Last February, I began a three part blog series entitled “Failure and Inspiration" which caught fire and has since been featured (with permission) on other sites, blogs, and in newsletters.

My rambling paid off!

This year’s series is entitled “Acceptance”. I came up with the idea after being quite moved by the Thandie Newton’s address on Ted Talks.

There is a clear and invaluable divide between who you are and what other people project on to you – who they want you to be and who you accept you are. Panic arises when the lines between the two blur and you can no longer tell one from the other.

Sometimes the change goes unnoticed; you wake up, go to the bathroom and stare blankly at the dead-eyed alien in the mirror. You don’t recognize yourself because you have ceased to exist.

Or perhaps, in an effort to fit in, you’ve modified your behavior to such an extent you’re little more than a husk fortified by the opinions, beliefs, needs, and insecurities of others.

Either way, you’re a caricature. And caricatures crumble – self-acceptance doesn’t.

Enjoy the series…

 “I grew up on the coast of England in the 70s. My dad is white, from Cornwall, and my mom is black, from Zimbabwe. Even the idea of us as a family was challenging to most people. But nature had it’s wicked way and brown babies were born. But from about the age of 5, I was aware that I didn’t fit. I was the black, atheist kid in the all-white Catholic school run by nuns.

I was an anomaly.


And myself was rooting around for definition trying to plug-in. Because the self likes to fit. To see itself replicated. To belong. That confirms its existence and its importance. And it is important, it has an extremely important function. Without it we literally can’t interface with others, we can’t hatch plans, and climb that stairway of popularity, of success. But my skin color wasn’t right. My hair wasn’t right. My history wasn’t right. Myself, became defined by Otherness, which meant that in that social world I didn’t really exist. And I was Other before being anything else, even before being a girl. I was a noticeable nobody.” ~Thandie Newton

Entire Video Found Here