Looking ahead

When difficult things happen to us we can obsess over why this happened. But the question to as is not "why" but "what now"
I write about this on Hopeful Parents today
For readers who don't like to click on links .. full post below

Looking Ahead

DH and I are driving back from a naturopath whom we have visited for Crohn’s disease

He tries to explain what may  have caused Crohn’s. He tells us that maybe it’s the lack of sun in the Temperate zone that a hurts a child of Asian origin.

Then he adds that another cause could be unusual bacteria in the tropical zones (since we visit India every couple of years) that is may have caused Crohn’s.

We are shaking our heads about it in the car.

Which is it? 

Should we have not moved to a temperate zone? 

Or should we have stayed in the temperate zone and never visited the tropical zone?

As it turns out that – that just like Autism, for Crohns too – no one knows anything definitively.

There are many plausible and contradictory theories and there is plenty of fodder for parents to torture themselves over what they could have done to prevent it.

If it were not for my years of Autism parenting, this conversation would have set me on a tail spin of guilt.

But, Autism has taught me that obsessing about causes and your role in those causes is toxic.

Much better to spend your energy thinking about what helps and what heals.

It’s no that different than when other   bad things that happen to us

We always ask “why me”, we obsess on reconstructing that event in a way that could have prevented it.

People who have been in car accidents seem to go over and over again all the ways in which they could have been prevented – if they had just left the house a little later, decided not to go to that grocery store that day, lingered a little longer or little lesser over coffee that morning.

An aunt with the hip fracture obsesses, if she had only seen the slick of water, bought those non-slip slippers, eaten that calcium etc.

But there are no do-overs in life.

Bad things happen and they can happen any time.

We can eat the calcium, the purified omega 3’s, the folic acids and the organic food, look both sides of the road while crossing and get all our annual  checkups and it is very  good for us but its never enough.

Accepting this fact is very freeing

Don’t look back. 

Don't ask why me

Don't even ask why 

Ask only what now 

And look ahead for this life is no dress rehearsal