On self-love vs self acceptance

I recently watched Inside Out 2 and it's safe to say I've made two more purchases to see it again. It is a cinematic masterpiece!! chefs kiss. This movie is a GIANT juicy wisdom nugget in itself. Short story long - this movie characterizes our emotions - which IMO, is the spectrum of the human experience. Key emotions they highlight are Sadness, Joy, Disgust, Embarrassment, Fear, Anxiety and this other one I can't pronounce but it basically is the Non-Chalant/I'm-Too-Cool-For-This emotion. The movie takes us through Riley journey (age 13) and her experiences with making a hockey team, puberty, learning fitting in, hormonal body changes, and maintaining friendships.

After the movie, I couldn't help but wonder how different my generation would be if we had this movie as a resource when I was a kid. Let's go there for a moment. Maybe, little Christina (inner child) would operate more often from a lens of "I am enough" vs "I am not enough". Maybe I would have be more embracing of the tough moments in life and letting them be a part of me, rather than outside of me. Maybe I'd have even more an appreciation for ALL emotions, and not just for "Joy". I don't blame myself, as I know our current societal constructs don't exactly set us up for success.

The key post reflection thought here, is the title of my blog. I digressed a little before getting here, well, because I made a commitment to myself that I would just let my heart guide my writing, and my brain typically has a minimum of 210 footnotes LOL!! OK. Reel it in Christina. This movie got me reflecting loads about the differences between self-love and self acceptance.

To me, self-love is defined as the need to love every part of ourselves. Admittedly, I followed that belief from high school until this past year. While I can see why this definition can be beneficial, I can also see it being detrimental. Think about it, do we even love everything about others? No, because we are human, and there are the light and dark moments that make up the human experience. The concept of "self-love" seems to put so much pressure on us to love it all when really, it's very okay to not love everything. On the flip side, self-acceptance is acknowledging that the light and dark exists, being okay the light and dark, and not have a desire to fix the dark. I like to remix compassion + understanding with self-acceptance (they say add yo own flavour and spice ;))

I'll share an example. At times I can be "the fixer" when my friends share their challenges with me; my immediate reaction is often: "ok Christina come up with a million solutions and put them out of pain". If I were to look at this scenario from a self-love perspective, it could say: "I love being a fixer! It comes from a good place so it's all good!". In contrast, a perspective from self-acceptance layered w/ compassion + understanding could be: "I know I can be a fixer at times, it is a part of me. I can see that it's not helpful in situations when people just want to be listened to and heard. My gut is to offer solutions because I don't want to see my loved ones in pain, and I learn that sometimes sitting with the pain and listening is already enough".

Speaking freely here, my hope is that the narrative around self-love will be equally as important as self-acceptance one day, and this movie is my first glimmer of hope. It's not realistic to love all parts of ourselves, but it is realistic to accept the light and dark parts of ourselves as beautifully imperfect people. There is no pick and choose the good parts, and throw out the bad in the world of self-acceptance. In the world of self-love, there is. More and more these days I notice so much more compassion within myself when I'm facing harder emotions. Rather than slamming the door whenever Disgust, Fear or Anxiety comes for a visit, I've been learning to instead invite them in, learning why it's there, and working with them. They are all meant to work together after all.

One last experience to share that aligns with my path to self acceptance (it's an ongoing process) is my journey with acne. I've had acne since I was in grade 3, and people used to call me pizza face. I'll never forget this boy named Brock... during P.E. while playing dodgeball he would randomly approach me and say "Hey Christie you should probably stop eating so much chocolate because your pimples are really bad". They weren't the pimples that went away in a few days either, they were the cystic ones that loved to take a vacation on my face for weeks and they hurt :(!

I remember running home and hating the mirror because I felt unworthy, ashamed, and unloveable. My internal narrative was "I am not worthy of love if I have acne" I've been to a handful of dermatologists, tried basically every skin care and nothing worked until I mustered up the courage to stop wearing foundation, as the reason why my skin flared up was because I needed to let my pores breath more and stop wearing foundation.

I'll never forget the first day I walked outside of my home without foundation. I stood outside my balcony for 10 minutes and walked back in.  I felt vulnerable, naked, constantly fearful that people would be stare at nothing but my acne. The second day I walked outside my house to the end of the block and came home. The third day I walked to the convenience store, where I saw one person and went home. The fourth day I walked to the gas station, where I maybe saw 5 people and bought a chocolate bar. Over time, I was eventually able to go to the mall and more public spaces. It wasn't until 2021 that I was fully able to walk out bare face, the journey took at least 3 years and it is one of my proudest commitments that I made.

It wasn't easy mustering up some courage to write about my acne journey, and my hope in sharing is to remind myself that the path to self-acceptance isn't going to be like a light switch. It is going to built with the tiniest baby steps over a period of time, whether it's battling acne or learning how to accept all our emotions.

Ok, my brain is tired now - toodaloo honeydews

Signing out,

LilCDawg