Sometimes when you sacrifice something precious, you're not really losing it. You're just passing it on to someone else. --Mitch Albom
This is a "knife to the heart" for me at Christmastime. I feel that I have experienced a lot of sacrifice over the past two years, much has gone to someone else, and I do not like it one bit. Alas, I simply have to accept it. Some days I am better at that than others. On Christmas Eve there was no acceptance, and I spent much of the day crying, letting myself grieve so that I could move forward again for a while. Just because I recognize the need for acceptance, I do not have to like the circumstances.
What a good time this is to re-offer the acceptance passage from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous:
And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation -- some fact of my life -- unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God's world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life's terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes.
For me, serenity began when I learned to distinguish between those things that I could change and those I could not. When I admitted that there were people, places, things, and situations over which I was totally powerless, those things began to lose their power over me. I learned that everyone has the right to make their own mistakes, and learn from them, without my interference, judgment, or assistance!
One day at a time, sticking with the next right thing,
Leta
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