Accepting Life

For me, the spiritual challenge of long Covid can be summed up in a single word: Acceptance. Acceptance may be a single word, but it’s not a single, one-and-done action. Every day, life asks again: Are you ready to accept this? Or do you need to resist and struggle a little longer? My answers vary from day to day, ranging from a soft sigh to dogged denial to a full-blown tantrum. This day-after-day, dynamic do-over (and over and over) of accepting life on its own terms is the seedbed from which I am growing.   

This week, I had a conversation with a family member about who should be prioritized for Covid vaccines. He said this, quite bluntly: “What happened to you is worse than death.” This family member and I do not see eye-to-eye on many things, and this is one such case. He looks at the losses I’ve experienced due to long Covid, and it seems that instead of seeing me, he sees that the things I can no longer do are the things that keep him going. For himself, he can imagine no fate worse than disability. His pronouncement is a projection. It is his feeling. It does not have to be mine.

I understand resisting loss. I’ve done it thousands of times, and I will do it thousands more. But I also understand that when I choose to actively accept the losses—when I allow myself to bend and yield like water—then life creates unexpected and beautiful shapes. This connection with you is one of those shapes. Reading your emails and comments, sharing in your triumphs and struggles, and thinking about what to share each week helps me to soften and flow into this life I’m living. I am so grateful to be alive.  

This period in our lives is certainly unexpected. Unexpected and brutally hard are not the same as ‘not worth it’ or ‘worse than death.’ Unexpected and hard are the building blocks of life, and acceptance is the energy that constructs beauty and entices growth from even the rawest materials. If holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl could say “yes to life, in spite of everything,” then surely, I can too.

Maybe chronic resistance to life (in all of life’s changing shapes and forms) is the disability most to be feared.   

How do you notice and greet resistance when it arises? How do you practice acceptance of what is?  

P.S. I’m planning to host a Zoom call for long-haulers this Saturday at 1:00 PM EST. If you would like to join, reply to this email, and I’ll send you the link.

P.P.S. If this email made your day brighter, please consider liking, sharing, commenting, or buying me a coffee. Thank you so much for your engagement and support!