A trying 24 hours…

Photo by Martin Coward

The photo above is near where I live. During my school years, I learned to ride horses just where this happens twice a day.

I once drove some colleagues from the US around my area, and this happened during the drive. They were in complete disbelief despite the very apparent evidence.

I broke my own rule with my title today. I used 24 instead of writing the words. It is poor writing practice and I don’t like it. But I am weary from trying to stay well. On Sunday night I called for paramedics as I was struggling to breathe. Around 10pm. Eventually, I went to bed leaving lights on, and my packed bag in case I should be taken to hospital.

I woke at almost 8am and found a missed call from SWAST at 06.21am. I was puzzled as crews have entered my home at 3am before.

I made my way to hospital to be nebbed, but found the ED to be hostile to my physiology. I left and went home. Half an hour later paramedics arrived. Thirteen hours after my call. This is how busy they are. They were great and fixed me.

My inhalers ran out yesterday. The pharmacy has none until Thursday. My lungs were screaming at me, so I went to my surgery. I did not get a warm welcome. Despite their ability to neb me they consider it a job for SWAST or ED. That SWAST is in a critical incident does not matter. That ED is hostile to my illness is irrelevant. My previous GP nebulised me there.

In the end, I was nebbed. It has helped me through the day. I have had to rest more.

I am in touch with an old friend again. I’ve known him since I was 18. He was a reliable friend to me, and helped me when I was in schtuk. Once, I phoned him as I was lost in Wiltshire, and asked him to get a window that was ajar at the back of my place further open and climb in to get a phone number from my address book by my phone. ( Remember those days?). He once also jimmied open my car when I locked my car keys in. AND HE was the one that noticed when I sat on his brother’s motorbike and burned my calf through the muscle. I felt nothing, but was in shock and he noticed my white face.

A carful of us headed to ED, me still not feeling anything, That burn took months to granulate.

Our Only Victory Is Defeat

Before we can change anything about ourselves we must first accept who we are. This was postulated by Carl Rogers,who founded the Person Centred Association, and developed a humanistic approach to psychology named Unconditional Positive Regard. Many people see this and think they know what it means, but they don’t.

If we want to accept who we are we need, first, to realize how we sabotage our self acceptance.

1. Resistance to how our life is. The cards we are dealt, so to speak.
2. Having unrealistic expectations of ourselves and others
3. Confusing our random thinking with values.

Resistance;

We all come with attributes and skills. Also we have negative characteristics. Think of any quality and the possibility of it growing in us is there. Life is like that.

Life also has a way of dropping difficulties in our paths. A bad parent, an abusive partner, illness etc.

The thing about resistance is that the more we do it, the more that thing gets ground up and refined into our lives. More resistance means that that thing overwhelms us. We cannot avoid it. It looms large.

Robyn Norman says; Many of us spend much of our life trying to be somebody we can like, which is terrific. But when we ignore the parts that we don’t like or pretend we don’t have them, they tend to grow and sometimes take over, or show up in weird ways.

Take the person who believes they’re always kind. When they behave in unkind ways, they will fall on the sword to prove that they’re only doing what they’re doing because they love you, or because it makes sense (to them).

Resistance can be rationalization. Like telling ourselves our relationship is not so bad, or work is ok really.

Until we accept that there is a problem, we cannot change it.

Unrealistic expectations;

We cannot place our happiness on winning the lottery, or hoping that our abusive partner will change. Doing such things means we will never be happy.

Confusing our random thoughts with values;

Our values start with what our early caregivers teach us or set as an example. We alter or build on them as we travel through life. Our values indicate who we are and how we behave. However we come by our values or principles, we must be guided by them and not by our thoughts.

Our thoughts can lead us into mistakes. A thought acted on can be rudeness, or an insult. Acting on thoughts can cause us regret.

Robyn Norman says;

When we confuse our random thoughts with values, we can convince ourselves of almost anything. We (need) work to recognize the difference so we can let our values lead the way. And that is the beginning of change.

In order to change we must

1. Accept the reality we are in.
2. Keep expectations in within reality.
3. Make clear what is your value and what is random thinking.

Maturing into the person we want to be means seeing and accepting where we are. Acceptance is key. Only then can we change and grow. Acceptance is the victory of defeat.

Published by The Good Men Project