Transform your life with a simple change of mind.
A close friend shared the e-mail below with me this weekend because she said “it sounded like me.” Indeed, the author did a wonderful job explaining what I believe to be true about our lives- that we are always in complete control.
I am like anyone else, acupuncturist or not. Some days I wake up in a horrible mood and all I want to do is crawl back in bed. Years ago, I would have done just that. After all, “I’m sick.” I have a chronic pain condition and have collected various other diagnoses over my short 30 years on this earth. Who could blame me for wanting to shut the world out? Life isn’t fair and I just can’t handle it today!
That thinking- and that’s all it was, thinking– is part of what kept me ill for so long. One day, I simply decided I’d had enough. Yes, I was in pain. Yes, I was tired. But I was more tired of being sad and angry. There comes a time in life when “the risk to remain tight in a bud is more painful than the risk it takes to blossom.” I was comfortable shifting all blame for my unhappiness and discomfort onto my illnesses. It was a freedom from responsibility. Suddenly, I was deciding to become ultimately responsible for my wellbeing. Me, myself. Only I could control how I felt– my pain, physical and emotional, could only affect me as much as I chose to let it. This was perhaps one of the heaviest burdens I’d ever felt- to realize not only that I had that much power, but that I had been running from it, ultimately allowing myself to suffer.
That day was a changing point in my life. It was around the same time that I decided to study acupuncture. Yes, I was familiar with the pain relief acupuncture could provide, but I knew I wanted to do more than help people feel less physical pain. I wanted to help open their eyes and their minds to the beauty of acceptance, to the power we all hold within us to affect our destiny.
These days, when I wake up on the wrong side of the metaphorical bed, I allow myself to briefly feel whatever emotions are creeping in. I close my eyes and let them flow through me. And then I ask myself how they can serve me (remember, there are no inherently “bad” or “good” emotions- we label them as such ourselves). If they can’t, I choose not to feel them. What used to feel like a burden now gives me a sense of lightness that I cannot adequately describe. To know that you are the sole creator of your mood and happiness is freeing. I hope you too will learn to experience it.
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