How Appreciation and Acknowledgment Open a Path to Peaceful Relationships

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MAUDE: On the path toward peaceful relationships, there are two areas we want to explore today: appreciation and acknowledgment. Both of these can be mighty contributors toward peaceful and loving relating.

I was at a birthday party today with a group of women, and I heard one woman lean toward the woman opposite her and say, “You look really beautiful today; you seem to be shining from within.” If the woman who was told this was not shining before, she sure was after that comment. It feels so good to know someone sees you.

To appreciate another person takes a decision to approach them with awareness. It requires being conscious of the other person, and not just being wrapped up in yourself and what you are mentally busy with. You have to be observing with attention and be interested. Appreciation involves listening and being open to finding out more about what that person is feeling and thinking. What do they value? What special insight do they have? What brings them joy?

This kind of awareness is colored by the intention of generosity; generosity of spirit. You look for the best with open eyes and heart. What’s important is that you are actually looking. By being present with this kind of awareness, you gain much from the connection. You enter another world and find the treasures therein. This is the kind of experience that appreciation for another gives to the ones doing the appreciating.

What does it do for the person being appreciated? Appreciation and acknowledgment are intertwined. Once you find the gems you appreciate in the other person, find ways to tell them of your discoveries. Tell them what you see and feel. It will add to how they see themselves, and bring that special pleasure you get when you know you are being seen.

For the first years of Phil and me being together, he would frequently remark that no one had ever seen him the way I described him and that it was new to him, although he could relate to what I was telling him. He shared that it gave him an expanded view of himself, as well as pleasure from hearing how he was perceived. After a few decades of being together, this happens less frequently. But it does still happen, and it still offers him that same wide-eyed response of hearing something new about himself.

The longer we are in friendships, marriages, and other deep relationships, the easier it is to stop being aware and to stop acknowledging those traits to each other. Guard against this kind of complacency. Be comfortable in your relationships, but do not take them for granted. Every time you appreciate and acknowledge someone, you become closer. It reaffirms the connection and adds a gentleness and a sense of peace between you.

PHIL: I have, in recent years, come to the realization that we live as a group; that we are all dependent on each other. That’s the nature of humans, and so our need for and attraction to other people is built deeply into us. That attraction must be accepting of differences because that is how everything gets done. I can only do a certain number of things by myself. It takes other people with different skills, abilities, and desires to make society function, and I have come to appreciate other people for that.

Given that part of our nature is the attraction toward other people, look for it in personal relationships, too. When we find things within our nature, they have a really tangible quality.

To tune into this, we have to get past any allergy to differences and instead, have an attitude of gratefulness for the way things are done differently, for the things that are done for me, and for the contribution to living that relationships provide. By living with this attitude, appreciation becomes a reflex. This takes awareness and being present.

Appreciation feeds on itself, by which I mean that to be appreciated is wonderful; it is to feel seen, and in that way, we feel connected to other people. I am grateful to Maude for being that way, and in turn, am appreciative of her.

Photo credit: Maude Mayes
Photo note: Phil with his appreciation award

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