Acceptance and Forgiveness

When we think about the catalysts for change, we sometimes imagine a singular event that set them in motion. History highlights major events that transformed states and countries into what they are today, whether they happened organically or by conquest, or revolution. However, reflection upon any catalysts for change in our personal lives are much harder to pinpoint as one thing or another. I definitely feel that way. To say that I have changed is an extreme understatement. Anyone close to me would say that they watched me go through the abyss, "the pit of despair" if you will, and come out alive, though not without deep wounds. Still, when I look at where I am today--I must confess that I am shocked at the multitude of changes that took place, both externally motivated as well as internally. Today, I see things through the lens of an objective third-person party. I look different now, and for the first time in years, I am completely at peace with it.

Several factors contributed to changes in my appearance and temperament over the past few years. I tried to look for the best option to get healthy again early on this year. I embarked on a journey of dieting and exercise along with meditation. I was not consistent, of course. With job changes, moving, and an increasingly cantankerous mood, I had little motivation to do do anything that required effort. So, what did change? To be honest, it's hard to to figure out what propelled me to turn things around. Maybe, it was just time. Maybe it had been too long for me to put off what I started. So, I worked to change my mindset and focus my energy on something that was better as a long-term solution. As the months wore on, I reined in the chaos that I let control me for so many years. I felt a sense of calm after what seemed like permanent flight turbulence. This was a very recent thing, but the difference is 100%. I feel lighter on the whole.

The hardest part of this journey is forgiveness. There are days that I have to remind myself that forgiving oneself is critical to health of the body and mind. I know what it's like to feel like you cannot function--that the depths of pain and despair hold you back tenfold, that with each step you move forward, other things pull you back and derail the progress you make. It's hard not to blame external factors. But I think we beat ourselves up much more. And sometimes, no one on the outside can help or truly understand no matter how hard they try or how close they are to us. Sometimes, they may not even want to--and I'm okay with that too because I know what it's like to watch someone suffer and feel helpless in that situation--or to not comprehend what to do--so we hide away in fear. It happens. And sometimes, we stay stuck in the abyss for too long. Sometimes, we blame ourselves for every little thing that goes wrong. Beyond just the guilt, our anger towards ourselves is just poison. It seeps into everything and leaves us with a bitterness that cannot be subdued. And it eventually turns on others, even those closest to you. But the bitterness and anger can only be alleviated by forgiveness--and it begins with you.

I learned over the course of the past few years that you have to love yourself enough to believe that you deserve to be forgiven--and that maybe you need to stop giving yourself negative credit for things you had no control over. We simply find it easier to point the fingers at ourselves because we believe that we should have been able to see things for what they were back then--but hindsight is, after all, 20/20. This is why we have to love ourselves. We are worthy of what we seek. We have to give ourselves the love we reserve for others. It's a very strange concept to think about--because the idea of loving ourselves can sometimes come across as narcissism--and even negative self-worth can appear that way! For a long time, I was that person. I was in the river of self-loathing, buried under murky waters. As I said though, I don't know how or why it happened but the need for clean air began to push me towards the surface and force me to swim ashore. I'd fallen into that cavernous pit many years ago. But I could not stay at the bottom of the well. I had to go up. There was no way out but to climb up and out.

So what does loving yourself look like? I cannot say. I don't know that I'd call what I feel now as self-love so much as reconstruction, a rebuilding of what was once there. I do care enough about myself to see things as they are and reflect without attaching results to specifics. So, how do you take the bare bones or the total destruction of something and rebuild it into something that not just survives but thrives? Maybe, we can look to history for some of those answers. People have come back from complete losses, absolute devastation. I have seen it in my own family. We had to rebuild after all of those losses. But time is a factor as it is in virtually everything. As the saying goes, Rome wasn't built in a day. We have to give ourselves the time needed, to not just deal in absolutes alone because they can be restrictive, and to be kind and patient with ourselves. We cannot abandon who we are to the cruelty that our own minds can inflict on us. But we can always reinvent ourselves and change if we need to because we deserve love. We deserve peace. I know how necessary it is to have that, especially when things are in flux, in limbo, in-progress. I'll say it again. We deserve love.