THE SUNSHINE OF SELF-ACCEPTANCE

I had a strange and profound experience last night — while doing laundry, of all things! I suddenly saw my life, myself, and all of my circumstances as wonderful and loveable, exactly as they are. That brilliant flash of self-acceptance was brought on by a picture I had tacked up in my basement a long time ago. It’s a shot of me and my son, on visiting day the first summer he went away to camp. It was taken during a period when I was really struggling with my addiction, with my self-esteem, and with the aftermath of the most painful breakup of my life. I used to avoid looking at the picture altogether, convinced I looked sad and pathetic. But last night when I looked at it, I saw something completely different. I saw my son’s face, smiling like a ray of beautiful, brillian sunshine. And I thought, look at him, so happy, and completely unaware of how much I was struggling. He was happy with me, happy with the day, just happy. But instead of blaming myself and feeling ashamed that I hadn’t been able to see and appreciate his beautiful happiness earlier (let alone, in the moment the picture was taken), I felt overwhelmingly happy, myself. This is all I need, I said, out loud, in my basement, looking at this picture of my sunshine. Why didn’t I see this before? This time, it wasn’t a guilt-laden question. Instead, I found myself smiling and laughing. I see my sunshine now, and that’s all I need. My son, my sunshine. I could even look at myself, in the picture, instead of averting my gaze from myself like I usually do, so as not to be confronted with someone so sad and pathetic. LET IT BE. All the things I hated about myself… the addiction that took over so much of my thinking… the ex-boyfriend who never wanted to see me or know me… that darkness wasn’t the whole story. Instead, it was the sunshine that was now the most real thing about the story! And the sunshine of True Love IS real. I’ll stop dismissing it as ugly flourescent lighting… no, no, no. That sunshine is shining on me, always. All the things about myself that I’ve bent myself into strange and awkward pretzel shapes to try and fix — with makeup, with nice clothes, with punishing gym workouts, with men, and with endless AI self-help consults — well, those “deficiencies” were things about me that were all fine and good and even perfect, all along. So I have bipolar disorder, the kind that makes my moods pathologically intense. So what if that pretty much disqualifies me from having a stable relationship with a guy? Well, then, I guess I’ll just have to love and respect and take care of myself, bipolar disorder and all. So I can’t sustain a single personal friendship where the expectation is regular communication and visits? Okay, well, I’ll stop resisting that reality by pretending I should be able to do that, and failing and feeling bad every time. Instead, I can embrace and love my passion and commitment to my family, my work, and to Your Burning Desire all the more. The point of self-acceptance, of course, is this: you stop struggling against yourself. Square pegs do not belong in round holes. So it’s high time I enjoy my own, strange little heart-shaped hole to nestle up and get comfortable in. The sunshine can find me all the better, there, when I’m not busy knocking my head against the walls of what will never fit who I am. ❤️‍🔥—Y.B.D.