You Need Total Acceptance For a Successful Relationship

We’re busy preparing for today’s workshop, so here is a reprint of a much-loved blog.

Have you felt completely accepted by someone in your life? Do you know how the experience of full acceptance changes you?

Many people do not have any frame of reference to understand these questions. The relationships in their life have taught them to be defended and withholding. They are always on the look out to fend off criticism and correction.

That is why we feel it is so important to share and discuss what total acceptance can bring into a relationship, and what it looks and feels like. We are aware that this is a radical viewpoint, and yet if you want to truly change the world and the way people relate to each other, then some radical changes need to take place.

There is a prevailing viewpoint that suggests that you can balance criticisms and injuries within a relationship by having a proper balance, like 5 to 1. Our view on this is that negative interactions do not have any constructive use. Even if it’s true that if you dilute a poison sufficiently, it won’t kill you, that still doesn’t mean it’s good for you.

And here’s where our more radical approach comes in. We know from our own personal experience that it is possible to practice 100% acceptance. And we do mean 100%! Anything less (even 99%) will not create the situation and the results we are talking about.

When you reach a point where you and your partner can accept each other fully, the very quality of your experience changes entirely. Your relationship is transformed. It is important to say here that this is not the first part of the process of joining in union. You have to have done all your initial work first. You need to assess your core values and be sure they match, both in word and deed. You will have created a mutual agreement and understanding that you are both committed to always being on the same side. Your belief and intentions are for peaceful loving supportive relating.

Once these understandings are in place, it is time for total acceptance. You practice respect and support of your partner as a complete and separate individual, bearing in mind your mutual intentions for the relationship.

There are a number of things that help contribute to this kind of acceptance practice:

• Celebrate the Differences – you are enriched by the different way your partner puts your shared core values into practice
• Practice Acceptance, Acknowledgment and Appreciation – show your partner how much you see them and value them.
• Do Not Make Unimportant Things Important – let everything go that isn’t of true meaning and value to you.
• Let Go of the Need to Be Right – you are changing your view to realize that together you and your partner can create mutual solutions, which are by their very nature, better than anything either of you could come up with separately.

When you know that you are not going to be attacked or criticized, an amazing feeling of true peace and calm settles within you. You feel free to be who you truly are and to share this completely with your partner. Your interactions are not based on power, seeking attention, wanting to be right, or needing to have things only the way you envision them. Instead, you can be open to explore yourself and your partner in a way that is only available when full acceptance exists.

Imagine you are barefoot on a dance floor. When you know that there is nothing on the floor, no thumbtacks or other dangerous items, you can be free to dance about, flying through the air, unmindful of where you come down. As soon as you introduce a single thumbtack anywhere on the floor, you are no longer able to leap and prance freely. You must always be careful you don’t come down on the tack and injure yourself. This very knowledge inhibits you all the time, even if it’s just a little bit.

It is the same within relationships. The more thumbtacks that appear in the exchange, the more you must be careful, defended, withdrawn, on alert. Once you reach the threshold of 100%, your mind is not busy with whether the person is right or wrong, or needs changing or adjusting. Instead, when you accept yourself and the other and go forward in the freedom that this way of being brings, it creates an exquisite experience of peace and joy. “How Two: Have a Successful Relationship”

We have been together for well over a decade and in this whole time we have practiced 100 % acceptance. The rewards have been great! We abide in a constant state of peaceful assurance and loving support. We are buoyed up by this supreme experience of peace whether we are together physically or not. We firmly believe this type of relating is available to most everyone and that it has the potential to truly change the way we all, in every relationship, are with each other. Won’t you join us?

Photo credit: Maude Mayes

Successful Relationship Reading Corner

This week's blog on the need for total acceptance in a successful relationship. Here’s a variety of viewpoints on this topic.

Acceptance: The Foundation of Lasting Relationships “Relating is simply about acceptance of the other and commitment to that person above all else, including what we want. Acceptance is recognizing the other person for who he or she is and being attentive to the circumstances of the relationship moment by moment.”

Acceptance: The Key to a Happy Marriage “Acceptance also takes maturity. It is the mature person who grasps that just because someone is different, that doesn’t mean there is something wrong with them.”

It is what it is…. 3 Ways to learn Total Acceptance “Learning to practice acceptance can drastically improve our outlook on our current state of affairs. And not just any old acceptance, but TOTAL ACCEPTANCE.”

Spreading peace one relationship at a time
Phil and Maude
 
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