Welcoming and Freeing Ourselves

We are all conditioned by our culture to believe certain ideas about ourselves.

“Ending the gender binary is a world without gender policing, where people are able to look like they want and love like they want, because it’s their life and their body. We have to look at how we’ve outsourced that ownership to other people, to culture, and to identity.” Alok Vaid-Menon

We are all conditioned by our culture to believe certain ideas about ourselves, each other, and how the world “should be”. We know from our experience that we are included when we “fit” or fall into line, and excluded and shamed when we don’t. To add to the difficulty, we compare ourselves to a fantasy, a Disney Channel idea of life, where it all works out and we die at peace in our sleep at eighty surrounded by loving family and friends.

What do we do with the parts of ourselves that don’t match that ruthless ideal? Fitting in is literally a survival level need, especially for children. We repress unwelcome parts and only later realize the cost of being disconnected from ourselves and others.

True acceptance is when we can relax and share without fear of reprisal and when we don’t feel pressure from ourselves or from others to change ourselves to fit in. We find others who enjoy us as we are.