On Acceptance

In yoga the other night, the instructor said something to us about just letting go and letting go of our New Yorker tendencies to keep butting our heads against the wall until we can make things the way we want them.

I smiled and nodded my head, and understood what he was saying, but it took a day or two to really process his words and let them set in.

I looked in the mirror this morning and saw the lines on my forehead and under my eyes that I’ve noticed a bit more since hitting the big 3-0 last month. I’ve furrowed my brow at them as I slather on moisturizer, but this morning was different. I saw them and thought, “you know what? I’m not 22. It’s okay.”

As women, we have the tendency to focus on what’s not right in our lives. On what we can fix. We see these tendencies or issues as glaring imperfections in our lives, but often we’re the only ones who do.

Source: jlrey.tumblr.com via Theodora on Pinterest

And at the ripe old age of 30, I’ve realized that there’s really only a few people whose opinions I really care about, and people actually generally think more highly of you than you’d expect.

I’ve definitely struggled with keeping emotions bottled up and putting on a happy face, but my therapist has helped me realize how this causes things to snowball…and how that ended in panic attacks for me.

So for today, I accept myself for who I am and embrace what I like about myself and move to grow in the other areas.

14 comments on “On Acceptance

  1. Gia

    Beautiful post. I agree with you 100%. It’s a difficult thing to accept ourselves especially when society is always making it seem like we should be looking for betterment.

    Reply
  2. Emily

    Great post! I completely agree with you. Isn’t it crazy how a little yoga can make you realize this….I always notice I reflect for a few days after a great yoga class.

    Reply
  3. Mom

    Those lines that you see can come at any age, it is the stress in our lives that hurt us, and hurt our health and outlook on life.
    Enjoy yourself, a smart lady once said, put the music on and start dancing, she was called NANA!!!!

    Reply
  4. Jess

    ANOTHER beautiful post — full of honesty and real words that we ALL need to hear.I am thinking you wrote this mainly as one of those ‘blog it out’ posts that we all need to do from time to time, but honestly it’s THESE posts that I love most. A simple message, a true one, and something we could all do a damn better job of focusing on. on accepting ourselves for who we are and who we promise to be vs. focusing on who we are not and harping on the things that are 1) out of our control and 2) not worth spending so much time and energy on…because we can’t fix them or change them so WHY waste that precious time?? Annd now I’m rambling. Woops. Anyway, loved this post. As usual. xo.

    Reply
  5. Vicky

    Have no fear, that isn’t just a New Yorker way of life, it can been seen out here on the left coast, too.

    I love that Eleanor Roosevelt quote, it’s so true. I read one from Adele recently that was along the lines of ‘Sure, I have insecurities. I just don’t hang out with people that point them out to me.’ Exactly the kind of people we want in our lives! Way too many fun things in life to experience to waste precious energy on the negative.

    Reply
  6. Fiona Jesse Giffords

    If you give chance people has the tendency to make you upset for the things which are not in your hand. Rather than thinking about what you don’t have you should be grateful to god what you have and how well you can manage with the things.

    Reply
  7. Jennifer

    I think the mental benefits of yoga almost outweigh the physical – and of course the two are intertwined anyway. But one of the great joys of going to class is finding a protected environment away from the stresses and strains of work, life, and everything else, where I can practice just observing, not judging, and let go.

    Reply

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