accept what is happening for us right here and now?
Perhaps it is that we feel a victim, that things are happening to us without our consent. That it is not fair to be sick, that I don’t deserve this pain and illness.
We may have all sorts of ideas about what should be happening in our lives, and when they do not happen, we feel there is something wrong. We can blame our upbringing, our family and friends, the government, our job, or any number of things outside ourselves.
For whatever reason, we judge that this should not be happening, so we are not accepting it.
Just make a choice to do something different
It takes a willingness to shift perspective to get out of the mindset that everything is wrong. My pain is wrong, the treatments are not helping, the medical system does not work.
The first step in shifting perspective is acceptance. When someone hits rock bottom, it can become a choice worth looking at. For sure, as long as there is no way that he can allow reality to be the way it is, there is no possibility of choice.
Suspending judgment of what should be opens the possibility of accepting things as they are. Even if they are painful.
No suffering
And here is the distinction between pain and suffering.
Suffering is the mindset that I should not have pain, yet it is here. Suffering is believing a myriad of thoughts such as “I will never get better” or “How can I take any more?” and focusing on resisting the pain.
By accepting pain as what is here right now, we don’t have to suffer. We still can feel uncomfortable physical or emotional sensations, and not suffer. It helps to put focus on appreciation or something uplifting. And when we are not resisting, we are not suffering.
Accepting pain can relieve suffering.
And accepting acceptance of “what is” becomes the first step.
We will see if my patient takes it. What about you, where can you accept more?
