I have a confession to make. For the last 3 years or so I have been acting as a total hypocrite. I have been preaching to my clients day in and day out to do one thing while acting the totally opposite way in my own personal life. I have felt privileged to hear some very moving and difficult struggles that my clients are battling, and in an effort to help them, have been working very hard tot help them accept the reality of their situations so that they can move in a productive way with their lives. I frequently remind them after a long discussion about their problems that it is actually the lack of acceptance that is causing them the deepest part of the suffering that they are experiencing.
Rewind to approximately 3 years ago. I had just started a budding love affair with distance running. I was enjoying all of the benefits and life lessons that it teaches about life and was reaping the emotional benefits of being physically active. I had just finished my first marathon and had now set my sights on qualifying to run the boston marathon sometime in the next couple of years. During the end of my training I had started to feel like I might have a slight strain in my right groin, but dismissed it as minor and continued to train. The pain however did not get better and even after some rest continued to bother me. Finally, I decided to see a doctor.
The first doctor ordered X-rays and after a brief meeting told me that I had a birth defect that had caused me to wear out hips and that the x-rays looked more like a 65 year old man. He said that I was too young for a hip replacement, I should slow down my pace of life and try to make it last as long as possible. I was definitely ordered to stop running. I left the office completely distraught. Half of me felt like I wanted to go home and hide under the covers of my bed for the rest of my life while the other half walked out of the appointment thinking the doctor was a total liar. I resolved that I would keep training and moving toward my goals.
I swiftly set an appointment with a “real” doctor in Salt lake. Same routine, x-rays, bad news, stop running, make it last.I left that office with the same emotional response. I resolved to continue running and even started working out with a trainer to increase my strength and speed. I was going to reach my goals come hell or high water. The only problem is that my body continued to deteriorate. More pain, more constant pain, less ability to run at distance and pace caused me to start searching for an answer to my problem.
I turned again to the internet and found a world class doctor who supposedly specialized in treating younger people who had the same hip problems I did. I quickly set an appointment with the hopes that he would have the quick solution to my issues that would allow for my life to continue as I had planned it. Again, it was the same drill: x-rays, “you are awfully young for this”, “I could have helped if you had come in sooner”, “try to make it last until you can get a full hip replacement”, and “you should definitely stop running”. I left with a heavy heart and a referral for a doctor who could do a total hip replacement.
Just last week I went in for surgery to have a total replacement on my right hip. For more than 3 years I have been totally non-acceptant of the fact that the answers to my problem were always right in front of me. The answer was that I needed to accept the reality of the situation, adjust my lifestyle, slow down a little, change from running to something else like biking, and continue to be active just in different ways. I had caused myself more physical and emotional pain than was necessary because I was unwilling to live with the reality that my hips do not function like I think they should.
I have come to realize that for most of us our deepest suffering doesn’t come from the actual bad things that happen to us. Yes, those things are painful, but the deepest pain comes when we are unwilling to accept the reality of those bad things in our lives. We continue to break ourselves against the stonewalls of reality and then feel justified in playing the victim card. There is actually freedom to be found in living life on its terms. We can still hope for better, work for our good desires, but accepting the actual circumstance of our lives opens us to all sorts of other possibilities as well. I can still stay in shape, be competetive, and feel a sense of accomplishment in other things like biking, hiking, and swimming. I also have a whole new possibility of developing additional friendships with those who do these things as well.
From time to time it might be useful to stop and answer a few simple questions: What are the uncomfortable realities in your life? Am I willing to accept these things as a part of my life right now? What are the unseen possibilities at my fingertips because of the reality of these circumstances?