acceptance

becoming a better caretaker of my child parts

Kaoru Kawano, Child and Mask, 1955

Through most of childhood, I was terribly shy. Even just raising my hand in class to ask a question felt impossible. I think part of this was because of a sudden change in environment. My family moved from downtown Toronto, where I was surrounded by Chinese people, to the suburbs where there weren’t that many people who looked like me. So I became conscious of my difference and unsure how to interact with others.

I was sick of being the “shy girl,” so when we moved again (from Canada to the U.S.), I wanted people at my new school to see me as anything but shy. But after giving us a tour of the school, the very first thing the principal said to my parents was, “She’s a little shy, isn’t she?” I remember getting this sinking feeling in my stomach that my attempt to make a different first impression, to start with a clean slate, had utterly failed. There was something that non-shy people said or did that eluded me. I began to wonder if it was even possible to change what seemed like a fundamental personality trait.

At this new school, I was a very mediocre student (I failed my first test), but gradually, my grades improved as I discovered an interest in subjects like Language Arts and French and learned how to study for tests. At some point, it became clear that school was my jam. I was good at it. Then, one day, I realized I wasn’t afraid to speak up in class anymore.

Having a few academic accomplishments helped me build self-trust. It made me appreciate that the alchemy of all my traits (even the ones I didn’t like) was what allowed me to do what I did best. As a consequence of being shy, I listened and prepared my thoughts before speaking, I worked hard because it seemed like the only way I could shine. It was only in not trying to eradicate my shyness—rather, leaning into the strengths that derived from it—that I was able to build the confidence to overcome my inhibitions. I think there are light and dark sides to every trait, but very few are wholesale good or bad.

As an adult, relationship anxiety has replaced shyness as the thing I’ve tried to “fix.” In the past, if I wanted to text someone but didn’t want to come across as needy, I would refrain from texting. But this only made me ruminate on why they weren’t reaching out to me and what their silence could mean. One time, my friend encouraged me to just text the guy. But what if I scare him off? I asked. Then, good, she said.

Basically, it doesn’t matter if I scare him off. Trying not to act anxious didn’t make me less so: it just redirected the anxious energy inward and made it worse. Now, whenever I feel like texting someone, I just go ahead and do it instead of worrying about how they might perceive me. Because even if you could hide yourself from other people, you can’t hide yourself from yourself.

The basic idea of Internal Family Systems (IFS) is that instead of having a unified mind, we’re actually comprised of different “parts,” some more adult/mature than others. We may have parts that are still children, that we’ve exiled because at some point we were made to feel shame toward them. Later in life, certain situations can trigger these child parts to flare up. When we repress or judge these parts, their expressions can worsen.

I’m learning to be more compassionate toward my anxious inner child. Instead of judging it for being petty or silly or irrational, I acknowledge that it has a valid need to feel loved and cared for. Because what’s worse than feeling anxious that someone didn’t text you back? Judging yourself for feeling anxious.

Suppressing a part of yourself that you’re not proud of is more damaging than just letting it breathe. Self-acceptance doesn’t mean you need to like everything about yourself. It just means acknowledging all your parts without judgment so you can listen to what they need.

And when you can accept a less flattering part of yourself, you can become more understanding and compassionate when you see it in other people. It’s eerie how we’re often harshest toward the aspects of other people that we’ve rejected in ourselves. There’s a reason that feeling loved by someone is to feel seen by them. We crave acceptance and seek it from other people, but it really starts with accepting ourselves.