The Catapult Effect

The Difference Between Suffering and Acceptance

• Katie Wrigley

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In this episode of the Catapult Effect podcast, host Katie Wrigley explores the critical distinction between suffering and acceptance, emphasizing that stress is the key differentiator. 

She shares personal experiences and insights on how acceptance can lead to a more peaceful and fulfilling life. Through various examples, she illustrates how to shift from a mindset of suffering to one of acceptance, encouraging listeners to take actionable steps towards improving their emotional well-being and overall quality of life.

takeaways

  • The difference between suffering and acceptance is stress.
  • Acceptance leads to a peaceful state in the body.
  • Cognomovement can help regulate the nervous system.
  • Give yourself time to make meaningful changes.
  • Taking action is essential for change.
  • Mindset shifts can lead to a more fulfilling life.

Resources


Credit: Tom Giovingo, Intro & Outro, Random Voice Guy, Professional ‘Cat‘ Herder

Mixed & Managed: JohnRavenscraft.com

Disclaimer: Katie is not a medical professional and she is not qualified to diagnose any conditions. The advice and information she gives is based on her own experience and research. It does not take the place of medical advice. Always consult a medical professional first before you try anything new.


Welcome back to another episode of the Catapult Effect Podcast. I am your host, Katie Wrigley. Recently, I've done some thinking on what the difference is between suffering and acceptance, and it finally hit me. The difference is stress.

So stay tuned, we're going to dig deeper into this and also what you can do to shift into higher levels of acceptance and let go of some of that suffering. So stay tuned, it's coming right up.

Thank you so much for joining me today. I know you have your choice of a lot of different things to listen to out there on the web, and I really appreciate you taking the time and listening to the show that can actually help you move something forward in your life. So as I mentioned in the intro, I'd been doing a lot of thinking recently around what is the difference between suffering and acceptance. And it hit me. The difference is stress.

And if you're anything like the people that I've been tossing this idea around with, maybe raising a brow and kind of wondering, is that true? Let's go through some examples together and you can decide for yourself. So when we have something that's already on our mind and we're having a tough time with it, we're not actually in acceptance. We are stressing about it.

Katie Wrigley (02:05.704)
when we accept the circumstances, suddenly that stress goes away. So for instance, I see this a lot with the clients I work with with pain and in my own story. When I initially started to have pain levels go out of control, I was fighting it tooth and nail. I wanted to do everything except face my shit in order to get rid of it.

It was incredibly stressful and the pain was also coming off of the highest level of stress I had ever had in my life. So that definitely didn't help. But in looking back, it was that focus on the pain. It was the inability to accept the damage that I had done to my body that was making me suffer.

It wasn't the pain itself. Now how do I know this? So I've hurt myself multiple times and I've had spikes of pain multiple times. The difference is now I can accept that the pain is there and there's a few things that allow me to do this and I want to share these with you because these are things that I tell my clients as well. These are tried and true ways to help accept

what is going on in your body. So the first thing to look at is that pain is actually your body trying to talk to you. It's not trying to punish you. It has a message for you and when you figure out that message the pain signal is going to get a lot lower. It's really kind of miraculous and the more you practice this the easier it gets to lower those pain signals.

After doing this for a couple years, being in that practice of diving into the pain and asking my body with curiosity what's here, it got to a point where I can even just hit that topic, whatever that topic is inside the physical pain that I'm feeling, and be like, that's why I hurt, and poof, it's gone. That wasn't what it was initially though. But when I was in those former pain states, when I was disabled,

Katie Wrigley (04:22.197)
I wasn't accepting it at all. I was fighting it. I was angry at it. was adding more of these emotions, these negative emotions that are so draining on the human body. I was adding more of them to it and not even realizing that I was making my pain worse. And now through the course of my work, I've also gained a really high level of confidence that I'm going to be able to get past pretty much any pain that comes up. And I do consider myself pain-free.

doesn't mean I don't have little nagging aches here and there. I just don't consider them pain. I accept that my body is aging. I accept that I have been able to do a lot to help my health and I reap the benefits of that.

but I'm not staying in this state where I'm fighting it. Where I'm like, no, my neck still hurts sometimes, there's something wrong with me and I'm stressing out, I'm suffering because of it, I'm not. I'm aware of it, I'll take action, I'll do Cognomovement I'll use some red light therapy, sometimes both on the same day, and it helps me get back into that acceptance. After doing a Cognomovement session last week,

I had this absolutely phenomenal epiphany and the session, just full disclosure, was around a chronic stress pattern. As I've talked about before, you've heard me say it, I have had a hot nervous system. And even with all the work I've done, I still tend to be a little bit on the hot side. And this is something that I'm continually working at and it's getting better and better.

But again, when you ignore something for 40 years, it's unrealistic to think that you're going to completely undo it, and just several years after that. You can undo a lot and you can raise your quality of life, but when you've had a long standing pattern, you want to give yourself some space to allow that to change.

Katie Wrigley (06:21.025)
So I want to give you an analogy here in a moment, but the epiphany that I had and hit me out of nowhere, not exactly sure when it happened, but suddenly I'm in this state of full acceptance of every aspect of my life, every single one. And now there is a difference between accepting and surrendering. And I was having this conversation with someone last week.

They said, that's surrendering. I'm not going to surrender. I'm not going to give up. I'm not surrendering. I am accepting my current state. And I am also moving towards the more desired states that I want for myself. For example, sugar cravings went off the chart after my trip to Norway. The chocolate over there is unbelievable. And I had a little trouble reining it in to a point where

My clothes are kinda, well, let me say that better way. My body's like at the top end of what it can be to still fit my clips. So one of my goals is to lose weight and get back to the weight that I was on my 50th birthday almost a year ago. I am accepting my body as it is now. I'm not suffering because it's bigger than the way that I like it to be. I'm not beating myself up to do that.

Yes, I want to lose weight and I accept that I made decisions that put me into a bigger body and now I'm accepting that I can make different decisions to be into a smaller body. So the first question I have for you is look at one place in your life and can you turn it into acceptance? Can you shift it? And we're going to get into some ways to do that a little bit later in the episode. Another example.

of a goal is I really want to have a romantic partner. And again, I've done a lot of inner work.

Katie Wrigley (08:17.899)
to allow myself to get to a place where I'm ready to open my heart and really connect with someone who brings a lot of fulfillment into my life and whose life I can bring a lot of fulfillment into. am really finally ready to have a fulfilling lifelong relationship. And with the past that I'd had with trauma and some of the ways that it screwed up my views of intimate and sexual relationships, again, that took a little while. I'm accepting the fact that I don't currently have a partner.

and I'm taking action to change that for myself. My dog Tangie who's usually behind me but she's in the other room sleeping. She can't be left alone yet. This is much bigger energy drain. Not her but...

It takes a lot more energy for me to plan different social situations and even bringing her to my parents or bringing her with me if it's something that I can. But having a dog that can't be left alone and I mean she falls apart with separation anxiety. Hadn't gotten to it yet in training. I am accepting that that is where she is and

I am taking steps to be able to change it so that I can leave her alone so I can have more freedom and she is not losing her mind if she spends an hour or two alone. Right now you can't even leave her alone for 10 minutes. She will destroy anything she can get her snout and her claws on because she's so anxious she just gets very distracted. She can't help it.

she doesn't know that she's safe. So it's my job as her human to teach her that she's safe and to follow the guidance of the trainers to get her that way. And I accept that she's not there yet. And I accept that it's on me that she's not there yet. I take full ownership of that.

Katie Wrigley (10:09.097)
And I am accepting everything. Like I've mentioned before, I don't want to go into too many more details to preserve her privacy, but I've talked about my mom having a cognitive decline. Obviously less than desirable. And I accept that this is who she is now. And I enjoy her so much more.

and I'm able to meet her where she is and whatever her reality looks like day to day and interact with her. And I've made it a goal instead of trying to fix my mom with something that's not mine to fix, I've actually made it a goal to see if I can get her to laugh every time that we're together. And so far so good. She's got a really good sense of humor that's still intact and I absolutely love that about her. And I accept that she's not gonna be around forever.

And I'm going to cherish every day that I get while she's here. And they all come a day. Maybe I'm going to struggle with acceptance when it is time for her to leave. But for now, she's here. And I love her. And I get to spend time with her. And that means a lot.

So one of the analogies that I want you to think about, think about when you go to the gym. guys, a lot of people, and I see a lot of this in the work where we get these promises of quick results, rapid transformation, and all that is possible. Cognitive movement can help shifting so rapidly. And the benefits of having done this modality.

on a somewhat regular basis and I'm not daily consistent with it all the time. Sometimes I'm daily consistent, sometimes I'm not. But even having a mostly regular practice for the last almost five years, not quite five years yet,

Katie Wrigley (11:54.178)
that has made huge inroads into calming down my nervous system, making it more regulated. And I'm really seeing the difference in the biometrics. And I encourage you, if you're not doing Cognomovement, whatever you are doing for yourself, keep going because there is a cumulative effect. The same way that when you go to a gym, like the first time you get back into a gym, are you expecting to bench press 150 pounds?

No. Are you expecting to have bulging muscles after one workout? No. So why are you expecting your brain to be able to make rapid change at a level that the human body literally cannot do? There's no point in doing that. So give yourself that space and that time. And a good friend of mine

I want to share this with you as well because this has been one of the most empowering thoughts and I think I've actually brought it up on other episodes as well. But I love this thought that everything is a construct of time. When we can give ourselves enough time to make the change we want to make,

Meaning we aren't expecting miracles in a day. We're giving months, maybe even years for those miracles to take place. Everything is a construct of time. So give yourself enough time to make the changes that you want to make. And then as far as getting into acceptance. So how did I know that I got into acceptance? First of all, it felt different in my body. Suddenly,

My brain was a lot slower. I wasn't having all these squirrely thoughts and focused on the problem. I'm still aware of the problems that I have. I'm still aware of the challenges and I'm focusing on the solutions. Who can help me get through these? How can I make this happen? What do I need to reach this goal? But it feels peaceful in the body.

Katie Wrigley (14:05.683)
Sleep is easy, waking up is easy, focusing is easy. My brain feels super, super clear in this state of acceptance. it's because I'm not stressing. That stress is what is making you suffer. That stress is keeping you suffering. And there's no need to do that. It doesn't mean that you don't care about the things in your life. What it means when you're able to get to a state of acceptance, one, you're doing a bang up job.

of regulating your nervous system so kudos for that and two that stress is pointing to the things that really mean something to you and by you choosing to help do things to mitigate the stress that's you showing love for yourself to find a better easier way to be able to live and what a beautiful gift to give yourself like really think about that

easier way to live. Like life is challenging enough and it's funny when you look at these stress patterns some of the things that can be under it can be quite comical. Like you may not know how to not stress. You may not trust yourself to get the stuff done that you want to get done if you're not stressing. Sometimes stress is the thing that gets us to take action and you can also learn

to have stress not be a factor and continue to take action and that can be a really really fun process. So my question is to you and then we're going to get into a couple ways that you can start to do this. Where do you need more acceptance in your life? Look at what some of the biggest challenges are that you have right now and look at what is stressing you out about them. Is there a mindset

that you can take that will make it less stressful. And now it doesn't mean that you're doing a 180 in your mindset. It could just be reminding yourself, I got this. Or if you like to lean in to trust, I trust the universe has my back. I trust I'm going to get through this time. I trust that the powers of B, that B are going to actually make a good decision on behalf of all of us.

Katie Wrigley (16:29.165)
trust that these times are going to pass and better days are ahead. Little things like that leaning into trust, leaning into peace, leaning into possibility, those can be little mindset shifts that make a huge difference. So first start to look at what's stressing you out the most and what is your current mindset around it? What are you assigning?

that thing that's stressing you out, that's making you suffer. Is there some meaning that you're giving to this thing? Like for instance, there is so much body shaming in America. Men and women, I think women get it worse, but one of the things that can come up for people is I don't feel as worthy if I'm in a bigger body.

I mean, there's a lot of bias against obese people, which is sad because most of us are actually obese by statistical norms. But a lot of people feel like maybe they don't have as much value. And it's so not true. Your size has nothing to do with your value. But that can be a way to stress. Or maybe your weight has been impacting your health and you're a little scared.

of the impact that it's having. And that's making you stress and that's making you suffer. A potential mindset you can take is to start taking action in ways that are going to improve your health. And that's one that resonates really deeply with me. When I first started doing this work seven years ago, I wasn't healthy.

And my coach Shannon who I was working with at the time really helped me see that because I kept saying I'm healthy, I'm healthy and she's like you're actually not. You're not really healthy right now but that's okay because we can get you there. And I've put a lot of effort into improving my health and it's absolutely paid off. I don't have to take any prescription medicines anymore. I actually take very few supplements and I rotate through the ones that I need.

Katie Wrigley (18:51.085)
usually just immunity boosters and stuff to help regulate the nervous system now. Again, still have a hot nervous system. Still like to get it regulated among with other things that I do. But I'm pretty low maintenance on health at this point. But seven years ago, that was not the truth.

I was in so many prescriptions, my eyes were cloudy all the time, I was exhausted, it took about half a pot of coffee for me to even get going and I was crashing in the afternoon. I wasn't healthy. And she wasn't pointing that out to hurt me, she was pointing that out so that I could accept the truth and I could do something about it. And now I'm not stressed.

about health. I'm not stressed about aging. Like I said earlier, I accept the fact I'm in a body that's aging. I prefer it to the alternative, which is not being here anymore. And these are some of the mindset shifts that I use to help myself be in these states of assistance or in acceptance rather. So what are some mindset shifts that you can make for yourself to shift in to acceptance and to get out of suffering?

That is what I want you to think about today and take with you and take that as your action item. So take this podcast episode and do something with it. Don't let it just be something that gets you thinking. Take some action. Really see what you can change. What kind of perspectives comes up because stress is the differentiator. That is the only thing in between you being in a state of acceptance and having more peace and ease in your body and you continuing to suffer.

And as someone who suffered for a long time, let me just tell you, this state of acceptance feels so good. And I really want you to join me here. And thank you so much for joining me today. I trust that this episode was helpful and that you're going to take that action item and you're going to do something to help improve your life. Thank you so much for listening. And until next time, please be well.


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Katie Wrigley

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