Acceptance is Key

I have spent more time in my life than I care to admit wishing I were someone different than who I am. This isn't as dramatic as it perhaps sounds; I have not experienced gender dysphoria, I don't struggle with any personality disorder nor do I experience anything close to manic / depressive mood swings, my sexual desires don't hinge upon taking advantage of other people's vulnerability In order for me to get off – indeed the extent to which I have ever questioned my sexual orientation is so small as to be uninteresting. That is to say that my daydreaming about being someone other than who I am isn't a result of feeling like I might be excluded from “normal” society (whatever that means). I mean I'm a middle class, heterosexual, cis white man born into late 20th century western civilization - in terms of winning the birthright lottery, I am extremely fortunate. But unsurprisingly even with the privileges and advantages I experienced through no effort nor fault of my own, I have experienced difficulties and struggles; none of us get to walk through this experience of life unscathed by traumas and anxieties. We are all human.

For me the “someone different” I spent the majority of my life wishing I could be took the form of a taller man, a leaner, more physically fit man –Someone naturally gifted at something cool like playing the piano or effortlessly dunking a basketball, relatively facile embodiments of attributes that If I were only able to achieve or experience I would be someone comfortable in my own skin. Someone who could confidently navigate the world without feeling negative about myself, without looking at myself as “less than” others. “If only…” seemed to be a regular refrain in my ruminations over dissatisfactions in my life. This is not to suggest that inspiration and motivation are not important for seeking positive change – there are endless self-help and motivational blogs and literature out there to help people self-actualize and strive for achievement and self-improvement and whatever. What I came to recognize was that before I could hope to embark upon any path towards self-improvement, towards finding balance in my life or to even begin to experience any substantive changes in my well-being, I had to accept the realities of who I am and where I am presently, in this moment, right now.

This was more than simply accepting I am 25lbs heavier than I want to be or that I need to re-enroll in college if I want to continue my degree – those are obviously baseline concepts I needed to “accept” before I could take the next right steps towards making the changes I sought. To feel more comfortable in my skin, to wake up and navigate the realities of the world in which I live without browbeating myself for working a job that I dread, a job that is unfulfilling, or without wallowing in self-pity for feeling dissatisfied with the quality of relationships I have with those I love, in order to address any of the dissatisfactions in my life, I needed to accept that as much as I may wish these life conditions were different, this IS my life.

I was a little boy effectively abandoned by his birth mother, only seeing her a handful of times every year throughout my childhood, each visit happening at a different, shitty, dingy Little apartment as I watched her fail to thrive, fail to accomplish any of her own dreams and aspirations and to slowly disintegrate over the years; I am terrified by failure, I am terrified of taking any risk in my life that might result in me becoming anything similar to the physically, financially, psychologically unstable person who gave birth to me.

I was sexually abused by an older boy when I was very very young - a member of my family, Who would abuse me in the next room, Directly under the roof and in the vicinity of other people, people I assumed could and would protect me; I have impotent rage and frustration within me, a seething need to be seen, to be heard, to be acknowledged and validated, When I am certain I understand what is happening in a given situation.

Maybe I am someone predisposed to fear and anger and frustration and anxiety and I just so happen to have experienced things in my life that exacerbate these underlying tendencies and make them manifest in a way that they don't for others. Maybe If the details of my own personal traumas and experiences were different I would have different anxieties, different obstacles that get in my own way. I don't know. I can never know. And the reality is it doesn't matter because whatever the source or impetus these struggles I experience are the struggles of my experience Having a deeper understanding of where they come from is only useful insofar as this understanding helps to change my relationship To these feelings and anxieties.

I spent years being afraid, being driven by an underlying fear, fear of emotional instability, of  financial failure, of being hurt and abandoned or even simply discarded and ignored - a nearly faceless, formless fear that was so pervasive I wasn't even aware of its presence most of the time. And when I became comfortable acknowledging the fear and even comfortable recognizing some tangible explanations for what underline these feelings of fear and insecurity I found myself adding a new layer to the browbeating and negative self talk that accompanied these experiences. “I'll never be good enough, I'll be a failure and pathetic I wind up hurt and alone,” these manifestations of fear that my brain would inundate me with on a seemingly never ending negative self-talk cycle, these were joined now by a new layer of self-loathing, an additional arsenal my brain could throw at me in the form of: what a pathetic dope you are, so afraid to be like your mom you won't even take a risk on your passions – so afraid of not being acknowledged that you’ll denigrate people you love just to show you were correct. Finding an underlying explanation for the seeds of my fears and anxieties only served to add a new layer to the anxieties themselves. Bravo brain, way to go.

And this is when I came to appreciate that acceptance is key, the idea that I could be someone who does not experience the anxieties and fears that were the seemingly natural response to the traumas and negative experiences I've had in life, this had to be dropped. I came to accept that I am someone lives his life with fear, with anxiety, with some measure of neuroses and unhealthy obsessive thoughts and behaviors and what have you. That in order to seek the balance and well-being I hoped for in my life it would need to be a balance that included all of these things about me rather than something I magically manifested despite these things. By accepting that these “negative” elements are woven into the tapestry of my conscious experience, that they have been a part of what makes up my personality In addition to all of the wonderful, “positive” elements of my brain chemistry and personal experiences I was able to begin a new relationship with them. The distinction was nuanced, subtle. I don't claim to be perfect at it. I still find myself attached to these feelings and anxieties on a regular basis. But remembering to accept that these are part of what makeup my experiences, my personality, this frees me to explore whatever emotional pitfalls these “negative” elements are presumably protecting me from, frees me to potentially experience the gratification of making a change, of having a novel experience I would otherwise have missed and avoided.

This also applies to aspects of my history about which I have guilt and shame. I spent many years of my life drinking alcoholically, being emotionally unavailable for myself and for others in my life. Unsurprisingly I've been engaged in behavior and treatment of others that are inconsistent with my moral compass, with my personal values. I spent a long time beating myself up and berating myself for these behaviors. I was mired in so much guilt and shame that I found myself perpetually trying to escape these feelings and thoughts by numbing myself with alcohol. I actively participated in the cycle of chemical dependency familiar to so many. And like so many others have experienced, once I became sober, once I found recovery from alcohol, I was still riddled with guilt and shame. My behavior, my treatment of others was unacceptable, I perpetually reminded myself, browbeating myself - my brain working to ensure that I could never find balance or emotional well-being. And until I was able to accept that I was someone who, while in the throes of his addiction, behaved and engaged in a thought process that was fundamentally different than how I think and behave when not in the throes of this addiction, I wasn't able to take any steps towards balance and emotional well-being. Constantly ruminating over behaviors about which I am not proud, “unacceptable” behaviors, had me perpetually mired in the negative feelings associated with those behaviors. Accepting that these negative aspects of my history or part of me provided me a path forward, a path away from feeling stuck in the cycle of perpetually reliving the negative feelings and emotions, a path towards being able to sit comfortably beside them, accepting them as part of my story, as part of my experiences from which I can learn and grow and even help others learn and grow.

All of this is what I mean when I say acceptance is key. It's not resigning myself to the fate and consequences of whatever is going on in my world and in my life, it is accepting that I am a human who has had experiences and I can still navigate the next year, the next month, the next week, the next day, the next hour, the next minute, the next breath - whatever underlies my anxieties and fears and” negative" emotional states I can take these into my arms and allow them to join me as I proceed into the next moment of my life. And every time I do so the gravitational pull towards the cycle of negativity and self loathing becomes a little less significant.