Accepting Others For Who They Truly Are

Empowerment for the Willing Mind

Let me make a point here that applies to this topic and to life in general. This is what I believe, ultimately we are our own worst enemy and to be even more specific, we are our only real enemy. As we go through our day we are either building ourselves up with positive energy or tearing ourselves down with negative energy. The more positive energy we allow into our existence the easier life will become and we will be able to create what we desire with much more ease. I feel that this is one of the major keys to releasing more and more of our own untapped potential and inner empowerment; doing more of what strengthens us, and less of what weakens us.

Emotional Signals

When we act with negative energy, our mind is designed to send out warning signals that are meant to put us back on track towards what we really desire. These signals are our emotions. When we have a negative emotion like hate or shame, if we pay attention to it we will realize that this is not how we truly want to feel. It doesn't feel good in your body mind or soul to experience those feelings. Whenever we experience these low energy emotions, our spirit or soul is trying to tell us that we are off course. Most of us ignore these signs and become victims of our own emotional turmoil.

Maybe an easier way to look at this is to see how our body reacts to physical pain. We seem to catch on to this example with much less resistance. If we touch fire, our body sends us a signal which pretty much means, "what the hell are you doing! Stop that, or you will continue to suffer!" We catch on with a quickness and remove our hand from the flame. After a few of these experiences growing up, we make a point to not purposely touch hot surfaces or flames again; thats called personal growth :) This is very similar to what happens with our emotions. Our body or mind is telling us something is going on and we need to be paying attention.

As we unconsciously or consciously express negative energy, alarms will go off trying to alert us of the error. This does not mean that certain emotions are bad, it just means that maybe they are designed with a purpose of helping us grow. We need them to help guide us, they are wonderful. Just because I refer to them as negative does not mean they are void of value.

Energy?

When I use the term energy, I think of it as a sort of physical, emotional, or soulful expression that we send out or collect. I'm not saying that we should ignore these unwanted emotions, we should accept them for what they are and learn the lesson within them. If a negative emotion arises, practice your awareness and be in the moment with this emotion. I'm sure I will write more about this topic in the future; I don't feel I have said everything I wanted to but I need to get back on topic about accepting others for who they are.

What is Love?

Are you Judging other??? Shame on you! Hehe... thats funny to me, because its a judgment on you judging others.

Lets look at some questions to feed off of as we go forward with this topic.

Why is it that I spend time judging and criticizing others? How is this activity making my life more difficult?

Life tends to comes back around to a common theme when it comes to growth. This theme, is to love without ceasing. To express love inward and outward. Some would ask, "what is love?" I guess it is only a word until it becomes an experience, and often times the experience cannot be fully described with words. As much as I would like to, I cannot define the word for you. I don't believe it can be defined in words, lets say it can not be contained by words as well. Besides, I think it will be much more exciting for you to define love within your own heart as you grow. I promise you, if you grow on purpose, your definition of love will grow as well, because love itself as an energy is constantly expanding around you. What I will do, is offer some additional words that might help you understand how I see what love is and how it's expressed; as time goes on I hope love can find a way to expand 'within' you and not just 'around' you.

Abundant

Accepting

Appreciative

Balanced

Beautiful

Courageous

Devoted

Encouraging

Eternal

Fair

Forgiving

Free

Generous

Grateful

Healing

Honest

Humble

Humorous

Impartial

Inspired

Intentional

Intuitive

Joyful

Loyal

Natural

Noble

Observant

Patient

Peaceful

Polite

Powerful

Purposeful

Receptive

Responsible

Thoughtful

Timeless

Unselfish

Virtuous

These are just a few of what I believe to be expressions of Love. I also would believe these themes to be universally accepted around the globe as positive expressions, as long as they are interpreted in the context of how I see them :)

What is Judgment?

This idea of Love will ultimately be the saving grace when it comes to removing the judgments we hold against other people. When I use the word judgment, what I'm referring to is labeling or identifying someone as something other than completely perfect.

Why should complete perfection be the standard of how we see people? Because I believe that no man truly knows the condition of another mans heart or intentions and in the eyes of Love, they are perfect. They are a perfect creation on their own path to unlearn fear and return home to a place of complete love and acceptance. I believe this is the ultimate destiny of everyone and we all express that path in different ways.

This doesn't mean that there are no consequences if we or someone else acts in error. Consequences are a natural state of our existence; there are positive and negative consequences to our actions that play out in many different ways. I think to fully understand and benefit from this concept, we have to be able to see life with our heart and not just our eyes.

Relationship of Love

A good reminder of this for me is to look at the relationship I have with my children. As their Father, I desire to love them unconditionally and that means whatever they do, good or bad, I will love them no more or no less; I just love them. If they chose to make a decision with a negative consequence or negative energy, it doesn't mean I don't or won't continue to love them.

For me, to love them means I want them to grow and learn from their experience and accept that it will be in their own time. That's the beauty of life, we have the freedom to make decisions and to become better and experience more love. If I were to see my children with only my eyes, then when they made a mistake, I would identify them with that mistake and label them as such. If one of my daughter's lies to me, I would see them as a liar through my eyes. My heart knows that this is not the truth. My heart knows that she is a beautiful creation who is learning how to express more love.

We only learn and move forward by making mistakes. Without the freedom to make mistakes, she could never grow. She would never learn how to express more love not only to her self, but those in her circle of influence if it wasn't for the ability to be in error. When she does make an error in her actions, its my intent that my only concern is that her eyes and heart be open to finding a better way to express herself with a foundation based in love.

I see it as my responsibility to assist her in finding that path, whatever that path may be for her, and I know that if its based in love, than everything will be okay.

Paying Attention

If we pay attention to our inner strength as we judge and criticize others, we will notice that we do not feel our strongest.

For me, I really notice this feeling of weakness when other people are judging and criticizing others to me. We all experience this situation, its often called gossip. Recently, I've really have been able to sense this weakness when this situation of gossip arises. I really, really dislike the inner feeling that comes with this form of judgment. Often times, people pull me aside or email me and start complaining about this person or that person hoping that I will come into alignment with there critical thinking.

People often find out though rather quickly, that if they're looking for someone to join the gossip party, I'm not the one to invite.

Why do we spend time in this negative activity? The simply answer, while we are in the act of judgment we do not fully love ourselves. One thing we will notice if we pay attention, if we practice awareness, is that often the things we nit pick most about others are the things we dislike most about ourselves. Please read that again, never mind, I'll just write it again. One thing we will notice if we pay attention, if we practice awareness, is that often the things we nit pick most about others are the things we dislike most about ourselves. If you do not agree, meditate on that sentence and give it a week and you will see what I'm talking about.

Practice Love

The truth of the matter is, by judging and criticizing others we are only breaking down ourselves. If we see something we want to criticize in someone else, stop, and practice love. Love in this situation would see the opportunity to grow and be thankful for the lesson. See the error, and asked why that really bothers you so much. Is it something that you do sometimes that you really dislike about yourself? Can I see whats going on and grow from it personally? If they made such an error and you see the negative consequences of it, can't you still learn from it and become better prepared.

Its kind like seeing someone who has a destructive drug addiction. We could rant and rave about how bad that person is for doing what they do and all the people they are hurting, that would be a response based in fear.

The truth of the matter is, you probably have your own addictions that you know are holding you back from experiencing more happiness and aren't doing anything about it. It could be something as small as a poor diet, an addiction of putting things in your body that you know aren't good for you. We could look at this drug addict as a perfect expression of love as it finds its own path towards healing, and offer encouragement, acceptance, kindness, and forgiveness.

The Feeling of Weakness

If we choose to respond in fear, hate, judgment, or any other negative expression we will feel the weakness that comes with it and suffer our own consequence of not moving towards what we truly desire. This weakness will hinder your own creation process in creating the life you really want. Any error that you see in another person is perfectly organized as an opportunity for you to grow personally.

In contrast; this feeling of negative energy may not be as pronounced as I'm making it out to be. This is because of conditioning over time to believe this weak sensation as being normal. If that is the case for you, then remember times when you expressed love unconditionally or in part. What did that feel like, did you almost feel like a completely different person? Did you have a sense of bliss? Like nothing else mattered at that moment? Maybe you felt total acceptance of who you are.

Really try and remember these moments and what it felt like. This feeling of love, is how I desire to live out my experience while I'm hear on earth. Though I'm not able to do it 24/7, I cherish the moments when its present and accept that ultimately it is me that decides when those moments arise.

Conclusion

Personal Growth, to me, is about experiencing more and more of those moments everyday; with our family, with our friends, with ourselves, and with people we come in contact with everyday; even with you as I write, even thought I may never meet you I desire to express love to you, and it gives me this feeling of bliss.

Be kind to a stranger, express more love, and accept everyone as they are. We all have our own path, we all learn in different ways; be thankful for the diversity that comes with love.

Be Empowered

Empowerment for the Willing Mind

-tiger