3/17/2016 (Day 77) Radical Acceptance...Healing the Wounded Heart

Much of the unhappiness and dissatisfaction that we experience in our day to day lives stems from our (often subconscious) desire for the people around us to change in order to better conform to our expectations of how they "should" be. Our ego self has the tendency to want people to behave in certain ways, and when they don't meet these expectations that we've placed on them, our egos tell us we are "suppose to be" angry with, hurt by, or disappointed in, that person for letting us down by not meeting our expectations. I see this very often in intimate and familial relationships. We create a story in our minds of just how someone is "suppose" to be, and we expect them to conform to this image we've created of them. So, when instead, they go ahead and just be themselves...be who they really are... and it does not live up to our expectation of who we thought they were, we become disappointed and/or upset with them. As a result, we find ourselves feeling sad, lonely, hurt, angry, etc, and we blame them for these ''bad'' feelings we are having...because, after all, it's their fault they didn't meet our expectations of them. These (sometimes subconscious) feelings often lead to conflict and difficulty in the relationship and tend to create looping patterns of dysfunction when left unaddressed.

By recognizing that just because we have created these expectations about how we believe those around us should behave, or act, or feel, or whatever; it doesn't mean that they actually have any obligation whatsoever to meet these expectations of ours. By realizing that it is up to us whether or not we are going to allow it to affect our mood/vibe/experience/etc; and that it's not up to the other person to ''fix'' themselves or conform for us, we remove unwarranted pressure from our relationships and allow them to flow more freely. By practicing radical acceptance in our relationships, we have the opportunity to, not only have better relationships, but also, to release and be released from unfounded expectations of one another (which is wonderfully freeing for all parties involved). We are also afforded the opportunity to heal our hearts of wounds, thought to be caused by others treatment of us, but in fact, caused instead by our own, unrealistic, expectations of the people in or lives and our relationships with them. We are able to do this, because when we are not all going around constantly projecting our expectations on one another, we are free to enjoy one other just as we are, which frees us all up to BE more authentically our true Selves and to Love one another more fully and unconditionally. And that makes our world a much nicer place for us all ;)

~Namaste my Loves <3