Total Acceptance of Everything

There came a day when I looked at myself in the mirror with total disgust and contempt for what I saw. Like every other human, my life has had its share of challenges. Some would say I have faced a disproportionate amount of significant challenges, both of my own creation due to the consequences of my wrong actions, and by what life threw at me. From an early age I faced significant mental health issues. The most troubling and life disrupting was Borderline Personality Disorder or BPD. BPD is developed due to growing up in an extremely invalidating environment. The example I most often use; I once gave dad my report card with all A’s on it. He looked at it, handed it back without looking at me and asked, “Why no A+’s?”

Compounding my struggles with life was the complete lack of identity I experienced. I grew up in a town of about 2800 people. My extended family making up a significant part of them. My immediate family, the paternal side, had a successful family business. In fact, it was world famous. Between my huge family, being known for our business, and our extensive family involvement in the community, it seemed as tho the whole community at least had a clue who I was. Despite this, growing up I was never, Andrew. I was Vic’s boy, Joe’s grandson, Ponch’s cousin, Nancy’s brother. The majority of times when I met anyone new and gave my name, Andrew Franzese, I received the same response virtually every time; “Which Franzese do you belong to?”

Between a complete lack of validation and such a significant identity crisis, accepting myself simply was not possible. I had no clue what it was I was to accept! If I could not even see anything to accept within myself, how the hell was I ever going to accept anything else in life. This lack of acceptance soon began to permeate the entirety of my existence. In school, I did not fit in any of the “cliques,” not the jocks, not the nerds, not the geeks, not even the average Joe’s or outcasts didn’t completely accept me. The only clique I came close to belonging to were the heads (pot smokers). I was a clique of one. Sure, I had my group of steadfast friends. They too, often left me on the outside. Planning and doing things like going to concerts without a word to me.

As my life progressed, accepting most anything became seemingly impossible. When you consider the extremely sad state of humanity and the world we live in, that which most people label as “unacceptable” leaves very little that is acceptable. Do you, whomever is reading this, truly accept how our government functions and “serves” we the people? How about accepting how corporate greed and corporations seemingly have a complete lack of care or concern for we, the consumers, or our planet? Are you alright accepting the likely fact that pharmaceutical companies keep cures for disease locked in their safes because they make more money by just “treating” these deadly diseases? Take that a step further, how well do you accept the loss of your loved ones because these cures are kept from us?

Fast forward to today, at age 60, I have just completed 16 months of completely changing the foundation of who I am. The greatest accomplishment leading to my significant success is the total acceptance of everything in life. To detail how I achieved this I am writing a book, stay tuned. What I will say here is that, I now accept absolutely every circumstance, situation, personal interaction, challenges life throws at me, and so much more. I accept these things at face value, that they exist. To deny their existence was part of what led me to become such a bad human. Liking or agreeing with what I now accept is not required. No one is obligated to like or agree with everything they encounter in their lives. However, accepting everything that exists is essential, as well as logical. After such acceptance, we all have the choice to face whatever we disagree with or dislike. We also have the option to simply accept what is, and leave it at that. Most of life is beyond our control. All that anyone has true control over is their own thoughts, words, and actions. In my experience, we humans do not do well with accepting anything we have no control over.

The fact is, absolutely everything I just mentioned must be accepted as these things do exist. I am able to accept such things exist; I refuse to agree with or like their existence. Other than my voting power and writing my congressional representative, I have no control over the functioning of our government. I certainly have no control over any corporation with their greed and indifference to humans and our home, earth. I do have control over my voice! It is thru my voice that I am able to exercise what I believe is right for me to do to address these travesties. To this end, I am writing the aforementioned book. I am also establishing a charitable foundation thru which we will help anyone who chooses to become better humans. I believe most of what ails humanity and this world will simply cease to exist when enough people become better, preferably good humans. Good humans do not behave in the manner that has caused the inequity within humanity nor do the things that are destroying the earth, our home!

Since I have achieved accepting all in life for what it is, I enjoy a level of mental and emotional freedom I had not thought possible. This acceptance I now live by allows me to focus on the things I believe I need to address in order to improve, as my mental and emotional resources are no longer cluttered by futile efforts to control anything I did not want to accept before.

The end result, both my former primary and trauma therapists with whom I have recently come to no longer need services from, recognize I have literally cured my mental health disorders. It is important to note here, other than a possible genetic predisposition to BPD, none of my diagnosed mental health disorders had an organic cause. They were not caused by any naturally occurring biochemical or genetic disorder. They were all developed thru poor nurturing, environmental factors, and traumatic life experiences. I now love living my life! I suggest every human learn how to have such universal acceptance of the entirety of their life’s experiences.

Inner Peace is the reward!