E is for Experience

Oh how I’ve wrestled with what to write here for E. For the last month I was going to write about my turbulent emotional nature, or maybe about my education, or maybe even about that time I lived in England for a year. England is such a funny place. They have such charming bees. Australian bees are all sleek and streamlined, built for speed; but the ol’ gentle bumble bee comes across as this eccentric man with a bowler hat and oversized map, coming up and asking if you know where the nearest tube station is. Really, they are so cute! We so don’t do insects right in Australia!

So, E is for experience.

All my life I’ve been madly trying to do and be what I thought other’s expected me to do or be. It was like the exact definition of being inauthentic. For me, to be authentic means to accept myself how I am and to accept others how they are, and live on a happy rainbow of acceptance. My lack of self-acceptance has lead me down some bizarre paths, like that time I did nursing at Uni.

In the beginning of 2005 I had a boyfriend who I’d known for about 2 weeks. With his absolute profound knowledge of who I am as a human being, he told me I would make a great nurse. I, with my absolute profound lack of self-acceptance and an all-consuming fear that no-one is ever going to love the “real me”, agreed with him. I’m very into telling people what I think they want to hear.

So I spent a year timidly poking people with needles, giving sponge-baths where I ended up more soaked than the clients, and failing the Human Anatomy exam twice. Turns out I didn’t make a great nurse. The boyfriend didn’t love my neurotic caricature of what I thought he wanted me to be either, so that relationship didn’t last. Weird.

In hindsight I am grateful for that experience. Choosing a career based on trying to get a boy to like you doesn’t lead to the road of happiness. In fact, none of my relationships have lasted despite my great efforts to not be myself. It’s a funny thing. I always thought that I would be happy if I was loved, but I was equally convinced that I was unlovable. What a conundrum! In my attempts to get this love that I craved, I would portray myself as an idyllic version of a person I thought my partner would like. The thing is, even if they did love the portrayal, they weren’t loving “me”.

I’ve been guilty of doing the opposite too. I’d fall in love with the idea of the person, but not the person themselves. I would have expectations of them based on no evidence. I have suffered great disappointments through my lack of acceptance. Fantasising is fine when used properly, with caution and reverence, but I think living in a fantasy that involves denying a person the right to be themselves might be crossing a line.

I’m reasonably sure now that happiness doesn’t depend on being loved. My parents have always loved me but that hasn’t been enough to make me happy. I’ve had boyfriends love me but that hasn’t been enough. Being loved is great and loving people is great, they are both things I treasure and I am so grateful that I have an abundance of love in my life. What I’ve noticed is that my happiness seems to be directly proportional to my level of acceptance of things in my life. When I wasn’t accepting myself or others I was dreadfully unhappy.

The thing that has helped me the most with getting acceptance is being thankful and practicing gratitude. In my experience, the more gratitude I have → the more acceptance I have → the happier I am. They build on each other. This “attitude of gratitude” can start as simply as appreciating an aesthetically pleasing flower. Sure, everything might suck, but that pansy looks like a boy-cat’s face! Maybe things are okay right now in this moment.

Happy to be thankful

This year I started studying again at the Canberra Institute of Technology (CIT). I’m doing a certificate in Community Services Work because my cousin told me I’d make a great Child Protection Officer. In truth I would probably make a dreadful Child Protection Officer. Even if I had more assertiveness, my temperament is just too emotional. The job would break my heart. Respect to those who can do it, it would take a strong hearted person to make those calls. (Not heartless, I believe people who can be objective enough to do what is best for a child without getting caught in their emotions have very strong hearts.)

Even though I don’t think I’m cut out for Child Protection work, I am loving being at CIT. I am learning so much about myself. One of my teachers said to me a lot of people come to CIT as a means to an end, that studying is about getting a specific job, but for me this might be the end; that studying is about finding out what my inner gifts are and how I can apply those in the outside world. It’s not saying that I don’t intend to get a job at the end of my studies, but I’m one of those people that are in it just to be in it. The experience is helping me chisel away at the parts which aren’t me, and building up the parts that are.

I am so grateful that I’ve had the opportunity to take this time to discover myself. I’m understanding things on a gut feeling level, as well as an intellectual level.  I love learning, I love my brain, and I’m loving this experience. I have a feeling I’ve only scratched the surface and I am so looking forward to getting to know more about myself and about others.


Hey, whaddya know, I accidently ended up writing about my turbulent emotional nature and my education. E is for everything?