Tag: confrontation

Inner and outer acceptance

Posted on by philipdodson

Accepting what is, is different from outwardly accepting everything passively that has occurred.

What has already occurred in the world, in life, at this exact moment can not be altered, as soon as it happens it instantly becomes the past, it is gone, unalterable. Therefore, for peace within and to not suffer from others’ actions, and for the sake of our mental and physical state, it is best to always accept it as it is, futile to do anything else.

However, that does not mean that we have to choose to be completely passive about everything that has occurred, equally, we do not have to be combative and aggressive either. When we accept all within, it allows us to act from a place of peace and calm within and without becoming the reaction that our mind and ego would want. Therefore, when we do act, it is more likely to be received without others needing to react aggressively. When we are calm, yet true to ourselves, others will be calm and more ready to hear us and understand us.

For example, I accept that there are people who choose to be cruel to animals, however, I am not going to be outwardly passive if witnessed someone being cruel to an animal, I would act to prevent it as it goes against my values.

There is a big difference between accepting what is and how we choose to act. Accepting what is, is essential to be able to act from a place of inner calm and take out our agendas and ego. However, if there are things that go against our truth, against our values, or threaten us or the people we love, then we can act and protect what matters to us.

Acceptance within is not about being uncaring or passive, it is about not suffering within from other peoples’ actions and choices. We can accept, however, we do not have to agree or be silent. We can choose how we act always, and sometimes there are situations where we choose to not act, this is fine too. However, we should never be fearful of saying our truths and acting according to our hearts and values.

How do I speak to someone who I find it difficult to speak with?

Posted on by philipdodson

We often say ‘I am not sure how to handle this situation, I don’t know how to say “x” to her’. ‘I am worried about how she might take it’.

We are uncertain how to speak to someone, how to say the thing we have to say. We have formed an opinion of that person that he/she will react a certain way and, of course, when we believe that, then that is what it becomes…difficult.

This comes from the mind and its fear of how the person might react to what we say to them. It comes from the judgements we have made about that person and then our behaviours towards them reflect that, and naturally, we manifest the very thing that we feared.

We want to handle a challenge and we deep down want to speak our truth and be understood by this person, yet the mind sabotages that because of the psychological fear of their possible reaction and then we end up diluting what we wanted to say to avoid confrontation or we do not say it at all and continue to suffer from not speaking up or perhaps make a confrontational situation out of what we wanted to say and make it worse.

The thing is before speaking to anyone we have to do a simple thing. Imagine the person who is easiest to talk to and is unconditional in their love for us and we love them too unconditionally. Imagine it’s our best friend, daughter, partner or someone who we trust and value completely, a person we feel completely at ease with. How would we speak to them? We would speak to them from our heart, we would come from a place of love and we would not fear their reaction so we would be at peace. We would speak without agenda, judgement and fear, so they would receive it as we intend, from our heart.

The other thing is we need to be first, always be first, so we need to start by seeking to understand the other person first, we have to listen empathetically and hear them. We have to hear them without making any evaluation and then when we have truly understood them, we can speak our truth with love from our heart and without any attachment to an agenda of our minds.

We should treat everyone with love, empathy, trust and understanding. We need to make the other person feel that they are seen and we need to be the first to do, not waiting for others to be first. It has to be unconditional if we want to change our world. Everything reflects us.

The whole world is a reflection of us, we create our reality completely. If we want to be able to say something to another, we have to come from a place of love without judgement of them and their likely reaction.

If we start by being the first to listen and understand them, if we allow them to be seen, then when we speak our truth from our heart, they will more likely be able to understand us and allow us to be seen. Of course, their reaction is none of our business, however, it is the prejudging of others that creates what we believe them to be. In order to see people as they really are, we have to be the first to stop evaluating others.

Treat everyone the same, love them and trust them…be first.