Yesterday we talked about self acceptance and how important it is. Today we will talk about accepting others, because truly you are not accepting yourself if you cannot accept others. We are raised in a society where everything is categorized. We are always trying to either avoid or fit into a specific stereotype. We judge certain actions and behaviors that we swear we would never do, we carry ourselves around picking and choosing what works for us. which we should do, yet we should also then understand, accept, and cherish that other people will find their own way, their own corks, and do things in their own style. We should not judge them for not doing what we are doing or doing things differently. We must accept others for who they are. This is so important because people come into your life as some sort of reflection of yourself. I'd like to take a moment here and explain that your mind is very powerful. Your mind creates what you experience. So when you find yourself annoyed, hurt, bothered or angry with someone, stop for a second and think about what it is that is truly bothering you. Are they zoning in on a quality about yourself you have yet to accept? Are they acting in a way you are too scared to act yourself? We often times get annoyed with people for doing things we are too scared to do ourselves, or things we believe we should not do, but deep down we want to. When you stop and use your mind for a moment to analyze the situation, you will begin to see more clearly that either what you are upset about or angry about isn't going to get solved by being angry or upset. (sometimes we do have to cry I am not saying that lol) But we have to remember that a lot of times are reactions to people are automatic and we really aren't sure why we are reacting the way we are until we begin to look inward. Until we begin to look at how our brain is wired, it will continue to operate without changing. Through other people we are able to learn so much about ourselves. When we admire qualities in a person that is a reflection of the good in us. When we see the beauty of another person that is the beauty with in you. When we see the love between a man and a woman, a mother and her son that is a reflection of the love we have within us.
When we accept others we are accepting ourselves. We are each an individual reflection of perfection. We are each beautiful and full of life, strength, courage and knowledge. We can all be who we want to be if we chose it. If we chose to accept ourselves and chose to accept each other. We must chose to accept each other with gratitude and love. For if we were all the same how boring would that be? What new inventions would be created? What new world would be explored? Remember we are all perfect in our own way, there is no one way.
Accepting Others Challenge :
Meditation: Sit in a quiet place, feet planted on the floor. Close your eyes and begin to breathe and relax. Allow the energy of the earth to flow through you. Let your mind find quietness and just breathe. Once you feel quiet and relaxed bring into focus a person you love. Notice all the good qualities about them admire them. Really feel gratitude and love for this person. Spend a few minutes doing this with however many people you chose and write down all their qualities you like. Then look at each quality individually and picture yourself with those amazing qualities. Accept yourself as awesome, just like you accepted your friends as awesome. Enjoy the good feeling, give your friends love and give yourself love. Once you have accepted it for what it is, let it go.
Now bring to mind someone you may have tension with. Do the same thing but this time focus on what it is that hurts, bothers, annoys etc. Picture them and understand these behaviors and write them down, now look at your list and see what it is about yourself that could be found in that behavior. Don't judge yourself and don't judge others, just learn and accept. Also realize how this reflection of your behavior means it is a reflection of someone else's behavior and you can also learn how to accept them for them by finding the connection. Deal with these behaviors. Then watch them float away. Accepting it for what it is and moving on. Accepting those you love and those you don't love, but realizing in the end we are all equal.
In the end we all have good qualities and bad qualities. You will probably have people who show up on both lists. Especially those closest to you. This is how we can begin to see and connect with those in our lives and learn how to better communicate within ourselves and with others. By accepting others we not only accept ourselves and find more peace in our lives, we can find more peace within our relationships as well. We have the ability to have everything we want in life if we just accept you can't have the good without the bad, and the good always wins!
