the happy cactus

The word acceptance has numerous connotations and is dependent on context of the conversation. We as humans interpret the meaning of the word in conjunction with gestures, intonation, facial expression and body language. In essence, you can verbalise your acceptance however your body and actions can betray your sincerity. The dictionary denotes a simple meaning; receiving approval or favour. Acceptance is entrenched into our DNA and it is why we constantly pursue connection and love, even in toxic or dysfunctional ways. To accept someone is to know their goodness as well as their flaws, insecurities and ugliness; accepting warts and all. Like all things in life, there is a balance so accepting the good things and rejecting the bad is not to fully accept that person (my belief). Of course there are traits, styles or behaviours that we don’t accept and nor should we. Acceptance is what we crave, what we yearn for and what drives our inhibitions. We might not openly verbalise it but rather we subconsciously seek it out, even when we truly know the relationship is fraught with bad blood. Speaking as a long standing member of people-pleaser society, I have struggled with acceptance in my adolescence and up until my early forties. What?? I hear you say…yes, really. Only in the last year really have I grown into myself and feel content with who I am.

In hindsight, which is such a beautiful but frustrating thing, after mum’s death, I just wanted love and acceptance. That’s all. I just wanted to be loved for who I was, not compared amongst my siblings/step-siblings. Little 8 year old me was either a little dense and couldn’t read the room, or I was a glutton for feeling constant deep disappointment and hot rejection. Like an addictive drug, I just wanted a scrap of a smile, or pat on the back or a nod in my direction and I would not be swayed from my need to acquire the next fix which was few and far between. Always trying a different angle, morphing into what I saw as acceptable, altering my entire core just to grasp some of the love I so desperately craved for. Unattainable, unreachable, unbelievable. I was a child who was in need of love and acceptance especially since we had just lost our mum, our universe, our foundation. I was a child and the adults should have known better. I was a child and I should have been seen. But they didn’t. It was their responsibility to know and do better. As in the case with blended families emanates an entire trunk load of baggage brimming and bristling with insecurities, inability to love, hurts, pains, childhood dysfunctions, abandonment issues yadda-yadda-yadda.

Embarking on any new relationship will always carry some sort of baggage; it is the way of humans to accrue bad experiences and emotions, and stuff them into a dirty old bag if unsorted in a healthy and healing way. As was the case for our blended family. Forty odd years ago, there was not much literature or research around to assist in our parents/grandparents in dealing with any form of suffering. Couple that with a systemic family attitude of keeping your business as your business and not airing dirty laundry, nor asking for any help or advice is one of the most toxic patterns of behaviour that has impacted my generation, my parents and my grandparents. It prevented the bond of human connection and promoted a societal view that imperfection is not acceptable nor will it be tolerated. Remember, I am speaking of my own experiences and that of my forebears.

When your childhood is forged upon an unstable foundation where your emotional needs are not addressed or nor fulfilled, it places you on this weird wavering path of instability. Your emotional health is disfigured and you end up carrying it your entire life like an old pair of shoes. The older I get the more I have begun to unpack the dysfunction and unhealthy behaviours of my parents. They never dealt with their own stuff and still, to this day, it hangs off them like an unwanted carcass permeating the air with stale beliefs and outdated mindsets. They will never change. I have compassion for them because they do not have the skills to shift themselves out of the stagnate furrow they are living in.

Raising my own children highlighted my own insecurities and shortcomings while at the same time triggering me to analyse my childhood trauma because after all, that is where it branches from. I grew in tainted soil. I wandered through the multitude of emotions that consistently undulated like an ocean current dragging me down to the bottom, only to resurface and face another myriad of bitter waves. You are faced with two options. One – you can search for acceptance and spend your entire life blindly seeking it or, two – you can yield to the fact that you are not going to get acceptance and really, you are ok with not receiving it. I chose the latter. I must admit it took me until early forties when I had the revelation of why do I need it? I had spent my life desperately craving, needing, wanting love and acceptance from my blended family only to finally realise I am enough. I choose to be enough. I choose to show compassion and forgiveness to those who were not able/capable to love me. I choose to allow my past sufferings to be let go and accept what was. I have acceptance of myself, acceptance of my present and acceptance of my future. I have left my childhood cocoon behind and choose to be a beautiful, full-functioning butterfly.

I am enough. I always was. Time to spread my wings.