Radical other-acceptance exploration
My heart opened this morning in my meditation group hearing others’ discuss seeing life without judgement. The kindness and love of inviting others, despite how they trigger you, to thrive and realize their deepest intentions touched me.
Recently I have been experimenting with “radical self-acceptance”, by letting go of any self-judgement as I wrote about here. Today, imagining now turning this towards others is challenging for me. Very practically, if I don’t judge the path of a car in the street, I could be hit by it and killed. Maybe that is too broad a definition of judgement. Perhaps that is observation, and judgement has taken on extra meaning for me. I again return to the dictionary:
Judgement: “the ability to make considered decisions or come to sensible conclusions.”
So seeing where the car is going and avoiding that path is a sensible conclusion. Maybe it isn’t sensible to assume that because someone did something once that triggered me they’ll do it again. This makes me think of one of my best friends who is a deep pragmatist. He always likes to play it conservative, assume the least of society. I find myself often on the other side, wanting to hope for the best, even if it doesn’t happen often.
How can these two forces merge? The word mature trust comes to mind for me, where you can invite, hope and inspire life in the most optimistic way possible. Yet, when you plan and act, you can take precautions like my dear friend. I’m excited to experiment with being careful and cautions when sensible, but still believing others are capable of acting from their deepest loving places.
So I’ll still avoid cars and look both ways before crossing the street, but do my best to not judge life and inspire the best for myself and others. This sounds like a fun new twist on my radical self-acceptance experiment, where I can start to bring the rest of the world into it. If you have ideas or reflections, please let me know. I’m curious.
