How to accept other people
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Acceptance can be a hard road.
Accepting something happens in an instant, but acceptance is a process.
Everything just is. That doesn’t sit well with human brains, because we are change-makers. If we ourselves can change, we know other people can change, and because of that knowledge we often choose not to accept other people exactly as they are. Because we think we can be better, we think they can be better too.
We often target those closest to us with our deepest judgmental non-acceptance. We do it under the ruse that it will be better for them, but if we’re completely honest, we want them to change so we can feel a little bit better ourselves, in a world that throws a lot of crap us.
There’s no big secret to how to accept other people. You just do it.
Think about everything in your life that you simply accept. It just is, and you don’t try to change it. You are surrounded by these things every minute of every day. You believe you have no control over these things, so you let them be.
You can do this with other people. Accepting other people as they are is not lazy. It’s not indifferent. It’s simply recognizing autonomy for another human on this planet. And once you accept them as they are, you can offer your HELP, rather than your JUDGMENT.
Now of course the opposite is true. You can not accept someone, and set your will against them, either privately in your mind, or outwardly through your words and actions about them.
Something the coach who trained me would always say about choosing to feel negative about a person or situation is “make sure you like your reasons.”
If your reasons are valid and they align with your values as a human then sure, don’t accept someone as they are. But know that every time you practice resistance towards another human being you are resisting something in yourself. When your brain focuses in on what you perceive as a deficiency in someone else, it’s because your brain holds a belief about that very thing that it applies to you, whether you recognize it or not.
All the things you believe you shouldn’t do get broadcast outward by your brain and applied to everyone else.
Acceptance is a choice, and the act of acceptance can take a little time, because you have to choose to unknot the thoughts that are creating unacceptance in the first place. But once you do, the act of accepting happens in an instant.
And guess what? The acceptance has to start with you. Again, the brain broadcasts out what it holds within, so self-acceptance is the exercise that must be practiced in order to give it to others.
You want to be accepted. So do other people. It’s gotta start somewhere. Will you be the one?
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