Acceptance

I recently turned 29 and as many people do on or around their birthday, I took some time to reflect on my life so far and who I had become. It was in doing so that I realised somewhere along the lined I’d stopped being quite so hard on myself. I’d stopped berating every decision, feeling guilty for everything I’d not done or wondering what I ‘should’ be doing instead.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m only human and I still have moments where I really, truly care what people think. But those moments are increasingly becoming few and far between. I now have a quiet inner confidence where I’m at peace with who I am, I can smile when I think about my personal accomplishments and I no longer doubt the choices I make. I can’t say getting older has made me loads wiser (those who know me have always said I’ve had a old head on young shoulders), but it has made me more accepting. 

I accept the journey I’ve been on. I accept the traumatic moments in my life, because they’ve shaped me and made me who I am. I accept the people I’ve loved who haven’t always shown me love back, because they taught me resilience and self worth. I accept that at 29, I don’t have all the answers like the 15 year old me thought I’d have by now. That’s okay. I’m content with my life.

In learning to accept, my issue with anxiety are decreasing. But I also accept managing anxiety is something I may always have to do; I’m okay with that too. I’ve spent so many years wishing I was someone else, worrying I wasn’t good enough, pushing myself to be perfect that I just don’t want to do it anymore. Suffering with anxiety doesn’t make me flawed, it makes me human. Learning to finally stop battling with anxiety flare ups, or scolding myself for ‘still having them’ means they’re just not as powerful anymore. I’ve taken the power back. If I have a flare up, I look at it objectively – a moment where I’m struggling, that will surely pass.

I wish I had some wise words for how I had this epiphany, but I suspect it wasn’t the waving of a magic wand that got me here but instead a slow, quiet learning of acceptance. The replacing a negative thought with two positive ones. The rationalisation of the crippling fears that would fill my nightmares. Filling up my time with personal passions, rather than personality criticisms.

I simply stopped fighting and instead embraced who I was. I’m able to smile when I think of what I’ve become.