Often we read quotes and memes these days and we can see a kernel of truth, something to live better lives by if we take this advice to heart. And yet at other times, the advice that we are given seems to actually cause us harm if we apply the advice without a good measure of common sense as well.
For example this is the quote that started my train of thought today.
Quote: Go and love
someone exactly as they are. And then watch how quickly they transform into the
greatest, truest version of themselves.
When one feels seen and appreciated in their own essence, on is
instantly empowered.
~ Wes Angelozzi
On the surface nice friendly advice to be less judgmental, to be more kind and loving right!? But dig deeper as I did today and there are some significant concerns.
Here is my thought process:
What if your natural
state is to love people exactly as they are without reservation and without
boundaries?
What if because of
this nature, you enable others to continuously use and abuse you and you
constantly forgive them without holding them accountable?
What if your silence
about exposing how they have hurt you is seen as acquiescence that you are okay
with being treated badly on a regular basis?
What if you one day
wake up and recognize that this is not good and you create boundaries and you
do have reservations and want to hold them accountable? And you start to have expectations of them
that they could be better people if they learned to treat others with
compassion and kindness.
Does this quote then
imply that you should go back to allowing their abuse because you accept them
for who they are? Do you accept their meanness,
do you accept their verbal abuse, do you accept them treating you badly
all in the name of loving them as they are?
Don’t I then empower
bad behaviour in the name of loving someone just as they are?
To me such advice,
given in a statement of “this is what you should do” is very confusing and even
challenges all that I have learned on my healing journey.
It implies that I should accept harm doers into my life and that my “loving them” will somehow magically encourage them to become good doers. This has not been my experience.
It implies that I should accept harm doers into my life and that my “loving them” will somehow magically encourage them to become good doers. This has not been my experience.
Rather what I have learned
is that when I accept harm doers into my life, they feel they have the
right to continue to be harm doers because I have not protested and I have
therefore enabled them to continue doing the same harm over and over again.
Also, it seems to me
that the very people who should be taking this kind of advice to heart are the
very people who think it is their right to control and manipulate others with
judgmental comments, criticisms, implications that you are only worthy of love
if and when you change. I find it
interesting that these are the very people that eschew such advice claiming
that they don't need to accept people as they are because they have the right
to tell people how they ought to be.
Renate Dundys
Marrello
2018 – 11 – 16Link to my Facebook Reflections Page
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