“One of the most rewarding and important moments in life is the moment you finally find the courage to let go of what you can’t change”
Disappointment is one of those words that makes your cringe when you hear it. In that moment that a parent says you disappointed them you feel about 2 feet tall and worthless. It’s the worst. It stings and leaves a bad taste in your mouth that reminds you for hours or days after that you didn’t do what someone needed or wanted from you. It’s like a paper cut, the initial cut hurts but everything that touches it after hurts even worse.
Life is hard in the fact that as long as we are human and breathing bad things will always happen and alter our decisions or path. We can’t stop the rain, cancer, breakups, accidents, death, divorce, hate and pain. It is a part of our ever hurting world. It’s not the end all be all but it’s very present.
We as humans tend to focus on stopping the bad things from happening, ceasing the pain. However, the key is to not focus on stopping the pain but controlling how we deal with the pain. WE HAVE TO CONTROL THE CONTROLLABLE. For me, this is a battle I deal with everyday and let me tell you it’s exhausting. Over the past two years I have battled with severe health issues that have changed my daily living. Disappointment follows me everywhere now it seems, like a shadow lingering over me.
My health crisis started to affect everyday living around October of last year. I started to get severe episodes of nausea and vomiting that would last for hours. One day of “I think I just have a stomach bug” turned into 4 months of hell. My body shut down on me and went into panic mode. I walked around feeling like I was on a roller coaster and my stomach just dropped. It was a constant feeling for me that had no rhyme or reason. I thought maybe I had food allergies so I would cut some foods out but didn’t see a difference. We had test after test done and saw doctor after doctor only to leave feeling disappointed and overwhelmed. In life things go wrong but we can always say “well, I still have my health so I’m not doing so bad”....but for me and for many I couldn’t fall back on the one thing that kept me going.
We are so good at starting at point A then creating a story to get us to point Z and before we know it we are mind fucked because we enter ourselves in to all these scenarios. Maybe I have this, or that, maybe I will never get better, maybe I have cancer, maybe i’ll always live in pain… it becomes daunting. We all do this, we all start somewhere then allow our minds to take control and lead us down the rabbit hole. Pretty soon before we know it we feel trapped and like we are drowning in every bad situation we could possibly imagine. Sometimes, someone sees us trying to catch our breath and they throw us a life saver but because we are so focused on the pain we go under. We become blinded by whatever story our mind tells us.
I convinced myself I was going to live the rest of my life in bed. I wasn’t going to be able to have a family, I wouldn't have a happy ending and I would never get to where I thought I would end up. I focused on the pain. I focused on the disappointments. I focused on the unknowns and labeled them as bad.
One thing I am learning is that just because something is unknown it doesn’t mean it’s bad. SILENCE DOESN’T ALWAYS EQUAL DISAPPOINTMENT, PAIN DOESN'T ALWAYS EQUAL SUFFERING BUT A BAD MINDSET WILL. Stats show that you will end up getting from point A to point B but you determine whether that road is rocky and you focus on that or you overcome and step over. We have a choice to stay in bed and sulk or get up and take a step. We don't have to get up and take a shower look amazing and go conquer the world. Sometimes, all we need to do is get up stand up on our own, see we can then get back in bed. One step at a time. Then the next day you'll get up get dressed then get back in bed. You learn you have the power to keep going, which will give you the courage to conquer your fear. All we need is a few good scenarios to drown out the bad.
Many of us hate flying for the fact that we don’t have control over our lives. We control our safety 90% of the time until we are fully in the air and relying on someone else's expertise to get us safely back on the ground. It's scary giving up that control. We then have two options. We can freak out and go into panic mode, taking out any and all enjoyment of the ride or we can sit back and eat those delicious pretzels, make a friend and enjoy the view. We are going to make it and end up at our next destination so it's up to us to focus on what we can control and deal with it.
We can can control getting flu shots, washing our hands, eating healthy and so on but when we get sick we have to face it and deal with it. Wishing for it to go away only makes the pain more noticeable and the hours longer. Managing the pain is different, we face it head on and don't create more resistance during the ride. We can read the safety instruction booklet in case of an emergency we can help ourselves and then we let the rest go. HELP YOURSELF THEN LET IT GO.
Here I am writing this at work (shhh) at my fairly newish job. I realized I had to get out of bed, I had to get dressed, I had to take the necessary steps to get my mind off the rabbit hole. The pain is still there, the sickness still lingers but it doesn't have a hold on me because im switching my focus. I went from wishing it away to maintaining it and dealing with the cards that were dealt to me. I can't ask for a new deck but play the hell out of the one I have.
Cancer takes over our bodies, divorce is present, heartbreak is inevitable, pain is guaranteed but suffering isn't. Control the controllables. Read the safety packet, wash your hands, protect your heart, but always remember to enjoy the ride. You will get there but how is up to you. Allow disappointments to propel you instead of stop you. Don’t let your mind take over but control what you can then let it go.
You are either drowning or swimming, it looks the same to everyone else but its your perception that will dictate which one. Keep going babe, because when you need help someone will be there to save you, you just have to let them.