I’m a Contradiction and I Love It

Well, sometimes.

Most of my mental struggles in life come from trying to reconcile various contradictions within and around me. When I can’t figure it out, I feel ashamed. That is a rough place to be.

Some examples:

I love to move my body doing things like dance, hike, swim, and yoga and I love to binge watch Netflix in bed for a good 12 hours.

I can feel angry, sad, frustrated, and relieved all at the same time.

I love making healthy meals from organic, whole foods and I love to eat a Whataburger meal with a pint of ice cream for desert.

I can be the sweetest, most thoughtful person and I can be selfish.

That person who said they loved me also hurt me deeply. And vice versa.

You get the idea.

So there are times in my life when something comes along at just the right moment and in the perfectly right way to where there’s no room for me to deny it or ignore it. These moments are always followed by a major realization and a perspective shift that improves my well-being dramatically.

Acceptance is one of those ideas for me right now though it’s been in my awareness for almost 10 years. Not only self-acceptance, but acceptance of my reality in any given moment and acceptance of others as they are.

In the past, I equated acceptance with giving up or not caring or whatever. But now I see the nuance, the subtlety. I can accept myself for who I am, what I am, where I am, when I am, how I am, and why I am yet still allow room for growth and change. I can accept my past, the people in or not in my life, the present, how things have and are playing out around me yet still allow room for shifts and dreams.

This may sound contradictory. It is. And that’s okay.

I’m reading a book by a poet philosopher biologist and it’s so fascinating. The author tipped the scales for me to fully accept that existence is a contradiction and therefore so am I. In any given moment we are both living/growing and dying/decaying. From a cellular level to a spiritual level. Yep. I like it.

There’s no escaping this contradiction of existing if you are a life form in this biosphere. You live. You die. All the time and in various ways. I’m a living dying contradiction and I don’t have to reconcile anything. I can be all the things I want or don’t want and it’s okay. Accepting myself, others, and life ‘as is’ allows me to feel more relaxed which in turn allows for shifts to happen.

Funny thing that acceptance.