Self-Acceptance - my personal form of rebellion
And you can listen to an audio of this post below!
I recently wrote a post about self-acceptance and how that process has done wonders for my mental health. In that blog post I featured this poem which I wrote a few months ago.
Some days I am not a work in progress. Some days I am a rebel. A child throwing a tantrum. A runaway train.
Some days I'm antisocial. I'm unproductive. I'm lazy.
Some days I am NOT moving forward with grace, instead I am being dragged kicking and screaming. And some days I am sliding stealthily backwards into the comfort of my memories.
Some days I am NOT keeping the faith. Instead - I throw it out the window of my moving car. Some days I am NOT fighting the fear. Instead I am taking it out to dinner, and then for cocktails, and then back to bed and letting it whisper sweet nothings in my ear.
Some days I am not the best version of myself. I am green with envy, crimson with rage, blinded by lust. I am chocolate and vodka.
And on those days, I am every bit as powerful as I am on others, and I do NOT use my powers for good. I am Lex Luthor. The Sheriff of Nottingham. Cruella Deville. Captain Hook.
I am not my best self every day. Some days I am my bad self, and sometimes, those are the best days of all.
My journey to self-acceptance wasn’t an easy road, and I wouldn’t say that I am all the way there. However, I have recently been reflecting on its importance as I have been having conversations about race.
I was inspired to start these conversations late last year, and I have continued them in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, under the theme “Come to the edge”, after a blog post that I wrote some weeks ago with the same title. I have had several conversations with people from various backgrounds and who hold different identities, and I have been touched by the level of honesty and open conversations that we have been able to have.
The conversations are about coming to the edge, about leaving our homogeneous lives, our homogeneous conversations, and coming to the edges of what we know, and being changed in the process. In one of my recent conversations, the topic of self acceptance came up. It occurred to me that we often think about decolonization and anti-racism work as the work of accepting others, but the truth is that for me, a huge part of this work has been about accepting myself.
I was reflecting recently on the idea that in order for dominant culture to prevail - all of us uphold it in one way or another. This isn’t about blame, but about the realization that I needed to investigate what ways did I need decolonization as a Black woman, and what effect did White Supremacy have on me? Since so much of dominant culture upholds Whiteness as the gold standard, and White supremacy is built on the idea that non-Whites are inferior, then I had to ask myself - how was I judging myself in ways that upholds the narrative that White supremacy has built for me?
One example that comes to mind immediately is one that I have been thinking about since I was a teenager in school. While I was fortunate to read books by Caribbean authors, I was depressed to find that they were always about the struggle. There was a part of me that felt like they highlighted the worst aspects of our lives. And while it was important to highlight the negative things that might otherwise be hidden in our communities, I can honestly say that as a child who lived more in her books than I did in reality, I was a bit disappointed to be born a Caribbean woman (as opposed to a middle class White schoolgirl who went to school in the English countryside!) Did this mean I could not get happily ever after?
In truth - I didn’t feel a great deal of pride in who I was. It drove my desire to write the type of stories that I want to read, about the type of life that I lived, and wanted to live. But it also drove me to be a perfectionist, to have a harsh inner critic, and to judge myself by standards that no-one could live up to. I felt too big and too tall next to my friends when I moved to England, and liked to shrink to the back of photos. I fought with my weight so that I could buy clothes that did not accommodate my hips and breasts - no matter what size I was.
And while I am comfortable with my dark complexion, I have seen a lot of colourism all around me. A propensity for lighter skin and straighter hair. A preference for so-called “brown-skin girls”.
At some level, I feel as if the narrative of White Supremacy - which was still around me in magazines, and on TV meant that while I didn’t hate myself, I also didn’t quite accept myself either, instead I judged myself by invisible standards that I could not quite put my finger on it. In my conversation today, I realized that my self-acceptance is counter cultural, and an important step in my own decolonization work. (And I suspect that this is an issue that many people face who aren’t Black women from the Caribbean. I have seen the fight for self-acceptance in many of my friends from all backgrounds and in all races - including those who are White.)
Dominant culture does not want me to accept myself - my perfect imperfections, my dark skin, my extra pounds and curves, my non-conformity. Dominant culture is about me remaining fixated on a target and a standard that I can never reach, keeping me exhausted, ashamed, self-conscious and a little self-loathing. Keeping me focused on my perceived shortcomings (and those of others) instead of using my energy to do real work in the world. Keeping my inner critic louder than my intuition. And the reality is that one of the side effects of not accepting myself, is bias against others. When we think we are low down on a hierarchical spectrum, then we are also thinking about who is higher, and who is lower.
At the root of anti-blackness are a people who aren’t even sure if they like themselves, being oppressed by people who don’t know if they should like themselves either.
While this does not negate the other elements of control and inequity in society that we need to fight against and change, I still feel like self-acceptance is a powerful form of activism. Accepting myself is my personal form of rebellion. I believe that our ability to genuinely accept ourselves is the start of the journey of us genuinely accepting others exactly as they are. It is the beginning of us rewriting the narratives of dominant cultures, to include the experiences of all of us. It is the firm foundation from which we can fight White supremacy. It is the belief that will give us compassion for ourselves, and empathy for others. It is what will allow us to form genuine connections, and to come to the edge. It will make for more meaningful interactions over optics and performative comments. It will make for a focus on people over perfection. It will bring humanity to the movement.
It was a reminder to me that my self-acceptance game is still in play, and that it is important for me, and for those around me, and for upholding the values that I have of community, justice and equity. It was a reminder to me that on all sides of this movement are people, and that compassion is an important tool in building a more just and equitable world. It was a nudge to me to continue on my journey to becoming self-approved.
How is your self acceptance a form of activism? How will it assist you in your own anti-racism work?
As for me - based on the poem I wrote some time ago, I have come up with my 10 commandments of self-acceptance. These are reminders to me to continue on this journey both for my own mental health, and for the changes I want to see in the world.
My 10 commandments of self-acceptance
Some days I am not a work in progress
Less apologies for being exactly who I am...for not wearing makeup... for taking some time for myself, or putting myself first.
I get to write my own narrative.
Perfection as I know it is a myth
I am not a self-help project.
The desires and ideas that I have are valid, and are there to guide me to being exactly who I need to be.
There is no such thing as “normal”
Standing out is the new blending in
Accepting myself is a form of activism.
More self acceptance! Less Fucks.
I want to hear one of yours!
And I send you big love from a small island