Self-Love Sundays: Accept Me As I Am…NOW

Recently, I saw a question posted on Facebook asking if it was fair to tell someone to “Accept me as I am!” if you, yourself, were unhappy with your current state in life. This made me think about my last relationship and reflect on the whole acceptance thing. 

My last relationship was a complicated one. We had a lot in common and had many good times. BUT...he and I butted heads a lot because he was one of those men who never liked things “heavy”. He never liked to have deep conversations. So in order to keep things light, he would constantly joke around and be sarcastic to the point where he was offensive. And then his way of speaking sometimes made me feel like he was trying to tell me what to do and I did not take kindly to that. He said I was too “technical” and serious. That I was being too "sensitive". This was always when I wanted to discuss the state of our relationship and where we were going. So during one of our heated conversations over the phone, I said those 5 magic words to him: “Accept me as I am!” I then told him that this was me and if he didn’t like who I was, he could keep it moving. I felt like he was trying to change me and it offended me. Who was he to tell me about myself?

Many of us have said those 5 magic words to a significant other…heck, we’ve said it to friends and family. It’s something you tell someone who you love and care about and vice versa. But I think this request is often taken out of context. I think it’s perfectly fair to accept someone as they are at that very moment. However, to be the best person you want to be, you have to grow and evolve. You learn from your past mistakes and setbacks. If you don’t learn or let go, you won’t move forward. You won’t grow. So if you are in this stalled state of life and then expect someone to accept you as you are, it won’t work. A big part of any relationship (even friendships) is two people walking together on their individual paths. But if one person is not moving and the other is, the relationship won’t work.

The greatest lesson I have learned in my life is that I cannot change someone else. I can only change myself. Many of us try to control people and situations but in all reality, you can’t. You can only control YOU. You can’t control how the other person will react or treat you. But you can control how you react to their actions. You have the power to change you for the better. So my ex telling me to change this and that maybe I should be “this way” really pissed me off. Because I accepted him for who he was when we first got together. So imagine my surprise when later on into the relationship, when we started to have issues and I voiced my complaints, he threw those 5 magic words back at me. He told me that I knew who he was when we got together so he couldn’t understand why I was having issues with who he was.

While this is true, I’ll be honest and say that I didn’t expect him to stay the same for the rest of his life. I expected him to evolve and grow as well. I believed that there would be moments with us when things would get heavy and that’s okay. But he’s a stubborn man with his own issues and I had to come to terms with the fact that he has to change on his own. I can’t change him. I tried to make it work but me working on myself wasn't going to save our relationship. A relationship is a team effort. It was hard to walk away. It still hurts because I know he’s a good man and has a good heart. But his stubbornness and unwillingness to grow and evolve is what made me walk away.

Dating is not easy, period. That’s why it is so important to learn the lesson in every heartache and not let those heartaches stall your life. As I always say, acceptance is the foundation to everything in life. If you can accept things as they are, those things beyond your control…life would be so much easier to deal with. When we can accept that we are accountable for ourselves and not someone else, I think there will be more happy relationships out there. We will not waste our time trying to change someone else and instead focus on fixing ourselves. You can't make someone do what you want or treat you the way you want to be treated. At the end of the day, you can only control your own actions.

So when I tell someone to accept me as I am, I am telling them to accept me as I am NOW. I won’t be the same person in 5 years. But my goal and mindset is to always try to be a better person. No one is perfect but really, it is the core of someone that counts. If someone has a good heart and will do anything for you, who cares if they joke around sometimes? Over time, that will change (if the person wants to change) but the contents of that great heart will remain the same.

My heart still aches for my ex. I really wish we would have gotten it right. But as I said, I can’t force him to change. All I can do is move forward and keep evolving as I walk my path in life. That’s how you live your best life possible; by being honest with yourself, recognizing your flaws, working to better yourself and just being happy. When that’s your focus, anything is possible in life. And you are showing yourself so much love by living your best life possible. As the saying goes, “Be that person you want to meet”. And let’s not forget…Accept me as I am! ((NOW))  ::big cheesy smile::

Being Happy in the Skin We Live In

Summer season is upon us and many of us have major issues during this season with showing skin and certain body parts. So this special Self-love Sunday edition of my column is dedicated to those of you who are struggling with living in your skin and embracing ALL of you.


Last week, I received the following tweet from someone who found me via this blog and started to follow me on Twitter:

“OMG, you’re so pretty. You’re an inspiration to me cuz I'm plus size too and you make me feel like I can be happy in my own skin.”

I looked at the tweeter's page and it was a 19 yr-old girl from Canada. It meant so much to me because to inspire someone young is everything. I never really had someone plus size to inspire me in that fashion when I was growing up, but I was one of the lucky ones. Thank goodness I had and still have a strong, outgoing personality. That and parents who loved me unconditionally were my saving graces.

People often ask me why I bare my soul weekly here – I have been told by a few people that I reveal too much about myself. Well, it’s because of people like the young lady who tweeted me, that I put myself out there. While I try to give sound advice, I want all of you to know that I am not perfect and everything I preach and talk about, all come from lessons I have learned in my life. I can’t preach about it if I don’t know about it.  That’s what I believe.


But the important part of preaching something to someone else, is also to practice what you preach. While I consider myself confident and know I love myself, I do have parts of me that I don’t quite love yet. It’s a work in progress. But that’s normal so I try not to be so hard on myself. We all have parts of our bodies that we don’t like. Again, we’re human and not perfect. But many of us aim to achieve a state of perfection that we have concocted in our minds so we end up on this never ending journey of trying to obtain a look that is unrealistic.


A couple of weeks ago, I saw Kathy Najimy on the Wendy Williams Show. She did something that really made me think. She looked directly into the camera and said to all of us viewers, that if we are not happy with our bodies, it is okay to make a change. But at the end of the day, you have to love yourself and be happy with who you are, no matter what your size.  So if you want to be plus size, more power to you! If you want to lose weight, good for you too! What matters is being comfortable in your body.

I recently joined a group on Facebook called Fattoo. It’s a group where ladies sell their new and gently used clothes in sizes 20 and up. However, it has become more than that for me and for others in the group. You see women daily posting pics of themselves in items they bought in confident, proud poses. I always thought I was the biggest girl I know at a size 26/28. Well, there’s girls in this group who are larger than that and they’re wearing two-piece swimsuits and corsets! They proudly own their bodies and will quote their measurements with the quickness. They also support one another and uplift one another. When a pic goes up, many of the other ladies comment with compliments and positive feedback. It's nice to see women inspiring one another in a community where sometimes that is not the case.


It is truly a brand new world for me. And one that has made me truly reflect on some of the issues I have with my own body parts. My 19-yr old fan, Kathy Najimy and the women of Fattoo…they all inspire me to do better in accepting all of me, including the body parts I dislike. They inspire me to fully own who I am and live freely in my own skin.

We all may not be perfect but a part of all of our journeys is to inspire one another. As one of my favorite African proverbs states “Each one, teach one.” We’re all teaching each other even when we don’t realize it. We do so by being true to ourselves and who we are. While it may be a daily struggle to fully be comfortable in your own skin, what counts is the effort. If you truly try one day at a time, there will come a day, when you will embrace all of you with ease.


I’m already more than halfway there, this I know. I walk with my head up high and I love dressing my body. I am still working on the swimsuit thing (ugh) and wearing sleeveless shirts.  I have gotten better with the latter. But again, I am a work in progress and not ashamed to admit that. I believe in my beauty so that helps me in not being so hard on myself. When we let go of expectations and ideas of who we “should” be, then we can truly be ourselves. Then we will realize that, that was who we were meant to be all along. We are beautiful, just the way we are, in the bodies we have and in the skin we live in.