Accepting Your Circumstances
Accepting your circumstances is HARD. It takes a whole lot of practice and patience.
This is acceptance in action ⬇️
When I first came back to work after having my daughter, I somehow was expecting her “good sleep night” to be Sunday night so I could be somewhat refreshed for seeing clients on Monday. (I’m only seeing clients on Mondays rn)
It never is. Without fail, she could sleep well every other night of the week and Sunday hits and it’s a mess. Accepting this reality has been a real challenge.
This particular Monday came with a few additional struggles, like a broken kitchen sink the night before, solo parenting while my husband is on a week long work trip, minimal sleep the night before, baby girl waking up only 30 minutes into her first nap (which is normally 2 hours), limited time to pump due to the weird morning schedule and immediately spilling coffee on myself as I walk into the office. My circumstances were anything but typical.
If I hadn’t been practicing acceptance for the last few years, each of these would be rolled into the next, building up anxiety, stress, frustration, anger.
My day, and maybe even my week, would have been torn up.
But instead, I honestly had peace. Frustration and stress are still experienced at times. After all these are very normal reactions to challenges and changes. Especially for those of us who do deal with higher anxiety.
But instead of fighting reality with what I wished would have happened, I took a few deep breaths, acknowledged that my day was going to be different than expected and did what I could to find gratitude and peace with the reality I’d been given.
Anxiety and other difficult emotional experiences are a given in this life. Acceptance is a choice. And this has truly made all the difference.
#acceptance #firsttimemom #motherhood
#anxiety #anxietyhealing #emotionregulation