Living a Real and Authentic Life - Struggling

I am Struggling . . . 

I am Struggling to Accept . . . 

I am Struggling to Accept My Whole Person . . .

The Challenge

I don't like to admit it but I am struggling right now with the thought of not accepting myself. Throughout this blog, I have shared my thoughts on Acceptance without Understanding. It hurts to realize that I may not be accepting of the whole me.

The premise behind acceptance without understanding being that you do not need to understand anyone in order to accept they are a human being, so stop trying to understand in order to accept someone.

I write this in hopes that others may have gone through this process can offer insight or those who are also going through this find these words provide some help as I try and unpack my own situation.

For me, I have made reference to my birth self as another person, always in the third person. I would blame things of the past on 'him', I was not dis-associative in that I knew it was always my past. In order to be my true authentic self, I wanted to focus on learning to be me without the encumbrance of who I was, what I was, or how I felt.

At this point of my journey, I need to resolve me to be a single person with a past, present, and future that cumulatively is the whole me.

Perceptions of Self

You see the person I was before being authentic knew how to act in a role that was honed through decades. Being that fake there was very little to love from a self-reflective perspective. Yes, I know many people loved who I was, and many continue to love me still. Not just who they thought I was but the person who was acting that role.

You see that by making my past a 3rd person other self, it was easy to start separating the behaving through acting to being authentic. You see the one thing I did not want was to act at being me, I wanted to learn to be completely authentic, except I didn't know how and I have been learning. It's hard work.

It was this thought pattern that brought me to speaking in 3rd person and referring to my past as another self, always knowing it was my past, but 'him'.

This way of thinking, along with the very valid issue of dead naming really became a way to 'kill' off that person. It made sense so many people mourned for 'him' that it would seem these were in alignment!

It was easy for me to love myself for the first time ever as I emerged like a butterfly, but continue to hate 'him', after all, what was there to love about him?

A lot it seems!!

Me, Myself, and I

I was pointed out to me by one of the very wise women I know if I have empathy for 'him'?  I couldn't answer!  Why would I have empathy for 'him', he never was strong enough to stand up for me and it took 40+ years to allow me the freedom to be authentic.

She pointed out that he put others needs before mine for decades, surely that deserved empathy. I reflected on that and teared up realizing she was right. I put others needs before mine for decades at the cost of hurting inside for over 4 decades.

You see I need him to be part of me, I need to accept him as part of me, I need to be a whole me again.

Even writing this post I have to choose my words very careful depending on the context I was writing from in this post. Going forward I must refer to my past, my present, and my future.

So Dead Naming is Not a Thing?

As a quick refresher, Dead Naming is to refer to me using my birth name. I was, am, and will continue to be Cynthia in every reference. So yes Dead Naming is still inappropriate and insensitive, but I was also insensitive referring to myself in 3rd person.

Just call me Cynthia and use She/her/hers pronouns regardless of the time frame you are referring to and we are good.

Conclusion

I am not in a place to tell you this was part of my journey, referring to a past success. This is my current journey as I struggle to reclaim all of me.

If you find me making a historical reference to my past using 3rd person, just remind me to stop struggling and accept my past with understanding.

Thanks for listening, HUGS