Last night, I was sitting around with a group of friends and we were talking about the secrets to living a joyful, peaceful life (are your ears perking up?) One woman was telling a story about how she has been swimming in the ocean for years, and every time she dives into the Pacific, she wishes it wasn’t cold. Yet, every time she swims, it is cold. Finally, she came to a place of peace, where she no longer wished it was warm. She simply accepted what is. The Pacific is cold- no judgment. No good or bad about it. By accepting it, she quit struggling against the cold, surrendering into it, and just letting it be cold. Suddenly, she found the cold infinitely easier to tolerate. Swimming became joyful.

Another friend described how she always wishes there could be harmony in the house when she goes home to visit her parents. Each time, she hopes for a conflict-free visit filled with laughter and love, and each time, she finds herself amidst bickering, criticism, and discord. Being with her family triggers all of this extra energy within her, as she wishes things were different at her childhood home. She wishes her mother was more loving. She wishes her father would quit drinking. She wishes they cared more about keeping the house neat. No matter what she does, she just can’t accept what is, and it eats her up every time. When we all toyed with the idea that maybe she could approach her next family get-together differently, she was intrigued. What would that feel like? She’s going to try it and see if anything shifts.

After our talk, I came back home and pondered our discussion. How many times each day do I expend energy on something I simply can’t change. Just today, I found myself doing it. It’s been raining here in California all week, which really gets in the way of my daily hike. At one point, I found myself getting grumpy about it. How dare Mother Nature bring rain to my hiking parade? I found myself wishing it would stop, and the more it rained, the more pissy I got. When I was able to sit back and just accept that it’s raining, all the extra junk that went along with it disappeared. Then, it was simply rain, not rain + being pissed at Mother Nature + worrying about how I was going to get my exercise + feeling entitled to a little sunshine +stressing about how much longer the rain was going to last and whether it would ruin my weekend, etc. Just rain. And what’s wrong with a little rain? The more I settled into that feeling, the more I just accepted the rain, even appreciated the rain. I quit fighting it, which released all the negative feelings I have been carrying all morning. And then, of course, just because the Universe was having a little giggle on my behalf, the rain stopped.

The 2 x 2 Table of How to Live

It got me thinking about a time, back in my twenties, when I was a stressed-out resident, in the middle of a divorce, during a year when four of my loved ones died (I called it my “Four Funerals & A Divorce” year). My residency director, Dr. Sharon Dooley, bless her heart, sat me down and started drawing a 2x2 table, like the ones we used when discussing statistics. On the horizontal axis, she wrote, “Things I Can Change” and “Things I Can’t Change.” One the vertical axis, she wrote, “Trying To Change” in one column, and “Not Trying To Change” in the other. Then she picked up a red pen and drew a line between two columns.

“Lissa, you’re spending all of your energy trying to change the things you can’t change and not trying to change the things you can.” She drew another line in purple. “You’d be better off trying to change the things you can change and not trying to change the things you can’t.”

I shook my head. This didn't resonate with me at all. After all, I'm a woman of action. Plus, I'm a doctor. If something is broken, you fix the damn thing. "But Dr. Dooley," I argued. "What am I supposed to DO about those things I can't change?"

Dr. Dooley patted my hand and said, "You just accept them."

The Serenity Prayer

Does that sound familiar? Makes me think of the serenity prayer:

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
the courage to change the things I can;
and the wisdom to know the difference.

Accepting What Is

I took that marked up 2x2 table home with me and hung it on my computer, where it stayed for years. Once my head stopped spinning, I realized Dr. Dooley was right. I wasted a whole lot of energy trying to make my soon-to-be ex different than he was. I complained about “the system” and how much residency sucked. I was angry that I had lost so many people I loved when I couldn’t grieve properly. I was expending so much effort in ways that did nothing to contribute to my happiness. Instead of accepting what was and making peace with it, I was battling my life, making myself exhausted trying in vain to make it different.

What if we can just let go of what we can’t change? What if we can just surrender into what is, whether it be cold water, rain, difficult family dynamics, or a divorce? What if, instead of griping about health care reform, getting pissed at our spouses for not being who we wish they were, and wishing we looked different than we do, we could just accept what is? What would that feel like? How would it be to quit trying to change the things we can’t change?

What about you Pinkies? Are you trying to change the things you can’t? Do you spin your wheels, stressing, feeling angry, bitter, and wounded, when there’s absolutely nothing you can do to change the situation? Is it possible to change your state of mind, to just settle into what’s real, what’s true, without judging it and making it wrong? Which things in your life are draining you, with no hope of filling you back up again? How might you let that go?

Acceptance Does Not Mean Giving Up

Remember, it's not about giving up. If you can change it, go for it! I'm not promoting the end of advocacy. Thank God for those who fight to change the system, otherwise, women and blacks wouldn't be able to vote. I guess that's where the wisdom to know the difference comes in. For me, that's the toughest part. It seems that the way I differentiate the things I can change from the things I can't is to try and fail. But I'm resolved to change that, to grow wiser, to effort selectively, and to try to stop beating my head against the walls.

I’m inspired to draw myself a 2x2 table again and lay it on my altar, just as a reminder every day. What about you, Pinkies?

Not trying to change the things I can’t,

Lissa