By Jewel Quackenbush, MCC
I remember standing in my bonus dad’s hospital room. The machines hummed softly, steady and sure, as if unaware that my world was breaking.
He looked peaceful, too peaceful, and I kept thinking if I could just find the right doctor, the right prayer, the right anything, I could fix it.
I fought reality with every ounce of hope I had.
I called specialists, read studies, searched for loopholes in science and faith. But underneath all that effort was fear, fear of losing him, fear of facing life without his steady voice reminding me who I was.
It delays the inevitable, it holds healing hostage, it convinces us that struggle is strength when sometimes it is just fear in disguise.
And here is the truth I learned the hard way: my resistance was not saving him. It was stealing time.
Time we could have spent laughing about old stories, saying what we had never said out loud, or simply sitting together in quiet love.
That is what resistance does.
We resist endings, relationships that have run their course, jobs that drain us, friendships that no longer fit, because letting go feels like failure. We tell ourselves, “What about the children, what about the years?” And deep down, you know that small voice in the back of your mind, the one that keeps whispering you deserve better, that you are not being treated well, has been right all along.
But you quiet it, you push it away because the illusion of what you have invested feels safer than the truth. Only, you are not investing anymore, you are sacrificing. And that sacrifice costs you your peace, your joy, and sometimes even your health.
And sometimes what we have invested keeps us stuck.
What Happens When We Lean Into Acceptance? We Let the Light In.
When we stop fighting reality and begin to lean into acceptance, something powerful happens inside us.
The body begins to soften its defenses. The brain rewires. The amygdala, which once sounded alarms, grows quiet. Cortisol levels lower. Serotonin and dopamine rise. The breath deepens.
Leaning into acceptance is not a passive act. It is an invitation to peace. It is both emotional and biological.
The body remembers safety. The mind expands again. The prefrontal cortex, the part that allows us to reason, create, and connect, comes back online.
Suddenly the language changes from “Why me?” to “What now?”
Vision clears. The glass no longer looks half empty, it looks refillable. We stop clinging and start seeing.
Acceptance does not mean you stop caring. It means you stop holding your breath.
It means you stop wrestling with life and begin working with it.
When we lean into acceptance, the heart steadies, the shoulders drop, and peace finds its place again.
Endings begin to look less like punishment and more like permission, permission to heal, to grow, to love differently.
When Resistance Is Healthy
There are moments when resistance protects what is sacred.
When someone crosses a boundary that violates your values or threatens your safety, resistance is wisdom. It is your nervous system saying, “No, not this.”
Healthy resistance guards your peace.
Unhealthy resistance guards your fear.
The difference is whether you are resisting from integrity or from avoidance.
Learning to tell the difference is where maturity lives.
The Gift of Letting Go
When we release resistance that no longer serves us, the mind clears.
Energy returns. Gratitude grows. The body feels lighter because the heart is no longer carrying what the mind refused to accept.
Acceptance is not giving up. It is growing up.
It is choosing to live freely in the truth rather than trapped in the illusion of control.
Ask yourself today:
“Where am I still resisting what is already true?”
“And what is actually true?”
Because freedom often hides behind the door we have been pushing against.
#Acceptance #Resistance #LetTheLightIn #EmotionalIntelligence #Healing #MindsetShift #Leadership #Resilience #LifeCoaching #QuackenbushCoaching #MCC
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