Knowing Myself. A Continued Quest...A Continued Journey: Acceptance (11/8/2017)

Acceptance.  Is it a positive characteristic or a personality flaw? 

Children are pure.  Their beings are born without influence.  They are not marred by prejudice of any sort.  However, influences begin to barrage them immediately.  How many children simply accept what they are told while growing up?  Many easily accept their parent’s choices in life as their own.  It’s like a predetermined orientation should you want to just coast along.  Whether it is spiritual, sexual or political, versions of someone else’s reality can too easily be ingrained and even accepted without question – without contemplating who one is as an individual in relation to the existence that is presented to them as the norm.  It works for some people.  However, as was the case with me, it can also present a problem for someone who not only requires an explanation for everything, but finds questioning everything to be a very natural facet of their personality. 

Being submissive was part of who I was raised to be.  Giving in was about knowing my place and understanding (and trusting) that someone else knew better and was holding the reigns.  I was along for the ride and should be content with that.  However, that isn’t who I am as a person.  It wasn’t part of my makeup.  And so, I found I spent a lot of time in conflict with myself.  My spirit ricocheted off the very walls that were in place to contain and safeguard me.  One of two things happens in that scenario;  1. you smash into the walls so many times that your wings get bruised, broken and bent to the point that you become used to it and give up / give in or 2. you smash through the walls and stretch your wings into that subsequent freedom. 

I ended up smashing through the confines of said wall.  I stretched my proverbial wings over the years.  I made determined leaps out of the box in which I was placed.  I ran away from the safety of what was expected.  I balked at the binds that held me with intent to protect. 

In the beginning, it wasn’t a planned thing.  My responses to things that didn’t resonate with my spirit were what my dad called, “knee-jerk reactions.  There was no ill will associated with it, just my youthful reactions that were true to my spirit and without the hinderance of preconceived notions.  I might not have really known what I was doing, but with a little life experience, the big picture began to come into focus.  My blissful, youthful ignorance began to understand cause and effect. 

Of course, it made a difference in my understanding that I was raised with a strong trust in my own developed conscience.  I can’t help digress into a particular memory – an incident in kindergarten – that was probably monumental in my development.  Despite being so young, I remember it so clearly.  I loved school.  I loved everything about it.  The more I could learn and be involved in, the happier I was.  The first fall of my school career, I came in contact with a music teacher that was boisterously strange, as many music teachers are.  At the age of 5 (I didn’t turn 6 until that October) I was already more of a challenge than she was prepared for.  At about the same time in my life, my parents were working to help me understand what my conscience was and the importance of listening to it.  As unfortunate as it may have been for that music teacher, one of her song choices pricked my conscience and I refused to learn or sing the song.  There was no religious, ethical or other reason that she could determine for my adamant resistance.  After a few conversations and attempted reasoning with me, she found me as stubbornly dismissive of her and her song and more resolved, (picture a blonde-haired, 5 year old with her arms crossed boring a hole thru your soul with her blue-eyes), than she could have ever anticipated.  Therefore, she called a meeting with my parents.  I remember standing out in the hall just beyond the open door listening to her describe to my dad the situation and her review of the song and the lyrics.  I remember her voice getting higher and higher as she regaled him with the details of our head-to-head conflict and her frustration with me.  My dad calmly listened and soothed her with his empathy.  Just as she heaved a sigh of relief, my dad went on to say, (and his voice and words still ring clear in my head to this day), “I appreciate your frustration, and you are correct in that, there doesn’t seem to be any issue that I can see in her singing that song.  However, we are teaching Autumn to let her conscience guide her.  And while I could probably talk to her and convince her that it is ok, I am very proud of her for standing up for what she feels is right and I will stand behind her decision.  Since there is no harm in her choice, and I want her to trust herself, she doesn’t have to sing that song and I’m sure you will be able to find something else that she won’t mind singing.”  He turned on his heel and left the room, stopping to grab my hand and walk down the hall with me.  I don’t recall the song, or what it was that bothered me about it, but I do remember how strong I felt and how proud I was for standing up for myself. 

This message continued to be instilled in me throughout my childhood.  In my teens, the message changed a little.  It became more about thinking about my reputation and the reputation of those around me.  My dad’s voice always followed me out the door and still rings in my head today; “Remember who you are, who you represent and the consequences of your actions.”   And so, this strength of personal opinion and resolve were cultivated in me.  This thoughtful parenting, combined with the willful person that I am at my core, were probably the witches brew that led my rebellion.  I believe that the path I chose was, in the end, not the path that my parents had hoped I would travel.  But I credit them for fostering in me the strength to embrace who I was and then…the freedom to let me pursue that. 

In my rebellion, I believed that I knew what I was doing.  I knew there were sacrifices.  I thought that I understood the sacrifices of the rebellion that I was embracing, or at least I convinced myself that the freedom was worth the sacrifice.  I so, I made choices.

I wonder sometimes where I would be at this point in my life if I hadn’t been so willful in my youth.  If I had been submissive and gave in to what was desired of me, would I be happy today.  Would I be satisfied with the life that was intended for me?  Would the years of being inhibited have made me such a different person that I would be conditioned to be content in that life?  Or, would I find myself in crisis in the realization that I had been untrue to myself in an attempt to placate others?  Because really, that is what I was doing…placating and conciliating those who loved me out of a sense of obligation and responsibility.  At the time, I thought that my motives were based in love, respect and concern.  It was easy to do and say what others wanted.  It made them happy.  I like to make others happy. 

But the reality of it was that I was actually being disrespectful and dishonest…to them and to myself.  It seems so easy for me to see now that what I thought were good intentions based in concern for others were in fact very selfish in that I was just playing the martyr in a very twisted way.  Looking back, I can remember times that I was sad in general about my life.  I would have bouts of depression, as a result of what I now recognize as personal conflict about the direction of my life.

I like to say things like, “I don’t resent my parents,”  “I don’t begrudge the way I was raised,”  and “I don’t have regrets.”  And while those statements sound good, it would be dishonest for any human to say those things.  We are all going to say and do things that cause resentment.  We are all going to be annoyed at things and people throughout our life.  We are all going to regret one thing or another.  The simple fact is that we are all imperfect.  That imperfection will open space for any honest person to find reason for aggrievement, grudges or to take umbrage with or toward people and circumstance, neither of which can we control.  Therefore, it is a given that it will happen. 

However, what I’m learning is that it isn’t in those places that I should dwell.  When, I will find myself there, focused on those moments and people that block my path, the healthiest path forward is acknowledging that I cannot control anything thing but myself.  And so, I realize that I must constantly be on a quest to be a better person.  This growth and movement, while sometimes painful, is what allows me to find peace in what was and what is.  Knowing that only I can make what will be fit my needs.  It is actually a pretty powerful realization. 

I recently read a book that had a couple quotes that resonated with me as follows:

“In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves.  The process never ends until we die.  And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.”  - Eleanor Roosevelt

“Don’t set sail using someone else’s star.”  Make your own way.  Find your own path.  Don’t follow someone else’s path exclusively as it might not be right for you.”  - African Proverb  

And so….I accept and embrace my past as part of who I am…. And then down my road of personal acceptance I go, knowing I may stop here or there as seems appropriate or as strikes my fancy, submitting only to myself, accepting myself and looking for the place to hang my own star.