How acceptance leads to resilience
I’m not well today. I’m not one to say “look on the bright side” without being sarcastic. However, I’m noticing this latest bout of COVID has given me a chance to express one of my core values: embodiment starts with self-acceptance.
Relying on friends and loved ones for help, rescheduling meetings, and not meeting the expectations of my own internal critic has been a nice stretch for me!
COVID effects your energy levels even when the infection is gone. If you push yourself at all while you are recovering, you get lots of blowback in the form of exhaustion. At the worst, it seems like it’s becoming a chronic illness for many people, with no help in sight from the unemployment or healthcare systems.
I’m testing negative now, but that doesn’t mean I feel great. When I tell friends how I’m feeling, the common response is “feel better!” Maybe it sounds weird, but I don’t want to feel better.
I just want to feel how I’m feeling right now.
I’m more interested in being in this moment and responding to feeling shitty with as much love and kindness as possible. It’s calling on all my acceptance skills and it seems I need the challenge.
How can I wake up more gently, instead of forcing myself to get out of bed at 6:45? How can I give up tightening my back to lift my cup of coffee in the morning? How can I let go of the idea that drinking coffee is bad for me, because….I love it! F*&^ the wellness fascists.
The separation of illness from the concept of wellness is a bit of a problem. Isn’t wellness partly about how you embrace illness?
Being “well” for me, seems connected to thinking that its’ normal to push, to grip, to force solutions. Where does that attitude come from! Anyways, I hope you enjoy this recycled video about Cranial Nerve 10 – the vagus – and what you can do about a tight neck, should you find yourself pushing to get through your day. Because it’s not normal to do that, yall.
I think that the embodied learning process starts when we stop jumping through the hoops of self-improvement.
It’s normal to be different, it’s normal to be sick, it’s normal to have special health needs. Acceptance invites you to make better, and often different choices about how you respond to life as it unfolds. That experience may mean being more open to what others are going through too. Feeling the difficult feelings of just being with that, with them, is most intimate.
This ability will come in handy, because 6 in 10 people you know are dealing with chronic illness of one kind or another. Unfortunately, this is a very tender topic for many of my students because if they are disabled or different than the norm in some way, this society is not going to welcome them or care for them. Caring for yourself only goes so far, but sometimes it’s all you’ve got.
You may have a limp. Yes, it might be possible to limp more beautifully and easily after some Alexander Technique lessons, but you might still be a visible limper. You may have a back that is not symmetrical, that needs extra care, that needs to stretch out every 20 minutes instead of sitting at a desk. If you do that, however, you will stick out in your work environment for sure.
Self-acceptance, therefor, can get messy. You may access deeper resources within yourself, though your behavior change may not be super convenient for other people. Too bad!
Embodied resilience ultimately leads to behavior change.
It’s at that moment that you discover deeper resolve to care for yourself. At least, that’s how it’s worked for me. I hope it gives me the courage to be a stronger force for larger social change, and I don’t want to forget this tiny taste of what it’s like to step outside “the norm.” So today, I’m happy to be sick, and sleepy, and to share it all with you, dear reader!
Go HERE to find out more about Cranial Nerve Sequencing, which is rooted in acceptance and informs this weeks recycled video.