Hello, friends. You can’t even imagine how necessary the skill of acceptance is in our lives. After all, acceptance is the key to a calm, serene, happy life, to deliverance from mental suffering and many physical illnesses. Why is this so and what is acceptance of oneself and everything? How to accept yourself as you are, how to learn to accept people, your destiny and all reality? We'll talk about this today.
Acceptance as a source of happiness
Acceptance is a psychological attitude, a certain view of reality, when we accept reality, life as it really is. The opposite of it is rejection, when we do not agree with what happened, we make our egoistic demands on the world around us. As a result, we become angry, resentful, depressed, or experience other negative feelings. This is how suffering and illness appear. Often a person simply becomes depressed.
The world that surrounds us does not always correspond to the mental templates hanging in our heads. It is complex, diverse, and therefore can also be cruel and unfair. But people do not accept this state of affairs. We all want the world to revolve only around us, for other people to do what we like, for there to be no difficulties in life, for everything to go smoothly and beautifully. But this is an illusion. This is not a wise, childish view of the surrounding reality, which gives rise to all sorts of problems in life. But most people live like this, without even understanding why things aren’t working out for them and how to change it.
But once you learn the skill of acceptance, your life will immediately begin to change. better side. This is how we come to happiness. After all, acceptance is not hanging your head in the face of difficulties, not giving up positions, but only an adequate view of things without dissatisfaction, in which we can also change and improve something. But we will do this much better, because we do not dwell in our illusions, but accept the truth of life. We do not escape from reality with the help of our fantasies and inflated demands. Rejection is an escape from reality.
Acceptance is a sober look at reality. Thanks to this, we begin to act more productively, make fewer mistakes, and therefore achieve more. But reality, I assure you, with this approach will only help you and improve your life. After all, you began to cooperate with her, and not run away from her, demand too much from her. You have yet to realize this paradox.
Remember the fairy tale about the goldfish. If you interact with the world with the help of your egoistic motives, demand from it the realization of your ego’s desires, you will get the opposite. So you fight the world, you want to squeeze everything out of it and only for yourself. The world will not forgive you for this. On the contrary, by cooperating with the world, understanding it, accepting any of its manifestations, whether they are not the best for you during this period of life, in the long run you improve your life. Therefore, it is very important to learn to accept any situation in life as it is.
Rejection is a manifestation of our lower human consciousness. Acceptance is a manifestation of ours, when the lower egoistic motives that generate a flurry of uncontrollable negative emotions subside. That is, having learned to accept, we mentally relax, we come to peace and tranquility. This mental work is much more productive. We do not make mistakes, we act confidently and clearly, listening to both our hearts and our minds. It’s just that now the ego will no longer rush around in its illusions and fetter and absorb our attention.
Remember the rule: the ego distorts the view of reality. We don't see the truth, we only see the distortion that the ego creates. We live as if in a kingdom of distorting mirrors. Imagine that we look in the mirror, but we see a distorted reflection there, like in a funhouse. It is our programs, settings, and templates that introduce this distortion. A pure view of the world is possible only with mental silence, when emotions and ego feelings subside. It is precisely acceptance that contributes to such silence.
Bright positive feelings will appear in the soul: joy, love, understanding, compassion. We begin to be content with what we have and feel the joy of life itself, from simply living. This is how we come to happiness. You see how everything is interconnected.
It would seem that such a simple mental attitude as acceptance radically changes everything in a person. It’s just time for us all to understand, and this has been repeatedly said on this blog, that our attention, the work of our consciousness is closely interconnected with the rest of the body. Certain programs and settings force our attention to work in a certain way, absorbing or, on the contrary, releasing energy into space. And emotions and feelings are a must in various ways affect the body, change its biochemistry, cause muscles to contract or, on the contrary, relax them.
Negative emotions as a result of rejection poison the body, cause blocks, and lead to physical illness.
Acceptance as a source of health
That is why, having learned to accept the world, we not only improve our health, prevent diseases from appearing in the future, but even recover from many already acquired ailments. It seems like a miracle, but it is true. Many people do not understand how the power of thought can be cured of serious illnesses. And it’s right that they don’t understand. It is very difficult, almost impossible, by strengthening some positive thought or attitude towards recovery, to get rid of the disease. This is not really why recovery happens, and I will tell you this secret.
Healing will occur only if the negative manifestations of the psyche subside and stop draining our strength. This is where our energy goes, leading to illness, mental and physical exhaustion. The mind and body are closely interconnected. And uncontrolled thoughts and emotions devour the lion's share vital energy, lead to muscle tension, energy blocks, change the biochemistry of the body in the worst side. As soon as they subside, the body will breathe a sigh of relief and begin. He will do it himself, without your participation. It contains enormous reserve forces and the ability to self-heal. And our task is not to interfere with him in this, stopping to generate egoistic manifestations of the psyche.
It is precisely this attitude of acceptance that calms down this whole barrage of emotions that devour us. Healthy man This calm person showing wisdom and adequacy.
I would like to once again recall the main thesis, which has already been repeated many times in various articles on this blog.
Selfish thoughts and emotions distort our view of reality, take away vitality, and therefore lead to illness.
Accepting other people improves your relationship with them
Why do we quarrel in the family with loved ones, why do we swear at work, make enemies, hate someone, are constantly angry with someone, spoil relationships. It's simple. We don’t accept people as they are, we don’t want to learn it.
We just want people to conform to the behavior that suits only us. For people to be the way we want them to be. Accepting people's characters and their behavior changes relationships with them for the better, improves communication, and leads to an understanding of their actions.
It’s best to show this with an example; I’ll tell you my experience of accepting other people. Before I learned about the practice of acceptance, I had a bad relationship with my boss at work. I was constantly irritated by the fact that the boss did not fully fulfill his duties due to lack of time and weighed part of his work on his subordinates, and simply forgot a lot.
At the same time, I was indignant because he received very big salary, which means that for that kind of money I have to do a lot, with high quality and manage to do everything. Because of this, we constantly clashed, and I was not afraid to tell him to his face that in many matters he was wrong, that he should do a lot himself, and I should calmly carry out only my duties for my salary. I don’t know how this would have ended if I hadn’t taken the path of self-development and started implementing an attitude of acceptance.
Of course, this did not happen right away, but as soon as I calmly accepted this state of affairs, this tense situation was lifted, my relationship with my boss improved, and the situation resolved itself. I just calmly accepted the fact that the boss is not ideal, that he can sometimes do mean things, exceed his authority, and weigh a lot of work on us. Before that, a program had stuck in my head that people should do only good things, and the boss should manage everything for that kind of money.
After that, my eyes were opened, and the understanding came to me that he actually did not have time for many things. After all, the boss is not a superman, he cannot do or remember everything. If I were him, I would do the same. Please note that I did not weak-willedly accept this state of affairs, I hinted to him about it, but I did it calmly, without scolding, with understanding, even a little compassion. I just felt sorry for him. I don’t know how it happened, but the situation resolved itself. The boss stopped giving me extra work, and I stopped forgetting many things that concern me. It just became easier for me to work.
Another example. When I embarked on the path of self-development, many people began to irritate me. I saw that they live like robots, unconsciously, drink alcohol, drive meaningless life. And it really pissed me off. As a result, I became alienated. People, feeling a disdainful attitude towards themselves, began to avoid me. This also led to conflicts at work. I caught myself in time and discovered a very big vice in myself - pride.
I was successful in my development, I thought I was much better than most people. Many who embark on the path of self-development fall into this trap. And such a road, on the contrary, leads to degradation. The key to getting back on Right way it's about letting people be themselves. Don't expect them to all be good or developing individuals. We are all different, we need to accept this fact deep down. Many people will always lead an ordinary life, they simply do not have enough intelligence for anything else and you should not expect more from them. There are also criminals, degrading souls, capable of meanness and crime. There is no need to hope that an animal will do something human. They simply do not have the physical and mental support for this in the form of a normal mind and a developed soul.
After I allowed people to be themselves, accepted all their shortcomings, I immediately stopped being annoyed by their base behavior. Pride passed, a stone was removed from my soul, my energy increased, and people reached out to me. It became pleasant to communicate with me, I began to understand people, one might even say, to see some of their thoughts. I also realized that many of their actions are justified and are actually not so stupid and senseless. The most interesting thing is that I clearly saw that I myself am not ideal, I often commit unconscious actions, and my self-development, it turns out, is still very far from ideal.
Pride obscured the correct view of things. Also, if someone did something bad to me, committed a crime against me, I did not get irritated, did not fall into indignation or fear, but calmly took measures against such an attitude towards me. Acceptance even helps to dissolve fear. Fear of a criminal is often caused by aversion to being hurt.
You see how the practice of acceptance leads to a sober look on things and gives us strength back. I repeat once again, remember this law and remember it more often.
The ego takes away our strength and distorts our perception of reality.
And another example from personal life. Let my wife forgive me, but I will still bring it here, since it will be useful to many to avoid divorces and bad relationships in the family.
When I got married, I thought I had thrown in my lot with best girl in the world, because she corresponded to all my ideals. Of course, as happens with many, falling in love obscured the true state of affairs. In everyday life, a character trait of my beloved appeared that irritated me very much. This led to conflicts and tension in family relationships. Then I simply accepted her character within myself, this state of affairs.
People, even loved ones, cannot be ideal; everyone has their own shortcomings. Let my beloved have some shortcomings. I accepted it, but I calmly told my wife about it. “I don’t like it, but do it, since this behavior is typical for you and you want it so much, dear.” After some time, the tension eased, but what’s most interesting is that my wife began to show much less of that character trait that I didn’t like. It’s just that my acceptance strengthened our love, and my beloved intentionally, as well as unconsciously, began to do this in order to please me. By making me feel good, she understood that this kindness and warmth in the relationship would be returned to her twice as much. Remember the rule. If you want to receive good, do good to others. In fact, if people in a family learn to accept the shortcomings of their husbands and wives, there will be fewer divorces, quarrels and conflicts. This also applies to children. Only in this case is a healthy, happy family possible.
How important it is to be able to accept a person as he is. But acceptance of a person is possible only when there is self-acceptance and self-love.
The power of self-acceptance
The biggest crime against yourself is lying to yourself. In this case, specific personality degradation will occur.
We also lie to ourselves when we don’t accept something about ourselves. We all have negative traits character, strongly negative manifestations of the psyche that poison the lives of us and other people. And in order to get rid of them, first of all, you need to not hide from them, but admit that they exist, see them, accept them in yourself. This is how the path of self-development begins. This is the only way to eradicate them.
Acceptance dissolves negative manifestations of the psyche. We can get rid of all our fears and other bad emotions through accepting them. This is the key to getting rid of phobias, depression, panic attacks and other psychological problems. Why is that?
Without accepting something within ourselves, we simply turn away from it, from some part of ourselves, and pretend that it does not exist. This is a lie, a crime against oneself. Remember, I said that acceptance leads to the truth, to a sober view of things. And rejection leads to the illusion that this does not exist. But bad feelings and emotions do not disappear anywhere, but are only driven further into the subconscious or, in other words, repressed. By turning away from a negative experience, we do not get rid of it, even though it seems to us that we have forgotten about it. This is very important to understand. This is how our consciousness works.
To get rid of negativity, you first need not to hide from it, but to meet it, to recognize it in yourself. And to do this you need to accept it within yourself. Awareness and acceptance are closely related.
Many people cannot overcome their fears because they do not accept them, they are afraid of them, they run away from them. This way we will never get rid of internal negativity. But how can you learn to accept negative thoughts and emotions?
How to accept yourself means to love
To learn to accept any of your feelings, you need skill in relation to them. We also need to introduce into our heads the idea that we can experience any feelings, emotions and there is nothing wrong with that. Understand that we cannot always experience only positive, bright feelings. We often manifest fear, negativity, anger, and resentment. All this is triggered by ego-protective mechanisms, as a reaction from the hostile attitude of the surrounding world and people.
The psyche defends itself, this is natural, the body needs it. But it shouldn't be too long, shouldn't last when stressful situation has already passed. It is human nature to overindulge and continue to experience negative emotions after they are no longer needed and will only cause harm, destroying the body. Therefore, allow the negative manifestations of the psyche to manifest themselves, do not interfere with this, accept them in yourself, let them be. This is the acceptance of internal negativity.
Many people drill into themselves the following attitudes: I’m not afraid, I don’t get depressed, I’m not angry, and so on. This is not acceptance, this is denial. With this approach, this negativity will still manifest itself inside you, because this is a mental reaction to stress, their appearance does not depend on you. And you start to fight it, run away from it, turn away, pretend that it doesn’t exist. This is repression, non-acceptance, so you will never get rid of it.
And if you calmly accept negative experiences, they will manifest themselves in you without hindrance. Will start to get excited nervous system, some muscles will tense, processes in the body will change. This is necessary in order to cope with stress. Don't interfere with this. But watch this, turn on your awareness, see what a negative emotion does to your body. Don't be afraid of your fears, face them, accept them, become aware of them.
I assure you, after such acceptance, and not denial, the emotion will arise for some time, and then dry up, having fulfilled its function. If you do not accept it, but repress it, it can get stuck inside you for a long time, you did not allow it to come out. This is how people become depressed for a very long time.
Calmly observing your fear. And, without denying that you are afraid, you thereby come to courage, fearlessness. This seems like a paradox only at the beginning. But look at the first word in this sentence: calmly. Calmness is a manifestation of true courage and fearlessness.
Yes, reading this is one thing, but in practice it is difficult to implement due to low awareness. We cannot look at the emotion from the outside; we merge with it. This mental attitude comes to our aid, which we need to say to ourselves. “Let my fear (anger, resentment or other bad feeling) continue as long as it wants. I don’t interfere with it, I don’t interfere with it. I accept my fear. Let it be. But I am separate from fear. I am, there is fear.” .
When we are overwhelmed by bad feelings or emotions, close your eyes and mentally, silently, slowly, understanding the meaning of these words, say these words. After that, see how the emotion manifests itself in the body, observe it, be separate from it. This way you will learn to accept your negative manifestations of the psyche, which means getting rid of them. Once accepted, it will gradually dissolve.
The skill of acceptance is closely related to awareness. To accept some part of yourself, you need to realize it at least a little, understand that it is in us. Therefore, be aware, train your attention in order to learn to accept your emotions.
Thus, to learn to accept something in your life, repeat the thought form described above. It can be applied to anything.
As soon as everything in your life starts to go wrong, relationships begin to deteriorate, or people start pestering you, stop, take a break, and figure it out. Most likely, you don't accept something in life. Realize this and slowly speak the thought form. For example: “I accept the fact that people can be mean to me. I agree with that. It’s their problem, I don’t care about it. I won’t stoop to their level.” “I accept the fact that life can be difficult and unfair. Beyond the dark streak, there will be a bright streak of my destiny.” "I accept the fact that government can be unfair and make mistakes." "I accept and agree that people have different tempers, behave differently, not the way I like." And so on.
I repeat, acceptance does not mean that you will not strive for better or, for example, not respond to insults, silently watch as you are robbed. It’s just that now you will act clearly, with a clear head, because emotions of rejection, such as irritation, dissatisfaction, or others will not cloud your head. This is a wise, adult attitude towards life.
Self-Acceptance During Meditation
The correct practice of meditation helps a lot to learn acceptance and humility. Because during meditation, awareness turns on, and we look at the manifestations of the psyche from the outside. You can say meditation is an exercise in accepting yourself, other people, and all reality.
It is generally impossible without acceptance and for this purpose ideal conditions have been created for this. We close our eyes and begin to observe and accept everything. We observe our body, muscle tension, areas of tension. We observe and accept. That is, we do not run away from it, but quietly, relaxedly look, realizing it. Only by accepting the fact that we are squeezed can quality relaxation be possible.
Thus, when meditating, we transfer our attention to a mode where it becomes easier and simpler for us to accept anything. Everything is interconnected. The main thing is then to translate this skill into life to accept not only the body and psyche, but the entire world around us.
Also, a thought form is very helpful in meditation to accept negative experiences in order to dissolve them. As soon as psycho-emotional dirt begins to emerge from the subconscious, say the following words to yourself: “Let these negative and unpleasant emotions be as long as they want. I don’t fight them. Let them go on their own. I agree, I accept them.” After that, be aware of them, do not merge with them. I assure you, if you did everything correctly, they will decrease or even disappear completely. This is how the subconscious is cleared, we become better, purer soul. It's all thanks to acceptance.
Also, meditation, due to its universality, will help us learn to accept everything as it is, and not just ourselves, to accept the world as it really is.
Acceptance is a powerful force that makes us healthy and happy.
That's what I wish for you.
See you soon, friends.
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Share your impressions in the comments, for feedback from your side.
And now for you interesting video"self-acceptance is the path to change." Be sure to check it out. This is one of the main points of the video.
Acceptance reclaims personal power.
According to many psychological theories, a person is unable to accept the shortcomings of other people if:
Notices himself the same
shortcomings, but cannot accept them in himself;
- does not want and cannot accept his the same
There are so many shortcomings that I’m not even ready to see them in myself.
Anyway, What irritates you in other people is what you cannot accept in yourself, even if you don’t see it in yourself.
A person learns to accept himself and others as they are from parents and other important adults in childhood. A child surrounded by criticism learns to criticize. A child surrounded by acceptance learns to accept.
Simple practice for every day
Step 2
If you don’t like something about someone, look for it in yourself and sort it out with yourself first (see the previous point).
Step 3
For 30 minutes every day, observe people as if you were a scientist watching birds. Watch how they walk, talk, breathe. You don't have to put your business on hold to do this. Just stop judging, devaluing, and criticizing.
Stop trying to guess what other people want and think for half an hour.
Start with the people you like, then move on to the rest.
Notice your emotions when observing people and let them be as they are.
Step 4
Understand at least a little about your relationship with your parents.
Talk about something you've been wanting to talk about for a long time. When you speak, communicate your feelings and what is happening to you.
Write a letter about past grievances. There is no need to send it away; it is much more effective to burn it and move on with your life.
If your parents are not ready to accept you as you are, then they simply were not taught this as a child. Teach them through your acceptance, and then receive acceptance in return.
If “everything is complicated” with your parents, then remember other people who loved and accepted you as you are, at least in some ways. Chat with them and watch how they do it. And don’t forget to thank them for the invaluable experience :)
Collection of texts by Aglaya Dateshidze “Closeness, space between” free:
Chapter 9
Do you want to be loved for who you are? What kind of person are you? This is the most important question. WHAT ARE YOU? Answer this question to yourself every day and you will either get what you deserve, or you will become worthy of what you want to get.
(c) Alex_Odessa
This is a very old thought about “love me as I am.”
– this is love WITHOUT CONDITIONS. But why then is it very often difficult for us to find a “soul mate”. Why does it happen that we sometimes look for it and choose it for years? Even songs and poems are composed about this - “Various “WRONG THINGS” walk around wandering around in the bustle.” After all, if you love no conditions, then it would seem, what difference does it make who to love? After all, there are no conditions anyway.
Some “spiritually advanced” citizens will say that this is because the majority of people are consumers. And that their love is not love at all. However, if such a “spiritually advanced” citizen who loves unconditionally is given a choice of two people, one of whom is worse than the other in some important parameters for the lover, and the “who loves unconditionally” will have to choose one of them for life together who will he choose? With a 99% probability - the one that is better. It’s just that “the soul will be drawn to him.” The soul knows where it is going.
We can say that it is easier for someone who “loves unconditionally” to love the one who is better. It turns out that he loves him for a reason, but because he has some qualities that are important to him (character, for example).
If you love “just like that...”, that is, without “blinders”, without expectations, without judgment, then you can love anyone, even a homeless person. Does this mean that you will live with a homeless person? - No. You will love him from a distance, but you will not let him into your life.
Why? - Because he is homeless, and you are not. If you let him into your life, he will ruin your life and you know it. Therefore, you will say that “you can love a homeless person,” but you won’t live with him. Of course, it is easy to love those who have nothing to do with you and do not influence your life.
Obviously? - Yes. But then where did the concept of unconditional love come from?
In my opinion, because people, due to their low value for money, often have a choice - to be with THIS partner, or without a partner at all. Or with something else, but about the same.
It is important to understand here that
Philosophical and religious ideas appear as a response to some need.
So it turns out that due to the impossibility of getting what you really want, you have to be content with what you have, or what you CAN get. And a person can receive exactly as much as he deserves. In the sense of how highly potential partners rate him. And most often, such an assessment of the “patient” by potential partners leaves much to be desired. So you have to put up with what is. (By the way, the term “HUMILITY” came from exactly here).
But for it to look “beautiful” you need to call it in beautiful words– for example, “unconditional love.” And “declare” unconditional love and accepting a person as he is, highly spiritual and highly moral feeling.
Therefore, the concept of “unconditional love” can be considered as rationalization. That is, the selection (search) of a rational explanation for behavior or decisions that have other, often unconscious reasons.
And often a person subconsciously strives for this unawareness, and uses rationalization in conjunction with the following technique described in psychology - repression.
crowding out- this is one of the mechanisms psychological protection, which consists in a person’s unconscious displacement from the field of his perception of what is unprofitable or unpleasant for a person to see.
But sometimes the discrepancy between facts and what is desired is so obvious that the language does not dare to call such “love” love. Even if it is unconditional. And people, realizing the incorrectness of this concept, came up with another rationalization - to accept a person as he is. This is a more honest rationalization than unconditional love. But nevertheless, she does not cease to be her.
“Accepting a person as he is” and “unconditional love” are rationalizations that help HUMILITY and ACCEPT the situation without damage to the psyche.
I show with an example:
Imagine the situation: Family. The husband is a parasite, but spiritually advanced. He justifies his idleness by searching for spiritual truth. The wife works like a locomotive, providing for herself and the child, who, it seems, has already learned from dad to be spiritually advanced and socially lazy. 
Any normal person in such a situation will send spiritual seeker further away and find someone better, but not everyone. After all, in order to send him “to hell” you need to be confident in yourself, in your better future, and this is not inherent in everyone. Therefore, as soon as the thought appears in your head “ Shouldn’t I send it all?..”, another one immediately arises - “ as if it couldn't be worse....»
It is for such philosophically minded citizens that OSHO’s Indian idea of unconditional love- “accept him as he is, and thereby you will show the degree of your spiritual perfection.” Here they live, drones and cowards, but spiritually advanced.
Now let’s take a rich family. They are doing well both with money and with personal growth. What should they take? What to come to terms with?
IN social life no problem. If you wanted to go to the Maldives, you flew to the Maldives. In my personal life, everything is just as good - if something in me prevents you from loving me, and you cannot cope with it yourself, I will help you and change myself. In spiritual inner life everything is fine - a problem arose - realized - solved. What should they take?! Everything is fine!!! Do you understand?
The idea of acceptance is an idea for the weak and the poor. The powerful and rich DO NOT NEED this idea! They have nothing to accept, nothing to put up with. They are fine!
However, on the path to wealth (material and spiritual), cases when something unsettles you happen, so something needs to be done about it, and this is where the idea of acceptance works, but not in OSHO’s interpretation, in mine:
How to accept what is right.
Let's ask ourselves what we are talking about accepting. Both in life situations and in a person there is and. What will we take?
Before answering this question, it is worth understanding
"What is good and what is bad"
since it is easy to get confused in these assessments.
For example, your wallet was stolen at the market. This is bad? - Yes.
And if you look at this situation as a lesson, what life teaches you, then this is already good. “Thank you life for taking such care of me. Next time I won’t be a bungler.” We are “smart”, so we can turn everything inside out.
How to distinguish one from the other? - Just. If any human trait or some life situation makes the future of a particular “X” worse than he lived yesterday - this bad feature or situation. If something in a person, in his character, or some situation creates a better future, it good feature or situation.
At the same time, the most important thing is not to speculate.
For example, if my wallet was stolen, I had less money, this made my tomorrow worse than today. It is a fact. But the reasoning that this life lesson will make my tomorrow better is not a fact. This is an assumption. Studying may make the future better, or maybe not, but I don’t have money right now.
The future is improved or worsened by specific actions and facts, and not by our assumptions that something will improve our future. In general, situations and anything else should be assessed from the standpoint of “good or bad” based on specific, verifiable facts, not speculation.
Perhaps this logic is easy to refute. Well, so what? - If you want, you can refute anything, but why?
I start from a simple idea: “Life should constantly improve. If something makes your life worse, then you need to get rid of it.”
So, we have an understanding of what is good and what is bad in a person.
What will we take in it? - good, bad or both?
The answer “accept everything” is stupid. Why? - It is obvious. His “bad” personally worsens OUR future. Close people influence each other, therefore, his bad influences me and worsens my life. Why should I put up with this? I'm not Indian!
It's easy to take people IN GENERAL, EVERYONE, for granted. It's easy to say that you need to love people and let them be themselves. Why is it easy? “Because these people don’t touch us in any way in the sense that our lives don’t depend on them in any way.” They have no influence on us. But if a loved one begins to ruin our future, saying “He is so special, that’s why I accept him that way...” is simply stupid.
Yes, you accept it. Yes, you are all spiritual and advanced, so what? - Tomorrow you will live worse than today. You will be proud of it, or maybe you will crawl under the covers and come up with a magical fantasy that a little more, a little more, a miracle will happen and...
Do you know what miracle people dream about whose life they are now very unhappy with? Here's what it's about: “Lord, let a miracle happen tomorrow, and let me die in my sleep, without pain and suffering! God! How tired I am of my life! Take me to your place!". I am not saying that everyone thinks this way, but somewhere in the depths of their souls such thoughts appear in many people at one time or another.
That's why, accept in a person, do not resist it, do not reject it, you should only accept the GOOD. Only things that improve life. It is ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE to accept bad things.“Accepting another” means agreeing that he should retain the good in himself and get rid of the bad.
Yes, a person has the right to insist on his characteristics and be what he wants to be. It's HIS RIGHT.
But, we HAVE OUR RIGHT TO ACCEPT OR NOT ACCEPT this way. We don't have to accept people as they are. If they want to live badly, let them live. This is their life. If they make our life worse, let these people not be near us! It is our life!
We HAVE THE RIGHT to evaluate people and make our verdict - whether they are worthy of US or not. And it’s easy to give a verdict -
if our tomorrow becomes better with this person - this good man. If the future around him gets worse, he is a bad person,
but not in the sense that he has bad moral qualities. He can be a sweetheart and love children. He is bad precisely FOR US, and precisely because when we communicate closely with this person, our future becomes worse. He is a bad influence on us.
An understandable objection: “Are you weak, that he influences you?” “The point here is not weakness, but the fact that you can not have this influence at all, but have another, one that improves our tomorrow.”
In general, the desire to object to these theses may be caused by ordinary fear. If there is someone next to you whose presence makes your life worse, you need to get rid of such a person or change him.
he most likely will not agree, since he knows better than you how good it is for him. And it's scary to get rid of it. “What if there isn’t another one?” The mind very quickly calculates this logic and, of course, raises objections. But not in essence, but rather “red herrings”. The objection would essentially be: “I’m afraid I won’t find anyone. How do I ?". “Red herring” (rationalization) is various speculations in support of the position “one must accept everything”.
What to do if, after reading the lines above, you realized that you do not want to accept your loved ones for who they are?
Very simple. Talk to them and explain the improved concept of acceptance, and then set the condition: “Either we change and our lives begin to improve, or we separate.” And in order for everything to start moving, set a time frame: “I give myself 3 months of time. If after this period I understand that nothing has gotten better, I consider our union not suitable for myself and close it.”
You can choose other intonations of conversation, with love, but leave the essence - the condition - either we begin to live better, or we don’t live together at all. And the idea on which this conversation is based is simple: “I am worthy of the most better life, therefore, I will live like this, and if you don’t want to, live as you want.”
Are you afraid of losing this love? But we are building a better future, where the quality of love is better, therefore, you do not lose love, but change it for better!
And yet, you don’t have to wait your whole life, what else is just around the corner, and soon the person will change. Life is too short to waste on others. Spend your life on yourself, on your personal happiness. Therefore, clear time frames for others is a way to avoid wasting precious time in your life.
Readers of various near-spiritual books very often say or think something like the following: “He said the right thing. I thought so myself, I just didn’t formulate it so clearly.” They “hear a ringing, but don’t know where it is.”
In order to clearly articulate some liberating life principle, needed personal experience liberation. Only after experience can the “discoverer” of the principle express it in words. It is easier to repeat what has been discovered, and it is even easier to say that “I think so myself.”
Thinking and doing are different. For example, in order to formulate “We are not obligated to accept people as they are:” I needed MY personal experience of NOT accepting. Conscious experience. And this is difficult, because earlier I read the opposite from N.I. Kozlov - “Accept your loved ones as they are.” And what I read for a while became my principle of life, but it didn’t make life any better. Therefore, I revised the principle and freed myself.
But this is my personal experience. For you, these are all words that, of course, bring liberation, but only after you COMPLETE AN ACTION based on a new principle that you like.
The logic is simple - you like the principle, you take it into your life, it means you need it right now, so use it and perform an action, an action based on the new principle. If there is no action, it is all just speculation, which does not change life and does not make it better.
Remember how Darcy in “Bridget Jones's Diary” tells the main character of the film: “I like you the way you are.” And then Bridget walks around and literally repeats these words like a spell.
Indeed, it is important for all of us to be accepted for who we are. With people who treat us this way, we feel more natural and relaxed. It’s comfortable when they understand you, don’t place additional expectations on you, don’t expect something special and are not at all your style. This happens to those closest to you. We can be cheerful and upset, complacent and unbearable, joyful and sad, in general, we can just be ourselves.
But it can be difficult to accept others as they are. This requires tolerance and a special openness of heart, sensitivity to other points of view, acceptance of multivariance. And this is where the problem begins. You can start changing people for the “better”, seemingly for their own “good”, teach them, come up with rules for them, because we know how everything “should be” and will correct everything that is wrong. By the way, think about how difficult it is for people with us at such moments when they are faced with a difficult dilemma: on the one hand, they do not want to offend, and on the other, to prevent interference in their personal space. The one we so want to “change” may begin to defend his personal boundaries. Typical situations are parents who know how their child will be “better” (“the child” may already be 30 years old) and pester him with their personal life guidelines and rules. Or another case – a woman’s expectations from her partner. For example, a girl has certain attitudes in her head, inspired romantic films- breakfast in bed, roses every day, etc., etc. If she ultimately does not stop stringing this sentimental pattern onto her lover, and the young man does not meet these expectations, it is quite possible that the accumulated unmet expectations with resentments will ruin the relationship. What do we see here? There is some rigidity here, inflexibility in perception; perhaps it would be worth abandoning the stereotype and taking a better look at the partner, assessing the existing positive sides, and not adjust everything to the scheme. But that's the difficulty, simpler than a person adjust to the finished picture in your head and fix all the inconsistencies, rather than find something new and original in it inner world. We see what we expect to see, just like in what I have already mentioned, and we may miss something really important, new, which does not fit into our internal scheme.
Psychologists believe that people with real expectations, ready to accept others with their characteristics, find it easier to live in this world. Of course, we are not talking about extreme negative degrees of manifestation of individuality - aggression, crimes, etc., we are not talking about connivance, but about acceptance. When we, to the best of our perceptual capabilities, try to see a person as he is, we give him the freedom to be himself. And this is very important.
If it is difficult to accept something in people, some qualities, features, you can think about your fears or what you don’t want to notice in yourself. Very often, what we categorically do not accept in others is associated with some internal attitudes and problems.
We all want to be accepted for who we are. When we are fully accepted as a person, it means that they are not trying to change us to make us perfect in their eyes. But when it seems to us that our loved ones are trying to force us to change in some way (they do not encourage us, but force us), this is automatically perceived by us as a hint that they feel that we are not good enough for them.
Self-doubt grows, and we begin to wonder if we are worth the love of these people. If so, why do they act like they're disappointed in us? And why is it that no matter what we do, it will never be enough? We will try to answer these questions, and also tell you whether it is even possible to accept a person as he is.
Let's start with main reason– relationships with parents in childhood. Problems with parents in childhood have such long-lasting consequences for relationships with people in general that almost every relationship problem today can be partially explained by what happened in your family when you were little.
Certainly, parental education- this is just one of dozens of reasons why people do not know how to accept a person as he is. Other reasons include countless perceptual filters, beliefs about relationships with people, fear of loneliness, and many, many others. We will talk about all of them soon, but in other articles. And here we will talk about parents and what their upbringing does to us.
Parents always control their children, and nothing can be done about it. In their attempts to make smart people out of their children, parents inevitably impose their will, their worldview, their character, their beliefs, etc. on their children. We don’t want to say that parenting is evil, far from it. The fundamental thing is that, simultaneously with upbringing, parents impose on the child a special attitude towards the world, interaction with it within the framework of the control paradigm.
What does “control paradigm” mean? There are two very important points in the way most parents raise their children. The first point is that adults, by their appearance, by their behavior, and, finally, by their words, show the child that this IMPORTANT - control yourself and what happens to you. The second point is that if a child does not control himself and his reality, then he BAD. These two points are absolutely dogmatic, and any child’s attempts to resist them are harshly suppressed. In the process of growing up, a person, still subconsciously perceiving the dogmas of his parents, thinks that if something in life does not suit him, then he must make an effort to change it and do it better. And if he doesn’t do this, then that’s bad. Moreover, the “better” criterion itself is determined by the beliefs of the person who is trying to exercise control.
Current relationships with people are directly affected by this paradigm. Under its influence, a person begins to extend his attempts to control throughout his entire local reality.
Let's take for example romantic relationship. At first, when the relationship is just beginning, partners treat each other with care, being careful not to cause offense and other negative emotions. Then, when they get used to each other, one partner or both immediately activates the same control paradigm that was imposed on them by their parents. If you are not happy with something about your girlfriend or your boyfriend, you begin to hint to her or him by your appearance and your actions that it is, firstly, important for you that your partner change, and secondly, the lack of attempts to change is perceived as something bad.
If you are on the receiving end of criticism from others, here's what you need to understand. Your feelings of resentment caused by people's attempts to change you and force you to conform to their beliefs are also due to your reaction to these attempts. You need to treat such situations adequately and understand that people who are trying to change you do not carry out their attempts quite consciously - they, firstly, do not understand what feelings they evoke in you with these attempts, and secondly, they think that they do “the best way.”
Thus, people criticize you on complete autopilot, without understanding what they are doing, and being offended by such people is stupid. If you treat attempts to change you consciously, you will be able to calmly react to them and then decide whether you even need to communicate with such people who are trying to change you, and without lifting a finger to figure it out first with your own psychological problems and limited beliefs...
So, back to the questions of why they are constantly trying to change us, and why, no matter what we do, we will never be accepted for who we are. The bitter truth is that accepting a person as he is is a myth. Most people - except for those who have bothered to clear their own brains - will never accept you for who you are. They will only accept you according to their beliefs about what is good and what is bad.
There is nothing you can do about it, and the sooner you come to terms with it, the better. But you can do one thing - try to work on yourself, try to free yourself from the paradigm of total control of reality. Perhaps, if you yourself learn to perceive the world without filters and accept it as it is, your intention will be to attract into your life those few people who really know how to accept reality directly, outside the framework of their limited beliefs. But to get there, you will have to give up your control paradigm.
It is important to note the following here. We do not mean by these words that we should abandon all attempts to control anything. At the everyday level, uncontrolled life will lead to chaos. If your neighbors flooded you, and you don’t do anything about it, because you don’t consider it necessary to control your reality, and you accept your neighbors and your flooded apartment as is, and that's why you don't do anything, then you, excuse me, are an idiot. But such control must be exercised, firstly, only when it is necessary, and secondly, consciously. There is no need, for example, to completely subordinate your relationships with people to control - this is impossible in any case.
There is only one thing you can control, and that thing is you. Therefore, follow the banal quote and you will be happy - “Change yourself, and the world around you will change.” If you are one of those who are ready to change, then you should.
