On Accepting What Is

Even When What “Is” Sucks

Hi Wonders,

As many of you know, in July 2021 I was diagnosed with cancer. As someone who had been a severe hypochondriac since childhood, and as an adult whose life was severely impacted by a panic and anxiety disorder, I had the exact opposite reaction to the news than I might have expected. A new peace found me. I felt like I was sitting in a warm bath of love. My blood pressure, which had been high for years as a result of anxiety––returned to normal. My mind, which typically raced like an auctioneer selling horror stories, retired. All of this happened as a direct result of being told I had a very serious diagnosis. I’m writing today to share some of why.

Because anxiety and panic had been so prevalent in my adult life, I’d been looking for a way out of my suffering since my early 20’s. Living outside of Boulder, Colorado which has a large Buddhist community, my friends gave me what appeared to be every book on mindfulness, meditation, and presence practice in existence. For every book of poetry I owned, I owned ten books on the topic of accepting what is (no matter how cruddy the “is” was.) The practices I learned helped keep me alive for decades, but that didn’t mean living was easy. My anxiety was still something I had to navigate constantly. I’d go years at a time with my body vibrating with an unbearable terror. I struggled to want to live. Every doctor who took my pulse would exclaim “How many cups of coffee have you had today?” I didn’t drink caffeine at the time.

Because I’d read so much on “living in the present moment,” I knew why my diagnosis released me from much of my suffering. My nervous system gave up its fight. I surrendered to the facts of my life. The diagnosis was too serious for me to flail against it, and my whole being instinctively knew the flailing would be nothing but detrimental to my chances of healing. I had no choice but to accept it, to surrender to the truth, to say this is really happening. It wasn’t even an active choice on my part. Acceptance just fell into my lap.

“This is”––is a life changing sentiment for me. And to be clear–saying this is doesn’t mean I don’t do everything I can to nurture my body to health. When we accept the truth of something, it’s simply common for our minds to go still. And a still mind is a mind that no longer gets in the way of life, of living. A still mind returned me to my heart. Returned me to the moment right in front of me: the baby birds learning to fly in the meadow near my home; my love rolling over in bed at midnight, saying, Wanna make out to 90’s rock?; my squirrel friend, showing up to hear my poet-tree reading right after I find out I’m having a recurrence and have to cancel my tour.

Until my diagnosis, I was so often living in my head and living in resistance to the fact of my experience that I had forgotten to sense this world. To listen to the windchimes a block away, to smell the rain, to sift the pebbles of the river into my hands and smile bigger than those who, a century ago, found gold in that same water. This life is gold to me now, because each moment is gold to me now.

May we never not know how rich our lives are (even when parts of it suck.)

Love, Gold Digger Andrea 🖤