Onika L. Dainty

The life lessons I have collected on my journey of self-discovery have given me peace, joy and a self-awareness that I hold close to my heart like a treasured gem, precious and priceless. Lessons learned from the countless people who have loved and cared for me over the years, even from those who were my adversaries, the ones that didn’t want to see me succeed but have taught me something valuable about myself and life. So for my 42nd birthday my gift to myself is to reflect on all I’ve learned, on the lessons that have shaped the incredible woman I never thought I’d be but managed to become through all the tragedy, triumphs, trials and tribulations. I want to enter this upcoming year knowing where I have come from so I will never forget who I am. There are simply too many valuable lessons I’ve learned in my lifetime to fit in one entry so I will share one gem at a time during my 42nd year in hopes that these lessons will touch your lives as deeply as they’ve touched mine. Let the lesson begin. 

Lesson 1: Learning to Love Yourself is the Greatest Love of All- Whitney Houston and My Mama

Although it was the late and great Whitney Houston that coined the phrase in her classic 80’s melody, it was my mama who made sure this motto rang loud and clear in my head since I was a young child. I would come in from school and tell her stories of the bullying and mistreatment that occurred non-stop since we arrived in Canada in 1988. I was always what some call different, it wasn’t just the way I spoke or the baby fat that bulged in the clothes I wore, it was my defiant attitude and large personality that didn’t seem to fit into the mold that others were constantly trying to make for me. I was a square peg being forced into a round hole and I refused to conform. Even as a child my family knew I marched to the beat of my own drum but I was simply unaware that the melody it played didn’t please everyone around me, and one of my greatest flaws is my need to please others, to feel love and acceptance from everyone, to be everything for everyone leaving nothing for myself. When I would tell my mother the other children didn’t like me, that they constantly made fun of every aspect of my personality, my speech, what I ate, what I wore but especially my weight she’d say the same three things: “Your mama loves you, Jesus loves you and learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all.”

I knew the first two statements were true but it took many years and many experiences to finally find the greatest love of all inside of myself. There was a period in my life when my self-esteem plummeted. Though my accent had faded, my clothes had changed, I had assimilated to Canadian culture but my body refused to cooperate. When I was 11-years-old I developed an eating disorder. I was unhappy with my body so I would go days and sometimes weeks without eating. From this dangerous habit I grew to hate everything I saw when I looked in the mirror. For years kids at school called me a fat pig and eventually I started to believe them. My circumstances led to the constant negative thought that I was not thin enough or pretty enough. Looking back now I can see that puberty had actually been very kind to me. I had a small figure with overly large breasts and even when others would tell me I was beautiful I was loathed to believe them. This aspect of eating disorders is now called Body Dysmorphia (an obsession with a perceived flaw in your appearance) but back then there was no name.

This journey of body obsession started in my youth and would continue into my 20s when I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder at 24-years-old, a mood disorder that wreaked havoc on my emotions and my waistline. The medication I took to stabilize my mood causes excessive weight gain and increased appetite. For years and until present I have continued to struggle with my self-image. What I perceive to be true about my figure others simply couldn’t see. My taller than average frame allowed me to carry my weight well but all I could see was an unattractive overweight woman. I felt unlovable, unworthy and spent most of my time trying to be invisible. I simply couldn’t see what others insisted they saw in me, a beautiful woman. I seemed forever stuck in a loop of self-loathing. 

I have tried every diet-water, watermelon, Keto, Atkins, fasting, medically supervised weightloss programs, cabbage soup, I tried detoxes, weightloss pills and skinny teas. I tried running the weight off until my ankles swelled and sprained and I could no longer run. I went back to unhealthy habits like starving myself and purging my food until I did damage to my esophagus. Finally in 2019 after I ate a dozen donuts and entered my apartment washroom to expel my belly, I took a good look at myself in the mirror and said to my reflection “No Onika, Enough!” I sat on my bathroom floor and cried my eyes out and came to the realization that I was simply sick and tired or being sick and tired. I decided on that bathroom floor it was time to try surrender and radical acceptance, the hardest two principles I’ve ever had to practice. Simply put, self-loathing is exhausting.

I started saying a daily mantra that I created which spoke to the broken little girl inside me and the lost self-pitying woman I was tired of being: “I’m fabulous just as I am and all by myself,” at first I didn’t believe it but after years of saying it out loud, multiple times daily especially when I was feeling low something inside of me began to change. I started having numerous positive experiences that were proof these words were true and I slowly gained confidence in myself and began to break down the negative narrative that had always kept my self-esteem in a low place. 

I had to relearn myself along my journey to self-acceptance and rewrite the negative thought pattern that had become fixtures in my life. This is what that looked like: 

I love that I’m intelligent, 

I love that I make people laugh, 

I love that I am kind, 

I love that I’m well spoken, 

I love that I’m empathetic, 

I love that I’m a good listener, 

I love that I’m a good friend, 

I love that I’m a good granddaughter, 

I love that I’m a good aunt, 

I love that I’m a good daughter, 

I love that I’m a good sister, 

I love that I’m a fighter, 

I love that I’m resilient, 

I love my Bipolar superpower, 

I love my nose, 

I love my eyes, 

I love my freckles, 

I love my smile,

I love my rack, 

I love my legs, 

I love the skin I’m currently in, 

I love that I’m a work in progress,

I love that this love list keeps growing everyday and with every new experience.

Now after 42 years of experiences and lessons I have fallen in love with myself and when I look at my body in the mirror I see the body that has sustained me though some of the most difficult trials life has thrown at me. I embrace my body meeting myself where I’m at and practicing healthy principles of nutrition and exercise rather than fad diets and detoxes. I embrace my mental illness calling it my superpower and I embrace my God given potential knowing that my talents, humour and intelligence are the key to my future success. I came to the realization that I can’t be everything to everyone and filling my mental, spiritual, physical and emotional cup comes first. The reality is that some people are going to dislike me for the things I believe, the words I write, the clothes I wear, the shoes on my feet and the hair on my head and that's life. Not everyone can love or even respect the person you are but my mama and Whitney Houston were right: Learning to Love Yourself is the Greatest Love of All.