The other night, my older son was distraught by a situation at school and was spiraling into despair by obsessing on the unfairness and the reason/ question of WHY? Only because I have some recovery, was I able to say to him, that demanding to understand why and mentally sustaining the argument with ourselves of how it isn’t fair, only makes us feel worse. We must continuously and intentionally choose the the very next right(spiritually right) thing over our reaction. In our conversation, he realized there was only one constructive response to his dilemma. Brilliantly and calmly he asked: “What about when you hate the solution?”.
I hugged him so hard and laughed and cried all over him, explaining that often, the solution just stinks. But when we focus on what needs to be done to elevate the situation and not ourselves, we get through it and come out the other side. He totally heard me and just did the next right and necessary thing.
Me to me: Cool another opportunity to bring up recent experiences, in which my only healthy options– sucked badly.
- Taking our Sweet Angel Pie Cooper to the vet for a one-way trip.
- Not wishing my niece a happy birthday because it is unfair to her but is the right thing to do in response to the arrangement by my sister in which she snatches access to my young sons while collaborating with my ex and destroying our possibility of peaceful co-parenting and alienating everyone but herself. I so want to tell my niece I am thinking of her. I do not. I believe she knows. I feel good about my ability to respect my sister’s grown children enough, to leave them out of it. And it still sucks.
- Not telling my sister and my ex about themselves—because that helps nobody, though it would give me an immediate and delicious high. Again, only one solution here– acceptance of the facts. Our family was intentionally divided and there is nothing I can do to change that. I can choose to accept it and learn from it and to teach my children to recognize healthy and wholesome acts of love along with acceptance for the fact that some types of love are neither healthy nor wholesome. Love chooses healing. Here, for me, healing/moving forward means not fixating on perceived wrongness or unfairness. Even while I can not forget, I am better and more willing to do the next right thing rather than waiting for people or circumstances to become different, honest, kind and “fair”.
Sometimes the solutions are purely frightful– Saying Good Bye to a beloved family pet. People having cancer, dying, and not inviting you to their funeral and still showing up anyway. Going no-contact. Filing for divorce. Being lied to and about. Being banished and being treated unkindly. Having your children used and forced into conflict. Moving to a more affordable area. Having your ex, to whom you were married for a brief eternity of 4 seconds and who never even knew your family, listed as one of the survivors of your mother. Biting your tongue. Acceptance is always the solution.
