Acceptance comes in 3 batches: Self Acceptance, Acceptance of Others and Acceptance when there are problems.
The three steps to self-acceptance:
1) Discover your uniqueness. Each and every one of us has something which is unique.
2) Make it your signature. When you have discovered what your uniqueness is, you should put it into practice as much as you can to develop it so that you make it your signature.
3) Don’t look at yourself throught the eyes of the world. These eyes are very deceiving.
The two methods to discover your uniqueness:
Reflective method
People who are doing are rarely people who are being, as only when running water becomes still you can see yourself clearly. Speak to yourself, have a talk with your heart. Stay still and you’ll discover your qualities. This is self reflection.
Meditation
Meditation makes you realise your duality that both good and negative qualities are intrinsic to us. What we can do is to work with the positive qualities and not focus on the negative traits, and just see ourselves with positive qualities.
To attain self respect:
– Appreciate your achievements
Sit on your seat of self-achievement – what you have accomplished in life, what you have done. Everybody has such a seat and sitting it will give you get a sense of pride and appreciation of yourself.
– Appreciate your spirituality
May be you have worked on yourself: you have won battles over your addictions, your anger and your weaknesses; or someone disrespected you and you chose to act from a seat of humility and divinity. This was due to the power of the self, the seat you received from the attainments of self-discovery and your relationship with the Divine.
When dealing with trying to accept others as they are, the first thing to do is accept differences. All we need is the power to adjust to each other. The power of adjustment comes with having an easy nature.
A person with an easy nature:
– flows with the flow of life.
– is open to change and can catch the opportunities that life presents them with.
– is very well organised, because they adapt to life’s constant change.
Someone who hasn’t an easy nature becomes completely lost when life goes on another way.
Acceptance at the workplace
1. Take specialities and learn to accept defects. A leader accepts others as they are and works with them with trust.
2. Listen. Then we can feel people’s pulse and find out what they want.
When listening,
– do not think about what you are going to say, because you will miss out what comes between the lines.
– demonstrate respect, making eye contact is one of the easiest ways to show respect and approval.
Sympathetic listening is therapeutic, it allows people to sort out their own problems and become lighter whilst they are speaking.
When we don’t accept others as they are we accumulate a lot of negativity and tightness.
When we accept people as they are our relationship with them can change, and without effort people will begin to respect you.
Having accepted myself and others, we also have to create an acceptance for situations that may occur in our lives.
There are three types of ways people face difficult situations:
1. They embody problems.
2. They become embodiments of excuses, they blame people and the situation.
3. They become embodiments of solutions, they know already they will find a solution, they are very focused.
The size of any given problem is determined by your perception. We have a rich sense of imagination and we should use it. To always imagine the best and never the worst.
Detachment
When we see someone suffering we develop a sense of sympathy for them, but the more we identify with them the more we suffer. There is a lot of power in detachment.
Decision making
It does not matter what decisions we take, as right or wrong it will manifest itself. If it’s wrong, next time you’ll know what to do.
