It Is What It Is: Accepting a Relationship You Cannot Change

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”
– Reinhold Niebuhr

How often did you turn yourself inside out, upside down, pray until your prayers ran dry, and cried yourself to sleep because you wanted an outcome that never came?  How many nights did you lose sleep?  How many times have you tried to control your partner, figure him out, ask anyone who would listen to you about your problem and feel like doom and gloom?

If you had these symptoms, then relax, you’re human, and you did your best to make things happen the way you wanted them to happen.  But guess what?  Sometimes, we just can’t control or influence an outcome: IT IS WHAT IT IS!  With all your cajoling, pleading, crying, yelling, threatening, manipulating, begging, reasoning and withdrawing, sometimes things don’t change!  The sooner you accept this, the better you will feel. One of my favorite sayings is that when God doesn’t open the door, stop banging on it.  What’s behind may not be meant for you!

We have all read that positive thinking can make things happen; that we are what we think.  We have all heard about the power of prayer; the Quantum physics theory of perpetual possibilities.  In the end, sometimes nothing you think, wish or pray may happen, so you just have to come to terms with reality: IT IS WHAT IT IS!

Why did I write this article?

When You Do Everything You Can to Create Change in a Relationship and Nothing Changes

More often than not, I sit in my counseling chair and hear my clients lamenting about their situation over and over.  In more than 44 years of clinical practice I have seen my clients try to effect change in their relationships countless times and countless ways and nothing changes.  I have heard parents howl in desperation over their teenager’s unmanageable behavior.  I have seen teenagers crawl up in a ball crying over their parent’s inability to understand them.  It’s at this juncture that I have to help them come to the conclusion that no matter how much they yearn for change, IT IS WHAT IT IS.

The Serenity Prayer:
Letting Go and Accepting Things You Cannot Change

Letting go and accepting things the way they are is sometimes the most difficult response we need to do.  Many people don’t even know how to do it.  We have been so conditioned by our families, our culture, religious beliefs and society to be tenacious.  “If at first you don’t succeed, then try and try again!”  This works many times, but sometimes it doesn’t because it just IS WHAT IT IS.  The sooner we come to accept this reality, the easier our lives will be.  The Serenity Prayer is not just a mantra; it’s a way of living life.

If you have a situation that appears unsolvable, it probably is.  If you have a relationship that gives you grief over and over and you have tried everything possible to effect change, the relationship may be too difficult to maintain.  If you are in a career that gives you an ulcer or burn-out, perhaps its time to switch careers.  If you have a physical impairment that affects your golf game, then its time to give up golf and try another sport.  If you’re health impairs your sexuality, then its time to learn how to give and receive pleasure in other ways.  If life deals you a hand that you can’t change, then its time to learn to let go and come to terms with IT IS WHAT IT IS!

Learning to accept life on life’s terms can be a relief

Learning to appreciate that things sometimes happen for a reason we can’t understand at the time it is happening, but understanding is not as important as accepting.  There are times that tenacity fortitude and determination are essential, but there are times when it’s not your destiny and IT IS WHAT IT IS!

The First Step

One of the most important steps in the twelve step program is the first sentence of the first step.

We admitted we were powerless over our addiction – that our lives had become unmanageable. It isn’t just about addiction.  It’s about being powerless over things we really can’t control.  In fact, the only thing we really have control over, is how we control our response to what we can’t have control over. IT IS WHAT IT IS!

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Joan E Childs, LCSW is a renowned psychotherapist, inspirational speaker and author of Do You Hate the One You Love: Strategies For Healing and Saving Your Relationship. In private practice since 1978, she specializes in individual and couple’s therapy, grief therapy, EMDR, NLP, inner child work and codependency. Learn more about her services at www.joanechilds.com.