Radical Acceptance: The Key to Letting Go
If it is out of your hands, it deserves freedom from your mind too - Ivan Nuru
So why when we know something is completely out of our control, do so many of us continue to obsess and fret over it?
Rumination.
The American Psychiatric Association (APA) defines rumination as repetitive thinking or dwelling on negative feelings and distress and their causes and consequences.
If there were awards given for the World’s Best Ruminator, I am sure I would be nominated by many friends and family members.
The kicker, what we ruminate about, rarely comes to fruition, and yet the pattern continues.
Until recently, I loathed myself for being unable to break this pattern. I judged my inability to let go and quiet my mind as weakness.
My first memory of ruminating, happened at the ripe old age of 7. It was 1983, there I was, all red ringlets and OshKosk B’gosh overalls, sitting at a tiny desk in my Moreland Hills Elementary classroom. At the time I was petrified to step out of line, a trend that continued well into my people-pleasing early 40s.
The problem, I had this contagious laugh and when you got me going my little chiclet teeth would clatter together and my body would shake like crazy. Worse yet, the more you told me to stop laughing, the more out of control I became. This still happens today at the most inopportune times like funerals and weddings.
This infamous (in my mind only) Friday afternoon one of my friends said something hilarious (who knows what it was, I was 7 after all), and I just about died laughing. I chuckled furiously until tears ran down my cheeks. The more Mrs. Broaddus told us to stop, the louder we became, until we were forced into the hall as punishment and our names were written on the dreaded blackboard, meaning detention during recess the next school day.
My friends were fine, it was like a badge of honor to them, but I cried and cried. In fact, I carried on about it all weekend (my poor mother). I was inconsolable. It’s like my 7-year old brain, dreamed up the scene from “Game of Thrones” where Cersei Lannister (in this case me) was dragged through the streets naked while the townspeople through feces and yelled ‘shame.’
When I returned to school on Monday, tail between my legs and terror in my heart, I saw that the blackboard had been erased over the weekend, and my detention was completely forgotten by everyone. When my Mom arrived to pickup, I ran to the car, a giant smile filled my tiny face as I proudly told her the chalkboard had been erased and my detention forgotten. As I type this post, I still remember her saying let this be a lesson, so much of what we worry about doesn’t ever happen.
And yet, no matter how hard I tried to stop ruminating, I have never been able to best it.
I have done all the things: journaling, scheduling worry time, playing happy music, movement, shaking, therapy, medication, meditation, forest bathing, and on and on. I was so ashamed that I couldn’t stop my monkey mind that I began to look on rumination as a scarlet letter, a failure, some kind of deficiency of my mind.
I got still, during this holiday break and it dawned on me…I had been ruminating about my rumination (try to process that).
For 47 years I have been furiously trying to control the uncontrollable.
At my wit’s end, I decided to rethink the judgements I held against myself and my so-called “broken mind.”
Instead, I focused on the beautiful things I have created for myself despite being a lifelong worrier. When I reframed rumination as excessive caring about something or someone, the craziest thing happened, I get really grateful and my brain settled down.
When I stopped trying to stop worrying, I actually stopped worrying. HUH?!
Then I remembered another old saying….
What we resist, persists-Carl Jung
In this new year I am going to accept my rumination, and all the vicissitudes of my mind.
Rather than being ashamed of the way my mind works, and trying like hell to control it or “change the channel” as so many therapists and coaches like to say (like that is easy), I am going to love myself and do my best to let go.
I am going to stop trying to stop processing, obsessing, and worrying and instead, recognize rumination for what it is, a sign that I care about something or someone deeply.
Then, I am going to hug that little 7-year old version of myself, and together, we are going to let go, and if we can’t let go, that’s ok too. I am a work in progress.
It is time to be with what is.
What is one thing about yourself you wish to accept in this new year?