Acceptance

Acceptance is Letting Go of Control.

 Accepting yourself, as well as accepting others, can help you develop compassion. Compassion includes love and kindness. Acceptance starts with avoiding control of situations and control of others as well. Many times we feel trapped in our own belief systems, behavior patterns, emotions and thoughts about how things “have to happen” and how people “have to be”. You know what? Things happen just because they happen, and people are just how they are!
Let’s begin to understand how control works. When we control others or situations, we are not aware of it but the others are. The others like our partners, children, friends, family, colleagues, community, etc., know that we want to control them and they shy away from us even when they love us, and maybe they even run away, because they accept us for who we are but they don’t accept our attempts to control them. For example, you have a friend who wants to go out for dinner with you. You explain to him that you can’t go out for dinner that specific day, but you offer to have lunch with him another day. Your friend says that he can’t go out for lunch and he canceled his plans to have dinner with you, and he stops calling you for a while. Then one day you call him and ask him to go out for dinner, but he says that he can’t have dinner, but instead he can have lunch with you and he schedules the date, time and place. This is an example of a control game. Open communication starts with ourselves and then with others. The only way to change our patterns of controlling situations and others is to begin to accept that we are controlling people. Controlling people have some of these characteristics:
1. Sometimes the control is because controlling people have “perfectionist” tendencies and want everything to be perfect.  
2. Controlling people see more outside themselves than their own inner potential, and the control helps them to find acceptance, acknowledgement and approval from others.
3. Fear, shame, blame, guilt, and insecurity are some of the predominate emotions.
4. Probably these control patterns were learned from childhood from parents, teachers or other authority figures.
5. Anger and frustration are created when controlling people experience different outcomes than they expected, including when they feel rejected.
If you want to change and become less controlling, the first thing to do is reflect about these characteristics. Evaluate yourself about how they affect your life. When you start to do this exercise and reflect honestly about each of these five characteristics, you have begun to accept yourself.
How can you change? One way is to learn to practice love and kindness. Loving yourself is accepting your mistakes, weakness, growth areas, challenges, strengths, progresses, and courage, and then going back to your natural self as a part of the world. You are not perfect! Nobody is perfect! Kindness is the key to treating ourselves with love, as well as expressing it to others. 
In summary:
- Acceptance begins when you let go of all unrealistic expectations about yourself and others.
- Notice your controlling tendencies in your thoughts, feelings and behavior. Replace them with love, kindness, and mindfulness.
- Be present with yourself and others without attachments. Just flow with things, situations and people as they are and as things happen.
- Be with others just as they are without infringing on their right to say no to you. We can’t control anybody or anything, just ourselves! It’s a process that requires practice and discipline, like any deep change. Try starting it now and be more accepting. Live free of control! 

Love and Kindness,

--Ana