


I just choose to be understanding and compassionate and hope others do the same. But I am okay with this because we only know what we know, so no one can ever fully relate to me and I can never completely understand what another person is going through either. Most people I know who do not have the health condition I do, or something similar, too often take for granted the many things they can do that I once found so easy as well and also took for granted.

It doesn’t mean giving up or not fighting. The first step towards this is acknowledging that acceptance is the way to reduce the suck of life. I totally understand that this is a process for all of us and happens in our own time, so let it happen.
#Embrace the suck meaning how to#
If I do this, I will be in a frozen state where I do not see options and opportunities for how to make the most of my life, exactly as it is right now! In order to move on, I have to embrace the suck of this part of my life so I can get past it and make the best version of me I can, right now, in this moment. I could very easily look at my life right now and all of the physical challenges I have and get totally lost in the depressing suck of it all by focusing on all I have lost. Along with many time-consuming self-care activities, treatments, and therapies I would prefer not do, I have to carefully plan my day so the activities of the day do not cause a reemergence of symptoms. My body can’t handle it like it once could. I am not involved in many activities that I love very much or the same social and business circles. In the last 20 years, I have found ways to improve upon my symptoms and am doing much better (I even wrote a book about dystonia that was recognized by the Michael J Fox Foundation and added to their list of suggested resources, as well as a second book that came out this past March), but my life is nothing like it once was. When I hit the age of 30 and was stricken with chronic pain from dystonia, everything changed and nothing was easy. It is what we do about it that matters most, which dictates how much we can increase or decrease the sucky parts of life.įor most of my life, everything pretty much came easy for me. In other words, it is not what happens to us that matters most. We must roll with the suck of life rather than fight against it. You can read more about the many things I do to manage all of the physical and emotional symptoms in both of my books. Thankfully, I was able to get my life back on track and the photos below show my physical transformation. I didn’t know back then how to embrace the suck of it all, so I embraced anxiety, depression, and avoidance instead. I also had to deal with morbid obesity after gaining 150 pounds from living this lifestyle. I turned to food, alcohol, and isolation to try and hide from my pain. This is something I did NOT do for the first 5 of my ongoing 20 years living with dystonia. It means that tough times are not to be ignored, denied, covered up, or masked with drugs, alcohol, food, poor relationships, and behavior where we deal with the suck of life in an emotionally reactive fashion. So, what does it mean to “embrace the suck of life?” It means acknowledging that life is hard and filled with pitfalls, and not resisting the bad things that happen to us to not fight that which will only fight back and increase our suffering. However, for the purposes of this article and concept, suck is the best word to use. It was considered as bad as any curse word. In my house growing up, we were not allowed to use this word or else we would be in trouble. This is actually very similar to carpe diem as you will see in upcoming paragraphs.īefore I continue, please forgive me for whomever I offend by using the word suck, my Mom being one of those people (sorry Mom). I had to embrace what I call the “suck of life” and use my suffering as a tool to rebuild my life and reduce the suck of it all. I lost everything so I had to embrace a new concept, which took me years to understand, a learning journey I am still on. During my deepest suffering and feelings of helplessness, in my eyes there was no life left from which to suck the marrow. However, when you are deeply suffering with anything in life, as I did for years with a life changing, ridiculously painful health condition called dystonia, this means little.
#Embrace the suck meaning movie#
Most of us are familiar with the Latin term, carpe diem, which means “seize the day.” This phrase became especially popular in the movie Dead Poets Society with the late Robin Williams, where he quoted Henry David Thoreau and talked about sucking the marrow out of life.
