Acceptance Versus Resistance

Recently I posted about meditation.  The purpose of meditation is to release resistance.  Resistance can be defined as all the negative thoughts and feelings which interfere with your being in your natural state. In other words, your ego.  Your natural state, on the other hand, is one of joy, love, and truth.  It is your God(ess) given birthright- but how much time do we spend in that state, really?

Now let’s apply the same concept to your relationship.  What is the opposite of resistance?  It’s acceptance.  You know that prayer called the Serenity Prayer?  (Something like: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference?)  What if we started to apply that idea to our partners and realized that our partners fall in the “cannot change” category?  You see, many of us have gotten it all wrong.  Rather than accept that our partners are as they are, we start to see them as an improvement project.  Oh, sure.  It’s easy to accept them as they are at the beginning.  We think they’re perfect until those “honeymoon hormones” wear off.  Then we think: “If you would only be more like ME, we’d get along much better.”  And so we try to change our partner into what we want them to be.  But it doesn’t work, does it?  I’ve tried that experiment, and I bet you have too!

So let me give you an alternative.  The next time you start to sense a conflict coming on with your partner, the next time you start to make your partner wrong, in your mind or otherwise, choose to practice acceptance rather than resistance.  Take a deep breath.  Invite your partner to speak her (or his) truth, and really listen.  Listen with an open heart and an open mind.  See what happens.  Be present with what is.  Be in the moment rather than rehearsing what you’re going to say next, judging, or both.  If you do this, you may just find that you begin to accept your partner for who (s)he really is, and that you then have access to the joy, love, and truth that I spoke of earlier.  It works much better than focusing on the resistance- the anger, judgment, and fear that is created through the ego.  Not only will you feel better this way, your relationship will thrive!

---