Breaking Society’s Standards – A Journey to Self-Acceptance

I had just finished a tennis lesson, and went up to the cafeteria to freshen up and get something to drink. There was this friend inviting me to sit with her, so I joined. While waiting for her coffee and my Gatorade, she said that she needed to speak to me about something. She explained her concern over certain gossips that were running around about me at the club I used to train in back home.

Around this time I was going through depression, being medicated and feeling confused, stuck, lost over everything. I had just started therapy, finally trying to understand everything I was feeling. Trying to find myself again, redefine who I was, now that all my previous plans had fallen apart. I was giving myself the permission to start from scratch and basically tennis was the only thing keeping me sane and safe at the time.

This person said that people were worried that as I just broken up from my long-term relationship and was having a close friendship with Erika, I was vulnerable to being “seduced” by her, that she was taking advantage of my situation. All of these comments and conclusions based solely on the fact that Erika had dated another girl in the past.

She said she worried about me because she cared for me as her own daughter and continued by recommending that I should stop being friends with her because she “could take advantage of me and it was better that people didn’t continue saying these things about me”.

So, there I was, at my 29 years of age being told who to be friends with.

You might be wondering what my answer was, right?

Well, good thing I had my radar on already, because I was determined to listen to my own wishes and not ignore myself anymore. I understood this advice made NO SENSE to me.

It was my turn to speak up, something knew to me. Tears filled up my eyes and a very uncomfortable feeling took over my body. I was SO not used to this. In the past I would have agreed and execute, but not this time.

My answer: “Thank you for letting me know. However, I am going through one of the hardest moments of my life and Erika has been a friend where I’ve found safety in being vulnerable with my process as she is going through a very similar situation herself which allows us to be there for one another. I think I am old enough to know with whom I can be friends with and I really don’t care what anyone else has to say about it.”

That’s how I knew everyone in my surroundings (mainly the club I used to train in back home) where making up these fantasies about us when all we were was friends.

When I shared this with Erika, I was shocked by her reaction. She was surprised by all of it, specially with that being said by a person she barely had spoken to. However, she wasn’t affected like I was. Why? I wondered.

Many incomprehensible things were said, as if she was this wizard that could poison me or anyone that surrounded her. People “were scared about their children” as if she was some kind of horrible pedophile.

I came to realize that she was so sure of who she was, that those comments didn’t define her nor affected her. She knew herself enough to know that none of it was true. It all came down to self-knowledge and self-acceptance.

People had this fixation in our friendship, when that’s all it was…just a regular female friendship. We managed to keep our friendship a space of peace and calm when there was pure turmoil around each of our lives, specially in mine.

However, the biggest challenge came further on when we did started to develop deeper feelings towards each other. I could have easily ignored the feeling, as the message I constantly received was how negative and unacceptable this was for me. But I kept on asking myself how something that felt right for me, and gave me inner peace could be considered so bad for others.

I decided to choose myself one more time and accept what I was feeling. It has been a decision I don’t regret taking even with everything it unfold. Since then, many other things happened where I was challenged to accept myself above society standards. And they will continue to happen in the present moment.

I learned how to accept my own needs and wishes by allowing to question those of others and speaking up for myself, understanding that whatever I feel is valid even if no one else agrees with it.

As Erika says: “no matter what you do or how you do it, people will always have something to say about it. That’s why it is so important to accept who we are and embrace it”.

I hope you become clear of the person you really are and accept it -no matter what anybody else have to say- so that you can start speaking up your truth and live authentically.