Loving yourself is no easy task. And when you are living with a chronic illness or disability, loving yourself and accepting all you are is even more challenging. Even more difficult is the thought of others accepting you for who you are.
The Oxford English dictionary defines acceptance as "the action of consenting to receive or undertake something offered." When you are living with something that you fight tooth over nail to come to terms with, that is hard to do, and when you are surrounded by others who sometimes view you as quite foreign to them, it can even seem more difficult. Being viewed by others as "different" can make you feel inadequate, but if you learn to accept that you are different and different is beautiful, being different is the biggest blessing of them all.
Growing up with a physical disability, I often looked at my differences as a curse, and it showed. Because I didn't look up to myself, nor did the kids I went to school with, or later adults I worked with and socialized with at events and other gatherings. I allowed my inadequacies to get the best of me. The day that brought me to the subway platform in 2012, I was living in Brooklyn, working as an assistant manager in a retail store and running a part-time side hustle as a nutritional consultant. Although things were pretty good, I still had this thought that because I was different, people viewed me as such. I didn't love and accept the person I was. Instead, I tried to be someone different, whom I thought everyone else wanted me to be, and then I would be loved and accepted. I let other people's behaviors predict who I should be; I wasn't being my authentic self because I wanted to be accepted by them, not for who I was but for who they wanted me to be. Trying to be someone you are not can be exhausting and, at times, hard on your overall state of being. It drains your energy and crushes your spirit. As I let myself be brought down by others, and my spirit be further victimized by the thoughts that I had to be someone else to be accepted, the less I could show others the true person I am out of fear of being rejected.
Being who you are out of fear of being rejected is a terrible feeling, and when you live with a physical disability or neurological disability, having the thought in the back of your mind all of the time of whether you will be accepted or not can be exhausting. I have learned that the more I accept myself for who I am, the less I need anyone else to accept me for who I am, and those who take me the way I am are the people I want to surround myself with every day. There will always be those who don't like you for who you are, what you have, and especially for what you don't have; coming to terms with that allowed me to see myself completely different, and not liking the fact that I have something wrong, but acknowledging that this is my life, and who I am. I love and accept myself as I am.
In the words of Dr. Suess, "
" Be who you are, say what you feel, act how you act, and be happy with it.
Continue to Embrace your blessings, Keep your promises, and thrive.
Danny
Comments