Finding Self-acceptance

I know who I am and who I am not.  So, after a long day of work, Friday evening I agreed to tag along with my talent agent daughter to watch one of her clients perform in the theater production of “Sister Act”.  And why not?  The orchestra seats were complimentary and I’ve wanted to see the production for a while.  What I neglected to take into  consideration before agreeing to the excursion was that I’m an introvert and my daughter is an extrovert.  So, I was in for an exceptionally long evening beyond the play itself.  When I finally got home, I was exhausted,  but we were both deeply satisfied as Type A, driven, achievers.

Before the play began, my daughter quickly engaged in conversation with the couple sitting beside her, while I felt zero desire to involve myself with anything other than the program.  After the play, I stood alone, about 15 feet from the exit so she wouldn’t feel pressured to leave.  Unable to simply waste that time, I caught up on the day’s news with the help of my cell phone apps: The New York Times, The Guardian, and CNN.  Occasionally, I would glance up to find my daughter fully engaged with members of the cast, including her client and the lead who played Deloris.  It turned out that the two of them sang together for Disney some years prior.  I’m proud that in that moment, my daughter was free to be fully herself and that I, too, was comfortable being myself.

I’ve often found it a bit perplexing that we don’t really get to choose who we are. We have to learn who we are.  And hopefully, we can accept and even appreciate who we are.  We don’t get to choose our race, gender, sexual orientation, abilities, or likes and dislikes.  We don’t get to choose our personalities or our strengths.  We don’t get to choose our parents either, which I find to be grossly unfair since in many ways they influence our development.  Everyday, I feel like I won the lottery with my mother because without her, my self-esteem would be close to zero.  This woman had the insight and thankfully, the means, to invest in my self-discovery and self-acceptance.  I can see in retrospect that her parental role took the shape of building my moral character, ensuring a strong work ethic, opening opportunities,  and encouraging success and resilience.  She somehow knew how to parent me even though I was very different from her.

I was one of those children who would hide away for hours at a time, reading or daydreaming.  My favorite spot was behind this big orange chair in the corner or her bedroom.  At my grandparents home in Michigan, it was this tiny little attic.  She never once implied that my behavior was abnormal.  I have great admiration for her because she was a social butterfly, a true extrovert.  For a long time, I wished I was like her.  But I wasn’t.  I credit her example and encouragement for my social development.  She carted me to social events where I was mostly an observer.  Although I am an introvert, because of her, I am not at all shy.  But to this day, socializing wears me out.  My mother  allowed me to be the introvert who needed a lot of quiet time, the girl who was content to be alone in my room, playing, learning, or creating.  Despite her talent for music and love of dance, she allowed me to quickly abandon piano, then flute, ballet and then hula (yes hula)  for sports, reading, writing, cooking, sewing, and decorating.  I followed her example with my own children and allowed them to lead the way.  Each one is moral, hardworking, persistent, and accomplished in his or her own way, and I couldn’t be any prouder of them.  Before the notion of going with one’s strengths became popular, my mother had already instilled that idea into my psyche.

Since going into educational counseling I’ve invested a lot of time and energy taking personality tests and career tests, and leadership tests.  One of my favorites is a widely used test from the business world that has also found its way into educational settings.  I’ve taken the “Strengths Finder” assessment three different times and each time, they confirm what I already know about myself.   I’m an achiever, an analytical, a maximizer (like my mother), an input, and a connector.  The assessment is available at strengthsfinder.com.  The Strengths Finder book is great and so is “Now, Discover Your Strengths” by the same authors as “First, Break all the Rules” which I read in my doctoral program at UCLA.

The important thing is that I’m glad to know myself and even happier to accept myself.  That’s not to say that there are not days when I wish I was more this or a little less that.  It probably would have been nice to meet the actors in the play Friday night.  I certainly had the opportunity and had I been someone else, I would have taken it.