Story-time

I was talking to a friend today about acceptance.

Sometimes, it’s only the act of verbalising your thoughts that crystallises them enough to finally get a handle on them, isn’t it?

We were talking about the difficulties my family and I have endured these past four years. On the face of it, it has been horrendous. A tale of poverty and hardship, abandonment, hatred, power-plays, control-tactics, mind-games, hysteria, mudslinging… the list goes on. A truly horrible story.

And the story hasn’t ended yet.

But that’s all it is.

A ‘story’.

It’s all a process, this life. It is intricate and beautiful, even in its most apparently difficult of periods. How can you recognise happiness if you have not endured misery? What is wealth if you have not experienced privation? It takes time to understand this mechanism. And dedication. It isn’t easy learning to stay on track, to rise above the story, to remove yourself from your own and other people’s dramas, to detach, hold up a hand and say “Yours is not my reality”. One thing I have learned is that your participation is not necessary for others to continue to involve you in their stories. So what is your choice? Do you continue to try to change their view? Or do you accept that they have a right to their own beliefs, and leave them to it? One path leads to growth and the other to a continuation of conflict. And it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out which is which.

But you cannot decide you don’t want this, either. To deny the lessons you must learn this time around is to fight reality. And fighting reality can only bring more unhappiness. How many times have you reached the light at the end of a tunnel only to discover a new understanding, a different perspective, a lighter feeling? Even if, in context, that lightness doesn’t ‘make sense’?

Maybe it’s time to let go, and allow your story a happy ending… 🙂