Welcome to step one in our four-part ARAS Mastering Relationships series; an essential program because successful relationships are vital in business, personal life, peer connections, friendships, mental stability and yes, even emotional happiness. People with meaningful relationships have more success, less disease, fewer accidents and they live longer. All parts of our lives work better when our relationships are working. ARAS is an acronym for Acceptance, Respect, Affection and Support. Over the next weeks we will look at each of those and see how to apply them and to make our relationships all they can become.
Acceptance
The antonym for acceptance is rejection and, unfortunately, there is no middle ground, no neutral place to hold our relationships; we are either consciously or subconsciously in continual acceptance or rejection of others. But then, why should we care whether we are accepted by others? Why not just be loners? Here is why: we care because our mutual acceptance brings us into alignment with the human family which is our foundation. As we are accepted by our base, we form alliances and support teams who help us attain our goals and achieve our dreams with smiles in our hearts.
A very nice reverse-effect of our accepting others is that those we accept may see us as interesting and wise, as rare persons who care who they are. Accepting others then, normally causes them to accept us in return. Then may I suggest a way to practice acceptance? When we meet a stranger we might purposefully think: “This is not a stranger, this is my brother or my sister. This is a sibling in my human family. I am accepting him or her without judgment.” As we do so, we may actually see their resistance falling away and the beginnings of trust. It is nothing we actually do that relaxes their defenses; they are reading our attitudes as clearly as if there were signs hanging on our faces or revealing tones in our voices, and they instinctively know how we feel and what we are thinking about them.
We cannot lie to them because we cannot lie to ourselves; our bodies give us away with an uncertain look, a tightening of the shoulders or a slight alteration of voice pitch. Survival traits inherited from their five-thousand grandparents, reveal our truth to them; they are getting us loud and clear even when we think our judgments are hidden. One study at UCLA indicated that up to 93% of communication received is from nonverbal cues! Another study showed 7% coming from words, 38%, from voice tone and 55% from nonverbal body language. Even when we are on the phone; people are reading our voice tones and assuming our body language; which is why I recommend we stand up and smile when talking to those with whom we want to make a good impression.
By saying we must accept others as they are, I am not advocating that we allow bad behavior. We must remember however, that people are not their behaviors. If a child begins taking drugs, for you it may seem easiest to just ban him to his room, but acceptance of the truth: he really is doing drugs; puts you in the driver’s seat and gives you the ability to work with him to overcome this weakness. We must accept the person even as we condemn his behavior. If we lose him we have then also lost the ability to make a difference in his life.
Bottom line: I am either an accepting person or I am not. People either feel judged and pigeonholed by me or accepted as valuable, unique beings. And unique they certainly are, for of all the billions of trillions of people who ever will inhabit the human race, no two of us will ever have the same DNA, fingerprints, voiceprints, irises or synaptic patterns, we each think differently, see different realities and have different gifts to offer the world. We are each one of a kind. And since we are all different it is meaningless to judge others as we would judge ourselves.
On a wider scale, being an accepting person affects more than just my relationships with others; it affects my relationships with my life, my universe, health, wealth, career, home, car, recreation, etc. I am either in alignment with and acceptance of what is or I am not. If I deny what is (truth), I am powerless to change it. But if I accept my life exactly as it is, I am back in the driver’s seat and steering my life in the direction of my choice. When I reject any part of my life, my karma does the steering, it keeps me right up against that situation until I finally surrender and accept. Only then can I change it.
Forgiveness is Acceptance
True forgiveness equals complete acceptance; it is the only way to be free. Otherwise, our resentments and our guilts bully us, twist our thinking and taint our views of one another. The only perfect forgiveness is to look back at those things done to me and those things I did to others and to accept them; to determine that I would not now change any of them even if I could. They are my own unmet expectations that did not, and do not match reality, and I need to let them go. This real world will not change to match the one in my mind; I can only become an effective change agent when my mind is aligned with truth: what is.
Discover how to make relationship magic with my book: Romancing The Soul, Your Personal Guide to Living Free at: http://www.amazon.com/Romancing-Personal-Guide-Living-Hardcover/dp/0961216441/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1258768390&sr=1-2
Next week we move to the second part of ARAS which is Respect. You won’t want to miss it!
A bit of humor for you:
The good priest was amazed because he had never seen Murphy in church. After Mass, he asked him, "Murphy, What in the world brought you back into the fold?”
Murphy said, "Ah, I’ve got to be honest with you Father, a while back, I misplaced my hat and, oh I love that hat! Now McGlynn has a hat just like mine and he takes it off during Mass and leaves it in the back of church. So, during Communion I was going to steal McGlynn's hat."
The priest said, "Well, Murphy, I see that you don’t have his hat. What changed your mind?"
"Well,” Murphy replied, “When I heard your sermon on the 10 Commandments I decided that I really didn't need to steal McGlynn's hat."
With a tear in his eye the priest gave Murphy a big smile and said; "When I talked about 'Thou Shalt Not Steal' you decided you would rather do without your hat than burn in Hell?"
Murphy shook his head. "Ah no, Father, after you talked about 'Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery, 'then I remembered where I left my hat."
The Hero of the Week
Joe Lamanno is a thinker and philosopher and is forever making personal sacrifices to uplift others lives. By profession Joe is a respected musician, stained glass artist, finish carpenter, massage therapist, artist and poet. These gifts give him his living, but the gifts that give him life are those of supporting and coaching others who are struggling through life’s sticky problems which is why he became fluent in sign language- so he could also be of assistance to the hearing impaired. Joe might spend his days and nights at the bedside of someone in crisis, then give months to a project serving others' special needs, then be in the wilderness, guiding a Spirit Quest group through the highest mountains on horseback and on foot. For years Joe Lamanno has been a regular participant of the San Francisco to LA Aids Bike Ride, both as rider and as a worker. He currently records and tours with Clementine, a lively musical group dedicated to helping find missing persons. Had Joe Lamanno been selling, rather than giving, his talents to the world he would by now be a financial tycoon. But he laughs at that; he says the joy he receives is making him quite wealthy.
The message of Acceptance is so true, and is the keystone to relationships, as well as self confidence & inner peace. The world would be so much brighter if more people would look at others with a lens of acceptance instead of judgment. Thank you for your inspiring insights Bob, and for your wonderful work of uplifting awareness and attitudes!
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