Excuses, excuses.

Today is all about challenging our excuses. I have lots of reasons I use to throw roadblocks up for myself. My toolbox is absolutely stuffed full of ways to get around or avoid making an honest effort. Sometimes I think it’s easier to live in self-deprecating chaos for no reason other than me being used to it. Yeah, it’s misery but at least it’s misery I know. I find myself in a place of resistance when it comes to loving myself.

I’ve seen self-love as indulgent and kind of arrogant. I kind of think that this idea comes from my colonial culture where everything is framed as a competition, every man for himself. It’s like, I think that by valuing myself I am devaluing others around me. This is a huge lesson in humility because I am neither amazing nor terrible by comparison. I am simply human with limitations and strengths like any other. I am not striving to be the best in the world, but rather the best at being me.

This is starting to sound an awful lot like that magic word I hear so often.

Acceptance.

I know, I know… if I can accept myself, faults and all, there’s a good chance I’ll be able to learn to love who I am. So long as I am fighting to be someone that I am not I will never truly be at peace. And it’s not even that I’m pretending to be someone I’m not. I’m always my authentic self but I am also always faulting that self. I’m constantly drilling into my brain that I am not good enough the way I am.

Let’s just cut through the bullshit here and be real,, ok? I tell myself that I am unworthy of love because that’s always been my interpretation of what happened with my father. My entire self-image is based on my belief that my father left my life because of me. I am stuck in a nine-year-old’s emotional turmoil and have been for the better part of a decade if not my entire life. I have been living my life begging for unconditional love and acceptance, but have been far too damaged to truly receive it.

Why? Because I can’t seem to believe that I am lovable. I have never been able to accept my faults and mistakes. I have never deliberately scrubbed away all of my own judgments and hangups to bask in the raw beauty that is being alive.

Here I am, made of stardust and water, just as worthy of love as everyone else.