The other night I was having dinner with an old friend.
She’s the kind of friend that you don’t see very often but when you do, the friendship seems to start back right where it left off.
We got to talking and I mentioned to her that she had seemed so happy and content the last time we met…but something was different now, so I asked her about it.
Apparently everything was going well for her except one thing…she was angry.
A member of her family, someone she had looked up to all her life, had been behaving in a way that disappointed her.
As I sat there, focused on her and listening intently, I was reminded of a phrase I had heard a couple of weeks prior,
“People don’t break our hearts, they break our expectations.”
So often, we want people to behave in a way that fits our criteria…a criteria that we make up.
Then we get upset when they don’t fit into our own personal version of how we think they should be.
We feel personally attacked and get more angry as we ruminate and analyze the circumstances.
We get up into our heads and away from our hearts, and from here we often lash out, hold a grudge, or plot revenge.
Of course, this only makes things worse.
So what if we were to do something different?
What if we recognize that the other person is simply not living up to the expectations that we created and that the anger we are feeling has nothing to do with the other person and everything to do with us?
What if we practiced acceptance?
What if we accepted that our feelings were not coming from anywhere or anyone outside of ourselves? What if we accepted that we were creating our own feelings of anger?
What if we decided to be completely accepting of the other person?
As we begin to take ownership of our thoughts and emotions, we begin to see things with more clarity. We can put ourselves in the other person’s shoes. We can live our lives with more compassion, love, and understanding.
And from here we create a space for others to do the same…we create a space where connection can be experienced.
When we come from a place of acceptance we allow others to relax, drop their guard, and express their own love and understanding.
But don’t take my word for it. Try it and see what happens.
Where do you start?
Start with accepting…you.
Make peace with what you hold inside. Love yourself and your world will transform.
Accept it 😉
-Alan
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