Acceptance

Understanding is the first step to acceptance, and only with acceptance can there be recovery.
- Joanne Kathleen

 I have been struggling a lot with acceptance lately.  Part of it has been the acceptance that I cannot have sugar in my life and have the life that I want.  (Not necessarily because of any intrinsic awfulness with sugar - but I get crazed when I eat it especially in combination with white flour - as in cookies, cakes, pastries, etc.) I cannot eat the way I used to (either in quantity or food choices) and have health.  I am working through the various stages of grief as I have been giving up these things, but that is not the acceptance that I am talking about here in this post.  

I am talking about an acceptance of physical limitations.  This morning I had an appointment with the osteopath and Visions Health Care and in our (more-than-an-hour) appointment the final wind-up was that she said to me that she will never be an NFL football player, but she loves football and loves to play with her kids.  Her point was that I might never walk 5 miles a day again, especially at the speed I used to do it.  But that does not mean that I have to give up walking 1 mile a day at a slow speed.  What I got from the conversation is that because I have not come to a point of acceptance with my limitations (as they are now) that I have thrown out the baby with the bath water, so to speak, and have reached a point where I have all but given up on everything.  I even hurt myself when I took a yoga class!  

My plan of action right now is to go ahead with the spine injections that my other osteopath encouraged me to get.  She said that all tests show that my nerve endings are very tender and inflamed, and that I cannot get any quality work done (exercise or PT) until the inflammation goes down.  Then I must also have a course of PT working on core exercises.  Once I am stronger and the nerves have quieted down then she can work on manipulation that will, as she said, "put everything back where it belongs."
But if she does that manipulation now it won't stick.

So I have my PT evaluation scheduled for next week, and am waiting to hear back from the spine clinic for an appointment with that doctor.

The other element of acceptance - and which I think is absolutely the hardest for me - is that I have to to WORK at this.  That means when PT ends, my exercising does NOT.  I have never followed through with an exercise or physical therapy program in my life.  I am surprised that I became such an accomplished dancer - I must have been able to follow through on some physical activity at some point in my life! Believe me, I have had intentions of doing things - my library of exercise DVDs, exercise ball, trampoline, elliptical, treadmill and exercise bikes (yes I said BIKES - both standard and recumbent) attest to that.  But intention is not acceptance that I ACTUALLY have to do the work.  I suppose that is what I miss most about walking - my own two feet and nothing else shaped me up.  While I have to accept that those days may be over, other days are not...

Anyway - I am on my way this afternoon to get Paleo wraps.  I actually did make chopped liver (this morning - 7:30 AM frying liver and onions so I would have it chilled for tonight) and hope that maybe it will go nicely in these wraps.  If where I am going also has the Paleo coconut bread I will get that as well and toast a couple of slices (only 35 calories a slice) because the chopped liver will taste better on that.  

OMG - liver and exercise... what's happening to me?????

Miriam