Acceptance Is Magic

A friend of mine has been struggling for a couple of years now with memory loss. She has always been an adventurer and nature lover, and she sees things in nature that most people don’t notice. These days, one of her greatest pleasures is taking her daily walk, often in a beautiful park near her house, but sometimes she says she cannot even remember if she took a walk earlier in the day. When this happened recently, her mind went into panic mode and she said, “Mary, what am I going to do if my memory gets worse? I won’t be able to live by myself anymore. If I keep losing ground, maybe it’s time for me to check out. I’ve had a wonderful life.” 

I acknowledged her fear and despair, and then offered the possibility that as her mind becomes less and less agile, this phase of her life could be an amazing time of healing. Why is that?  Because when the head brain begins to be challenged, there is a whole other brain that can take over and that is the heart brain. Science has now shown that our heart is not only a brain, but it is our main brain. And because we have lived most of our lives only paying attention to our head brain, we don’t realize we can tap into the phenomenal power of our heart brain. 

Yes, it is very scary to lose something that we have relied on our entire lives – the ability to think clearly and seemingly control life. But we have a choice when this happens; we can resist, bargain, and wish it would be different, or we can come back to the heart brain that knows how to feel its way through Life rather than just relying on thinking. It can help us to let go of fighting with the loss of our regular way of being with Life (by thinking about it) and it is a doorway into recognizing the preciousness of Life even when the mind is not working well. Finally, it can meet all of our fears, including hopelessness, despair, and even wanting to die, with great compassion and mercy.

Author and spiritual teacher, Stephen Levine, once shared a story about a young engineer who had worked really hard so he could buy a new car, new clothes, and all of the other material pleasures he desired. Then he was diagnosed with cancer and it was pure hell for him because he just wanted it to go away. When Stephen came into his life, he began to learn how to be with his discomfort rather than push it away. He started to journal each day and over and over again, as he wrote of his frustrations and fears, he would then write in big block letters, ‘ACCEPTANCE IS MAGIC.’  In other words, you have a choice to be really upset about your cancer or your memory loss or whatever discomfort is showing up in your life, or you can choose to first of all accept that this is what Life is offering right now, then befriend it and finally explore how to come back, over and over again, to your heart brain.

Why is it so scary to lose even a little bit of our mind’s capacity? What we have all done in our lives is given the mind a task it was never meant to do and that is, to be in charge of Life. It is a great tool for maneuvering through physical reality, but the mind has taken this so far that it believes it has to do/figure out/understand/be in charge of everything. So it has forgotten how to be here for Life. When the mind is not working like it used to, it gets distressed. In order to move through this fear, Life is inviting my friend to do the only sane thing she can do – to acknowledge that her memory is fading, but also to touch with her heart the mind that is having a really hard time with it so that the clouds of struggle can lift and she can find herself again being fully here for Life. 

What we don’t realize is there is only one adventure that we all truly desire in our lives: to live in the only moment that matters – this present moment. And that is the adventure my friend is embarking on. Most people don’t get fully engaged in this adventure until they are on their deathbeds because that is the time when they are finally willing to let go. So, don’t wait until you are on your deathbed. Experience the joy of whatever Life offers you in the moment, even if it is memory loss, cancer, or any other challenge. Discover that you are the space that it is all flowing through. When you are willing to accept what Life is offering, magic happens.  

And if you are a friend or loved one of someone who is experiencing memory loss, I invite you to meet your loved one in your heart. It is so easy to turn memory loss into a horrible thing, and it is indeed challenging, but it can be very heart opening. And as you meet your loved one with kindness and compassion, you are allowing them to have more space around this big loss. 

Image of Nature Walk by Dana Kimberly Hixson  www.danakimberlyhixson.com 

Article Reprinted with Permission by Sounds True  www.soundstrue.com