The Journey of Self-Acceptance

When I used to live in Jakarta I commuted everywhere by train. It’s easy and fast. One of the things I liked to do while being on the train was to put on my earphones, listen to music, and observe people. Observing people is fun, just as long as if you do it not in a creepy kind of way, that is. Anyway, often, whenever I saw some attractive people on the train, thoughts like “She’s so pretty” or “My goodness, look how good his hair is” would come to mind. Then these thoughts would take a darker turn into “Why can’t I be as pretty as her?” or “Why can’t my hair be as smooth as his hair?”.

For the longest time, I had a hard time with self-acceptance. Specifically with my physical appearance. It’s hard enough growing up in a third world country where beauty standards revolve around having fair skin, long, straight, black hair, mannequin-like body with perky boobs and cute little tushie, it’s even harder growing up not having all of that. I have brown skin, curly hair, big-boned, and boobs that, well, let’s just say that they were non-existent before I gave birth to my two angels. And so, yes, I would get jealous of women that seemed like they were the exact copy of models in magazines, without even trying.

I am not proud to admit this, but there was a time in the past where I would go on a strict diet, straightened my hair, applied whitening cream onto my skin, for the sake of being pretty. Of course, for a short period of time, I was happy, getting all the attention and compliments. But it was all temporary. Soon, I felt like crap. That strict diet regime I did was making me hungry to the point where I would get super cranky for no reason. That whitening cream gave me pimples whenever I stopped using it. And it wasn’t until one of my school friends commented, and I quote “I like your curly hair. It wouldn’t be you without your curly hair” that I really had a wake-up call.

Diving deeper into my self-acceptance issue, I think the root of the problem was on how I was raised. Because, my self-acceptance issue back then was not limited only to physical appearance, but also in my inability in seeing my worth and accepting myself as a person. That being said, in no way that I’m putting the blame on my parents... Well, maybe I did at one point, but in relevance to my blog post about taking responsibility for myself, I no longer do.

For the sake of diving deeper, allow me to paint you a picture of how I was raised. My parents were strict and were kind of emotionally unavailable. They were the type of parents who rarely say the word “I love you” or “I’m proud of you” or even express their love by giving hugs. The way they show love was by giving me an education, a roof above my head, teaching me values and principles in life. And honestly, there was nothing wrong with that. That’s just how they know how to do it. That’s just how they got it from their parents. However, growing up in a household like this impacted me big time. Not knowing how to be loved, worse, not knowing if I was enough. And of course, what I did next was the same as any other soul seeker adolescents would do, I seek approval from others.

Many times in my past relationships, I would change myself to suit what my partner at the time wanted. If they like a feminine girl, I would be a girly girl. If they’re into horror movies, I would also like horror movies, even though they scare the shit out of me. All these efforts I did was for one reason and one reason only. To feel accepted. To voice my opinion is a huge no-no. Because I thought that that would make my partner want me less. I compromised a lot. Like, A LOT. And whenever the relationships didn’t work, I would fall into the abyss. Endless self-blame on my part, because I believed that the reason the relationship didn’t work was all my doing. I wasn’t compromising enough, I didn’t try hard enough, I wasn’t worthy of love and all that jazz.

I struggled with feeling like I wasn’t enough for so long. Seeking approval from others was my coping mechanism to feel accepted, to feel like I was enough. It’s silly, really, because as long as you are not able to accept yourself for who you truly are, others’ approval will never be the thing that solves your issue. And the more you seek approval from others, the more you lose sight of who you are. And just like I felt like crap for trying to change how I look to suit the beauty standard, soon, I felt like crap too for trying to change myself to suit what I think my previous partners want. Worse, I felt like I didn’t know myself anymore. To feel accepted, I have sacrificed the biggest asset I have that no one else has. Me.

People go to extraordinary lengths to feel good about themselves, but only a few are doing it because they are the sole reason they want to do it. Self-acceptance can be scary. It’s you being faced with all your flaws and admitting that they exist and it is the nature of humans to only want to accept things that are positive. But, self-acceptance also means that you are acknowledging that you are flawed, admitting that you are flawed, forgiving yourself of these flaws, and affirming who you are, with whatever strengths and weaknesses you possess. It’s empowering if you think about it.

My journey of self-acceptance is an ongoing journey. There are times where I struggle with it and there are times where I slide through it effortlessly. But one thing I can say about this journey is that I no longer live by other people’s standards. I no longer seek others’ approval. I stopped burdening myself with questions “Am I enough?” because I know I am. I no longer look at the mirror and complain about what I'm seeing. And the most important thing is that I no longer change to suit society.

At the end of the day, self-acceptance is not about changing who you are. It’s not about altering yourself. You don’t actually have to do anything to secure self-acceptance. You just have to change the way you look at yourself. With that said, it’s really up to you whether or not you want to change who you are, so long as you do it for the right reasons and you feel happy about it.