Acceptance of Where You are Are- by Vicky Westra

One of my favorite mantras today is “I am where I am” or “It is what it is”.

That wasn’t always the case, as I remember a time in my life where I was railing against what I felt was happening to me. When we first received the diagnosis of Autism for our daughter Gabbi, I thought “This shouldn’t be happening to us, as we’ve tried to be good people and tried to have a good life!”.

I was mad at the diagnosis, mad at the situation, mad at the world and even mad at God that such a thing would happen to me and to us as a family! However, the more I railed against it and felt that it shouldn’t be happening, the worse I felt. Being in that place made me feel stuck in the situation without the hope that I would ever see our way to feeling good again! This is an experience that is common to many people: when we resist our circumstances, we reject life as it is and we will continue to suffer!

So what’s the answer?

The only way to start our journey back into our good feeling place is to start accepting the circumstances we find ourselves in, as well as the thoughts or emotions we’ve been experiencing.

With this acceptance, we are better positioned to receive the thoughts or ideas that will help us to move forward and create what we want. This is what happened for me. As I started to accept Gabbi’s diagnosis, I was able to access a place of hope where I could start receiving thoughts and inspirations about what we could do to make Gabbi’s life and our life more fulfilling and joyful. Gabbi could feel this shift as well and I believe that this was a real turning point in our lives.

You see, when you put your focus on what is and push against it, you can’t look forward and see what could be. You can’t do both things simultaneously! So, the answer is to shift our focus, so that we can start the process of accepting what is (you can definitely use my mantras above, as I promise that they will help!) and begin moving forward, letting the contrast of the experience help us to create what we want.

Contrast is usually defined as the opposite of what we want. In my case, it was not wanting our daughter to have autism and thinking something had gone wrong. When I thought that thought, I felt bad. Usually, when you feel bad thinking thoughts, it means that you are not lined up with your inner being, higher self, divine spirit or God thinks about your circumstance. When we hit upon the thoughts that truly do line up with who we really are, we feel relief.

My first path of acceptance and relief was to think “Well, Gabbi has Autism, what now? How do we live our best life possible despite this?”. This helped me to turn towards what I wanted, which was really to just love and accept Gabbi for who she is and trust that we could lead a joyful life with an Autism diagnosis.

However today, I am at an even more accepting place, because I can see Gabbi and her Autism as a really beautiful gift to her and to us! This journey that I’ve been on has allowed me to not just see it in Gabbi, but to see it in others as well and believe that all families who are living with a diagnosis of Autism can lead a joyful life!

I’m not asking you to feel that at this point of your journey, as many of you may be at your starting place of acceptance. However, I want to make a point that whatever we currently see as a challenge in our life, can ultimately be our biggest blessing!

I’m sure you’ve read stories of people that were born into really difficult situations, causing them to be faced with tremendous obstacles. However, based on where they are today, they would never trade those situations in for easier ones, because those are what allowed them the opportunity to become who they were intended to be.

So how about you? Are you ready to accept the place where you currently stand and start seeing the possibility of it being the opportunity for you to become that which you are intended to be?

We believe this to be true, as you are standing here wanting to learn more about Autism and how you can grow and expand… to become what you came here to be!

We can’t wait to hear your story about how you turned your hardship into your victory!!

In Love and Joy,

Vicky