Today’s lesson on accepting who I am came as an email message that said “you aren’t special”. Obviously there is more to it than that. The gist of the lesson is that whatever struggles or obstacles I have had to overcome in my life are nothing compared to what other people have experienced. I totally agree with this since I have often said that I have a boring life – boring in that I have not had bad things happen to me. My house has not been robbed. I have not been mugged. My friends and family have not been in serious car accidents. We have had uneventful lives in terms of bad things that happen to people.

And that is fine with me.

Really what the lesson was about is that when there is an obstacle or problem in my life, the fear or stress I feel is my fear, and it doesn’t matter to me if someone else lived through something worse. I need to face the situation and overcome it. And from facing that fear I will learn that it is teaching me something.

I think I get this idea. Let’s say I am afraid of dogs and I need to walk past a yard that has two snarling dogs. I am afraid of the dogs and it doesn’t matter if someone else had to face a pack of wild dogs that attacked that person, it doesn’t make me say “these are someone’s pets so they can’t be as fierce as wild dogs, so I am not afraid.” Nope, that wouldn’t matter to me at that point.

I need to learn to separate who I am from the emotions I am feeling. Fear is an emotion. I am not that emotion. There is more but that’s all I understand at this point.

It is another step in understanding myself.

Postscript – I just finished watching a tv show on Netflix. The characters are discussing events and the father is full of excellent advice – advice much like what I have been reading in the email lessons I am getting. The episode involved Charlie meeting his girlfriend’s parents who invited a friend of their family along to dinner. Charlie is afraid that he failed to gain the parents’ approval. At the end of the show, they stop by his house and compliment their daughter for “doing so well for herself” in finding Charlie. Charlie is relieved that he gained her parents’ approval and his father reminds him “now you have to marry her”.

Charlie’s fear of not being accepted was really pointing out that he was afraid to make a decision regarding the relationship he wanted with her. Once he got the “approval” it forces him to look at what he really wanted – to marry her.

I am not sure that I am explaining this clearly but I understood the lesson. :)