The Ever Increasing Acceptance In Life

Dr. Purushothaman
August 23, 2013

The goal of Acceptance is all about seeking harmonious, positive relationships. As the cardinal expression goal, the focus of Acceptance is on expressing oneself in a way that brings self and others into harmony or union.

The aim from the soul’s perspective is to express (convey, demonstrate) our commonality, our connectedness, our potential for unity. It is the soul’s way of seeking to overcome the human illusion of separation and alienation.

This is a popular goal, and for good reason. One of the essential ingredients of every soul is love. It is part of our true nature, the very force which animates us. Love for one another is our natural state.

But it also one of the things we soon forget in each lifetime. One of the challenges facing us as we come into physical existence is to remember this basic truth, to manifest it in our human relationships.

Acceptance is the goal which focuses on precisely this challenge.

Without acceptance, various things tend to get in the way of harmonious relationship. There are our judgements of one another, our fears of one another, our tendency to hurt and exploit one another, and so on.

The goal of Acceptance motivates us to get past these obstacles and transcend our differences. Every relationship — every other being — is an opportunity to give and receive warmth and love, to overcome separation and division, to experience connection and harmony. It is as if one is constantly saying to others: “I accept who you are. We are the same. Let us embrace each other.”

Having the goal of Acceptance

At the personality level, Acceptance means being warm and friendly and letting others in. Those with this goal find a sense of meaning and purpose in experiencing some connection with others, and they seek to create many positive, harmonious relationships. Life is an opportunity to enjoy socialising, bonding and loving.

If you have a goal of Acceptance, you will probably experience life as a set of relationships of different strengths, perhaps something like a set of concentric circles around you, from the closest to the most distant. You probably know many people, have many friends and contacts. Your aim, or at least your hope, is to have ever more and ever stronger good relationships.

If you have a goal of Acceptance, you also probably find that other people are naturally attracted to you. This is partly because the goal of Acceptance motivates you — and in fact causes you — to look particularly pleasant and attractive. You probably have a warm and open face with a big, bright smile.

But people are also attracted to you because you are so willing to accept them. Having Acceptance as your driving force is like being a magnet — others find your tendency to be nice, warm, forgiving and open-hearted practically irresistible!

You might also find it easy to spot other people who share the goal of Acceptance, and automatically feel drawn to them. There is often an instant rapport and a mutual attraction at some level. And whenever you do meet another person with Acceptance, it’s a win-win situation — you are both happy to accept each other and accept one another’s acceptance!

We can also liken it too the Buddhist ideal of perfect compassion and loving-kindness. It is an unrestrained embrace of other beings, straight from the heart, given freely. Jesus is probably the prime example of this positive pole of Acceptance.

The negative pole of Acceptance is ingratiation. Basically this means constantly seeking signs of acceptance from others — trying to please or impress or suck up to others — out of a fear of rejection. “I’ll do anything for you, if it will stop you from rejecting me.” Ingratiation manifests as people-pleasing, approval-seeking, flattering, and instantly agreeing with others’ opinions without thinking about one’s own opinions (conformity).

If you are caught up in this negative pole, it is time to swing to the opposite goal, Rejection, and its positive pole of discrimination. In other words, it’s time to exercise some firm, critical judgement as to who you are trying to please and why, and to focus on speaking your own truth — especially the truth about not agreeing with everybody else’s opinions and not wanting to meet everybody else’s demands.

Although this might feel like you risk rejecting others, that’s not what this is about. It’s about you saying your truth and giving them the opportunity to accept you anyway. In a sense, it’s about you accepting that others have choice about whether or not they accept you.

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