For the past 17 years, I feel like I have been perpetually mourning because of Multiple Sclerosis. I have experienced all of the stages of grief at different times throughout my journey except for the last stage – acceptance. Every time a new symptom has appeared or I lose another function, I go through different stages of grief. In order to heal and move on, it is necessary for me to get to that last stage. I found hope in meditation and Dr. Joe’s work, but I have had a VERY hard time getting to the point of acceptance. Someone asked me recently, “If this is as good as it gets, can you be okay with that?” Wow! That really got me thinking about what that would look like. And honestly, when she posed that question to me and even after all of the “work” I have done with mindfulness and meditation, I am not at the point yet where I can say yes. I’m not sure how to be OK with being confined mostly to a wheelchair and depending on those around me for everything. My brain knows that acceptance is necessary, but my heart is slow to catch up. Can I still show up and be a light in the world from a wheelchair?
I’ve really had to put a lot of thought into what acceptance will look and feel like to me. I have struggled with writing this post because I know this is where I need to get, but in my heart I haven’t been able to accept that this is where I’m at. When I hear acceptance, I hear give up, or give in. I haven’t had many good / clear meditations lately, and I have felt stuck, like I wasn’t seeing any changes or getting any clear signs. But there have been some big synchronicities in my life again that have gotten me on the right path to acceptance. It just took me a while to realize where I was being taken next. I now have a more clear idea of what acceptance is thanks to these events.
In March, I met a man, Jim, through Facebook and my blog, who has a story very similar to mine as far as our MS journeys go. He has been to workshops of Dr. Joe Dispenza and is doing the meditations daily to heal himself. He had read my blog, and contacted me regarding our journeys and how he understood where I was coming from. He had been documenting his own journey through a podcast, https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-you-really-doin/id867953276. As much as the people around me, especially Jeremy, can understand the ups and downs of having a disease like MS, no one can TRULY understand until they’ve ridden a mile in my wheelchair, so to speak. I finally could talk with someone who knew almost exactly what I was experiencing physically and what a mind-fuck it is mentally. Like I said, I have been struggling with my meditations and feeling down lately because of how shitty I felt physically. About a week ago I messaged Jim to vent about how hard MS is and how I’m having a really hard time getting past the physical aspect of this disease. One of the responses he sent me was a YouTube video of Dr. Gabor Maté, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkT7pMQ8uJA. It piqued my interest because a few days before that I had joined the “Wisdom of Trauma” Facebook page which is also Dr. Gabor Maté. Something was telling me I needed to learn more, so I got his book, When the Body Says No: Understanding the Stress – Disease Connection. Dr. Mate writes about the mind – body connection and the role stress plays in disease onset and progression. I read through the parts about Multiple Sclerosis and definitely see more clearly why my disease manifested.
The last chapter of the book is titled “The 7 A’s of Healing”. Imagine my surprise when I saw that the very first A is Acceptance. I had started this blog a month ago, and knew that acceptance needed to be my next step, but I was struggling with how to get there. I started asking for acceptance instead of healing when I meditated and God lead me to the exact answer I needed. Dr. Mate says, “Acceptance does not demand becoming resigned to the continuation of whatever circumstances may trouble us, but it does require a refusal to deny exactly how things happen to be now. It challenges the deeply held belief that we are not worthy enough or ‘good’ enough to be whole.” I have been fighting this disease mentally from the very beginning. I couldn’t believe, or accept, that this is my reality. I now am coming to realize that acceptance is being ok with the way things are right now and knowing that they can change tomorrow, or in the future. There is so much freedom when I get to that point of acceptance. Instead of spending my time thinking and worrying about what’s happening in my body all the time and fighting it with literally everything I have, I can embrace where I am right now and use my energy living my best life and being the best version of myself regardless of my physical state.
The reason I have felt disconnected during meditations, is that my intentions for meditation had become misguided. I had started seeing meditation only as a means to an end – healing, instead of what it should be which is time to be with myself and my source and let everything else around me fade into the background. When I am truly present with my meditations, I can feel it with every part of my body. I now know that even when I’m not feeling those amazing emotions and feeling connected, that meditation is still important. I was still being led in the correct direction, towards acceptance. Once I can embrace acceptance 100%, I will be able to move on to bigger and better things. Until then, I will continue connecting and trusting.