Acceptance
Chapter 2
By Dr. Steve
Frisch, Psy.D.
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Transforming Judgments In To Acceptance
In the sick room, ten cents’ worth
of human understanding equals
ten dollars worth of medical science.
-Martin H. Fischer
BRIDGE-BUILDER’S
TIPS
The path to accepting your partner is paved by the efforts you make to understand your
partner.
What’s
at the core of the act of acceptance? Think about this for a moment. Is your partner more
likely to want to feel that you understand them or that you’re judging them?
Understand or judge? What’s at the root of either of those two postures?
Judging
someone is easy enough to do. You have your own standards for the way a person should act,
think, or feel. You have your own sense of what’s right or wrong. Does your partner
measure up to those standards? When your partner doesn’t meet those standards, how do
you react to that? How do you reconcile the difference between who you believe your
partner should be and who they are? Isn’t that really the essence of it?
Many
of us try to fit our partner into a box. You know the saying about trying to fit a square
peg into a round hole. Often that’s what we do to the people in our lives. We
don’t see them for who they are. We see them for who we want them to be. We
don’t see the incredible richness that lives within them. We see them as projects in
which we can mold them in a manner that makes us more comfortable with who they are.
Does
that sound familiar at all? Molding. Shaping. Cajoling. All in the name of what? Wanting
to transform our partner’s imperfections? Needing to appease our discomfort for what
we can’t tolerate? A little of each perhaps?
But
let’s look at it this way, at what cost does all of this take place? How does all of
the energy you invest in trying to change your partner help your partner see the light;
how does all of that effort play in your partner’s head?
You
call it being helpful. Your partner calls it being intrusive, undermining, non-accepting.
You call it wanting the best for your partner. Your partner calls it not accepting them
for where they’re at. You call it taking an interest in your partner’s life.
Your partner calls it not having faith in their ability to go it alone.
All
the subtle digs: a jab here, a barb there. What does the accumulation of all of that
noise, all the ways we damn somebody with faint praise, what does it add up to in any
relationship?
“How
are you being helpful to me?” Jan asked, as tears of frustration welled up in her
eyes.
“I
don’t know. But I don’t get how you can doubt my good intentions. All I really
am doing is just trying to be helpful,” Alan protested.
“How
does going behind me, second guessing everything I do, help me in any way, shape, or
form?” Jan bitterly wondered outloud.
Alan’s
face was genuinely bewildered. “I’m not going behind your back. I’m
merely offering an alternative for you to think about.”
Jan,
having lost all her patience, excitedly shouted, “Who asked you for an alternative? I
don’t need alternatives from you. I need your belief in me. I need your
acknowledgment that you believe that I can do this, not your recommendations for how you
would do it.
“Don’t
you know how it makes me feel like such a nothing every time you stick your nose into my
business? Can’t you see how belittling it is to me, to have you pick away at every
little thing I do? What do you think I am? A fool? An incompetent?”
By
now Jan’s face was crimson red. Her arms were slicing through the air with each point
she made. She continued, “You know, sometimes I think you need to hold it in your
head that I’m somehow not capable, that I’m helpless, that I need you. I want
you in my life, but not at this expense. I need you, but not the way you have it set up.
It makes me feel judged. It makes me feel like the only way you want me is if I’m not
me--but rather what you try and shape me to be.”
Isn’t
it time for you to better understand how your helpfulness is experienced by your partner?
Isn’t it time for you to better understand how the innocent comments you make may be
heard very differently by somebody else?
I
can’t tell you how much discord can be alleviated between you and your partner when
you better understand how your best intentions are heard by somebody else. Your
willingness to be better sensitized to how your partner is affected by some of the things
you do and say will go a long way to helping your partner feel more accepted by you.
Understanding
on the other hand is such a different game to play. The players are cast as equals. The
nature of the relationship is built upon support and caring rather than correcting and
fixing. You tell me, which energy nurtures your soul--fixing or understanding?
When
you take the time to understand your partner, you offer an incredible gift. Do you see
that?
How
best to communicate this special gift? Understand your partner by entering their world,
not by imposing your world upon them. Make it safe for your partner to introduce new
pieces of who they are. Don’t censure them for what they do and say. These are the
baby steps we must take as we build a bridge of understanding. These thousand small acts
of kindness and appreciation are what affirms and encourages your partner to be who they
are.
My
best friend Stephanie Phillips knows how good it feels when I understand her.
Believe me it’s not always easy for me. You see she’s only three, so it’s
hard for me to crack her code all the time. But in the end, she lets me know whether I get
it right or not.
“Frischie,
Frischie, I ‘frowd up, I ‘frowd up,” Stephie said as she came running to
greet me.
“What’s
the matter, Steph, don’t you feel well?” I asked as I placed my hand on her
forehead.
She
didn’t answer, but the tears in her eyes said more than her words ever could.
“Does
your tummy hurt?” I asked.
She
nodded her head as she gave a little whimper.
“You
wanna sit on my lap, Stephie?” I asked.
No
words, she just jumped into my lap.
“Steph,
you want me to rub your tummy for you?”
She
nodded her head as she wiped a tear from her eye.
“How
‘bout I get ya a little Coca Cola™, to settle your stomach?”
Her
face brightened as she said, “‘Kay!”
After
Stephanie finished the Coca Cola, I layed a pillow down on the couch and held out her
blanket. “Steph, you wanna lay down with your blankie?”
She
nodded yes, ran over to me, threw her little arms around my neck and planted a big kiss on
my cheek.
I
thanked her and kissed her back. For me, it doesn’t get any better than that.
I
hope you’re beginning to see how acceptance grows wherever seeds of understanding are
planted. Acceptance is choked wherever weeds of judgment become overgrown. Having built a
case for the importance of understanding, let me give you some concrete tools that will
never let you down. These tools will enable you to listen to your partner in a special
way; more importantly, you’ll discover how to effectively respond to your partner
rather than react to them. The following’s a simple formula to follow--one part
attitude, two parts action.
Let’s
deal with attitude first--the attitude you project towards your partner. Don’t blow
by this question. I want you to think about it for a moment or two. Do you give your
partner the space to be who they are? Are there parts of who your partner is that you
judge to be less than worthy of your honor and respect?
Don’t
fall into your ‘yea but’ shtick. I don’t want to hear how you rationalize
it in your head. How ‘it’s for their own good.’ Or ‘I know what’s
best.’ A million times I’ve heard how somebody is ‘only trying to be
helpful.’
In
your being helpful, do you insist that your partner stop being who they are? This is the
essential question. Stop being emotional. Stop being frightened. Stop being irrational.
Stop being obsessive Stop being lazy.
Being
judgmental, being critical--so many of us have become adept at hiding our judgments in our
good intentions, in our well-meaning behavior. But don’t settle for that any longer.
I guarantee you that your partner doesn’t.
The time has come to work with your partner. What that means for the purposes of this
section is to check it out with your partner. Ask them how your attitude towards them may
imply that they have to stop being who they are. See for yourself how you may be implying
in many of your behaviors and comments that your partner is less than, that somehow,
someway they need you to show them the way.
Ask
them if they experience many of your comments as just kidding. Or do they feel the sting
of your sarcasm, the harshness of your jokes, the cruelty of your just being honest? Is it
possible that your partner doesn’t feel accepted by you--and rightly so?
If you truly want
things to be different, then it starts with you. It starts with you getting honest about
yourself as well as what you want for your partner. Are you ready to stop minimizing the
aches and pains that your partner expresses to you? Are you ready to let go of the
explanations you’ve invented to justify your behavior to yourself and the rest of the
world? If you’re ready to get honest about your displaced anger, your veiled attempts
at control, your misguided attempts at being helpful, let me introduce you to two action
steps that will instantly transform your relationships.
G.B.U.
Steve
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Recover from
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children to choose to be alcohol and other drugs
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