How I’m Finding New Levels of Self-Acceptance

‘Wanderlust’ 1926 by W.R. MacAskill.
My grandparents always had a big print of this photo in their home while I was growing up.
It’s still there today.

The last two months were hectic and strange and beautiful.

I went to Mexico and got really sick for four days. Came back to Toronto. Got covid. Got over covid. Came back to Halifax. Then got strep throat right before a bachelor party at Mont Tremblant.

For about a six-week stretch, I was either very sick or out partying and getting myself sick again.

This probably sounds stupid. Especially if you read these blogs and know that I’ve been trying to re-jig my relationship with alcohol (which I wrote about in this post). What I will say, though, is that I feel great. I’m not sure exactly why, but I’ve been much better able to show myself compassion, patience, and acceptance as I’ve navigated these past weeks.

This has had a profound impact on my mental wellbeing.

Historically, I’ve judged, berated, and persecuted myself for the most minor slip-ups. Hangovers have been a field day for my inner critic. Now, it’s becoming more clear how much that negativity and intensity has weighed me down.

These past 2 months, there’s been very little self-criticism, and much more reflection on what is good/happy/beautiful in my life. There has been lots of love. That’s what I’ve been paying most attention to. Quality time with friends, an absurd amount of dancing, and tons of hugs, kisses, and sweet moments shared amongst some the most special people in my life.

I’ve also done MDMA a few times recently and have experienced sensations of love so expansive that it’s felt like my heart and entire being just might explode with joy. When people talk about MDMA they often talk about the “come down”, but fortunately I’ve not really experienced this since I was in university (when I was drinking 6 nights a week and hated myself/my life). In recent years, I’ve managed to carry these feelings of joy, love, and gratitude into the next day and—for the most part—I think they’ve overpowered the hangover or fogginess that might otherwise cause me to sink into dread.

*To be very clear, this is not a recommendation of any kind, and I’m not citing drug use as a broad stroke strategy for happiness. This is just my recent experience. Drugs can be dangerous and I dropped out of grade 11 chemistry on the 2nd day of class, so I have no idea about the science behind them.

I’ve known that it’s important to be kind to yourself, and to accept all (most?) of who you are. I’ve also made enormous strides in regards to my inner voice. But, until this recent experience, I think I’d only lessened my harshness toward myself, whereas in these past few weeks, I’ve dropped it almost entirely, and have replaced it with real compassion and acceptance.

As far as what’s actually helped me find these new levels of self-acceptance, a few other things have definitely been helpful:

• Reading bell hooks’ “The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity & Love”:
  Despite having grown, softened, and cultivated much more openness, love, and vulnerability in my life, hooks’ writing—and this book in particular—opened my eyes to many of the ways that patriarchal culture and attitudes have prevented/do prevent me from living and loving fully. Just beginning to understand this has allowed me to let go of a lot tension, stress, and self-rejection that I was carrying my whole life. It’s also helped me to see, revere, and fully embrace the wisdom and love that so many women in my life always had to offer, but that I didn’t have the capacity to recognize or make space for.
  

• Time with my Grandmother and my friends’ little daughters:
  Speaking of the women (and girls) in my life, I get to see my 92-year-old Grandmother and my dear friends’ little daughters (one is two, the other a few weeks old) almost every week, and I feel so damn lucky to say that. Of everyone I know, I think these three must be closest to god. All they do and all they are is love, and they remind me that I am capable of the same.
  

• Returning to yoga:
  I haven’t gotten back into real a rhythm yet—with the travelling and being sick—but after a multi-year hiatus, even just getting back to a few classes has helped me reconnect with my breath, and is helping me find more awareness and stillness. There are some fantastic instructors at the studio I go to in Halifax, called Shanti. I feel really grateful for them and for that space.
  

• Getting older:
  I’m 31 and, thankfully, I seem to be growing tired of fighting certain parts of my nature. Of allowing unhelpful anxieties to ruin my days. Sometimes I'll catch myself making the same silly mistake or caring too much about the same pointless thing for the 57,498th time and I’ll consciously think to myself, “we’re done caring about that”, and it’s gone.
  
  Don’t get me wrong, I still get anxious. I still get very anxious. But I’m getting better at naming the sensations and allowing myself to feel them, reducing their power over me and causing them to dissolve.
  

• Watching Wim Wenders’ film “Perfect Days”:

In the past I thought that, if I could just push myself hard enough, I could bend anything to my will. To change anything I didn’t like about myself, my life, or the world around me. My only tools were grit and force and determination.

These days, I’m happy to be adding acceptance to my tool belt, and now I guess my work will be to figure out when to use which tool. When I need to dig in and make change and when I need to let go and surrender to the happenings of the universe/nature.

In doing this dance, I’m reminded of the serenity prayer, widely used by Alcoholics Anonymous.

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

- Serentiy Prayer, used in Alcoholics Anonymous
Attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr, Lutheran theologian (1892–1971)

I’m starting to learn the difference.

And I think acceptance takes courage too.