How to Accept What You Can’t Change Without Giving Up | Jane RatcliffeHow to Accept What You Can’t Change Without Giving Up | Jane Ratcliffe
The One You Feed
Eric Zimmer talks with writer Jane Ratcliffe about living with long-term health challenges, holding onto joy and gratitude, and the tension between accepting what can’t be changed and fighting for improvement. Their chat touches on self-forgiveness, interconnectedness, and the pressures of always needing to appear “okay.”
56:46•4 Sept 2026
Being “Okay” Without Giving Up: Jane Ratcliffe on Fighting, Acceptance and the Good Wolf
Episode Overview
- You can work on accepting your situation while still actively seeking change and treatment at the same time.
- Always insisting you are “okay” might limit your ability to ask for and receive the help you truly need.
- Cultivating a steady inner sense of joy and gratitude can coexist with fear, pain, and uncertainty.
- Simple self-forgiveness phrases like “I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you.” can soften harsh self-blame.
- Reflecting on interconnectedness can bring comfort by highlighting how many people and forces contribute to healing.
“There’s the okayness I’ve actually built, which is real, and then there’s the part of me that needs you to see me as okay.”
Curious about how others navigate their sobriety journey? This conversation with writer Jane Ratcliffe offers a raw and gentle look at how to live with pain, limitation, and uncertainty without losing hope. Jane shares the story of a traumatic brain injury that changed her life in an instant and led to what she calls "the terror years"—non-stop vertigo, racing heart, devastating pain, and doctors who dismissed her symptoms as anxiety.
Through it all, she had two inner forces at play: a terrified part and a part that remained joyful and full of gratitude. She connects this "good wolf" to a resilience shaped by her parents’ wartime experiences and decades of Buddhist practice. Eric Zimmer and Jane talk frankly about the tricky balance between fighting for change and accepting what can’t be fixed.
Jane describes herself as "a fucking fighter" who refused to give up her work and independence, even when friends urged her to surrender more. At the same time, she’s learned to say, "This is happening. It’s okay," while still pursuing treatment and self-care. For anyone dealing with addiction, long-term illness, or mental health struggles, you’ll likely recognise the tension Jane and Eric describe: wanting to be "okay" for others, yet needing support.
Jane even wonders if always insisting she was okay kept her from asking for help. Stand-out moments include her practice of self-forgiveness—repeating "I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you" to herself after a risky mistake—and her beautiful reflection on interconnectedness, tracing all the people and processes involved in a single jar of manuka honey that helped heal her cat.
If you’re wrestling with what you can change and what you can’t, this conversation might leave you asking: how can you feed your own good wolf today, without pretending everything’s fine when it isn’t?
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