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DR JOHN DEMARTINI - Updated 1 year ago
I often hear people advocating that it is wise to accept yourself the way you are and to extend that same tolerance and acceptance to others.
For example, you may have people in your life that you find challenging and who you tend to avoid where possible. As such, you may be advised or perceive you would be wise to be more tolerant and to accept them the way they are.
I believe this thinking to be incomplete. I believe that it is unwise to just accept and tolerate yourself or others, and that it is instead wiser to learn to appreciate, recognize, and be grateful to others for the role they play in your life and for all parts of you because even the parts of you that you think you want to change play a role in your life and the lives of others too.
You may at first find this a challenge, especially if you can immediately think of the individuals you tend to avoid in your life. It also involves asking yourself some powerful questions to help bring your perceptions of their actions that you’re judging back into balance so you can transform your judgments to deep gratitude and love.
In other words, it goes so much further and deeper than more superficial feelings of tolerance and acceptance.
How to neutralize your perceptions using the Demartini Method:
Below is a simplified adaptation of five of the questions from the Demartini Method process that I train people in my Breakthrough Experience seminar to use to balance their perceptions and thereby dissolve any polarized emotion they’re experiencing.
Anytime an individual acts, displays or demonstrates a behavior that you dislike, that you feel that you want to avoid; instead of sitting there and trying to practice tolerance and acceptance, consider asking yourself the following questions:
Question 1: What specific trait, action, or inaction do you perceive this individual displaying or demonstrating that you dislike, despise, avoid or want to avoid the most?
Try to narrow it down (it’s likely to be something they did too much of or too little of in your perception, or maybe even a physical trait you are judging in them) and define it in three to five words.
Question 2: Go to a moment where and when you perceive YOURSELF displaying or demonstrating that same or similar specific trait, action or inaction in yourself.
In other words, reflect and identify specifically where and when you perceived yourself displaying or demonstrating that same or similar specific trait, action, or inaction.
Identify WHERE you did it, WHEN you did it, WHO did you do it to, and WHO perceived you doing it.
Then go to the next moment, and the next moment, and the next moment… and document that too until you see that you’ve done what you’re judging to the same degree that you perceive in the individual you’re judging.
I’ve 100% owned 4,628 different human traits, actions, or inactions
An interesting fact – I’ve gone through the Oxford English dictionary and I found 4,628 different human behavioral traits. In doing so, I discovered that I have each and every one of those human traits, actions, or inactions.
I am at times nice and mean, kind and cruel, giving and taking, generous and stingy, honest and dishonest, deceptive and forthright, and many more.
If I look at my life, I’ve done every single one of them at different moments in my life.
So, it’s not a matter of IF you’ve done these behaviors, it’s a matter of where, when, and to who, as well as who has perceived you demonstrating them.
I am certain that you will calm some of your judgment towards them when answering this question because, in the process, you tend to humble yourself and realize that what you see in them is also in you.
Question 3: Now go to a moment where and when you perceive this individual displaying or demonstrating that specific trait, action, or inaction that you despise, dislike, hate, or resist in that moment and from that moment until the present.
Ask:
- How has it served me?
- How has it benefited me?
- What did I learn from it?
- What did I not have to do or what did I get to do that benefited me because of it?
- What is the upside to it?
When you do the work to discover how this individual’s behavior, action, or inaction has actually benefitted and served you, the judgment on it calms.
So, instead of trying to tolerate or accept them, you are able to appreciate what they are doing.
Why?
- When you perceive more drawbacks than benefits, you tend to judge others.
- When you perceive just as many benefits as drawbacks, you tend to appreciate others.
You are therefore more likely to recognize how they are serving you and be grateful for it.
You’ll also likely find that they no longer occupy space and time in your mind.
Anything that you dislike, resent and want to avoid in others or even in yourself, will occupy space and time in your mind, run you, and distract you. It also likely results in an lingering instinct to avoid them.
I often say that there are only three things you have control over – your perceptions, decisions, and actions.
Changing your perceptions gives you the capacity to turn every experience into something you are grateful for.
I believe the same principle applies when it comes to forgiving someone because forgiving them assumes that there is something to forgive in the first place.
This often includes assuming that you don’t possess or display the same traits or that the experience was negative without any positives, which is only a biased belief until you look for and discover the counterbalancing upsides and benefits.
It also often involves assuming that there were repercussions that didn’t have advantages and benefits, which is also untrue.
I believe that instead of forgiving someone for what you perceived they did or didn’t do, it is wiser to discover and uncover the hidden order.
In this way, you are able to appreciate them for who they are and see them as a teacher in helping you grow in yourself and master your life.
If you can do that, then very little on the outside world will distract you. Instead, you’re most likely to be the commander of your life, master of your fate, and determinator of your destiny right there, simply because you learned to change whatever you perceived as happening TO you into happening FOR you. In other words, into something you can be grateful for.
I often say, anything you cannot say thank you for, is baggage. Anything you can say thank you for is fuel.
Fueling your life with an experience that you transformed into something you can be thankful for, is a powerful step towards self-mastery.
Question 4: Ask yourself, what would have been the DRAWBACK if this individual had of acted in a way that you would have preferred? In other words, the fantasy or the way that you hoped they would have acted?
This is a powerful question to help crack the fantasy you're comparing that individual’s action, or inactions to.
Judging others is often the result of fantasies about how you perceive others are “supposed” to be or “should” be.
As such, you tend to have unrealistic expectations of people who, when they don’t live up to your fantasies and unrealistic expectations, and are critically judged by you as a result.
In other words, it’s not about what people around you are doing or not doing, but instead, your PERCEPTIONS and UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS that create scenarios that you mistakenly think you would be wise to merely tolerate and accept.
Answering questions such as the ones I have mentioned above, and holding yourself accountable for being thorough and transparent instead of running a story about how you are the victim, will help to dissolve any emotional baggage that you’ve been carrying in this regard.
By learning to transform experiences into something you can be grateful for, you can liberate yourself from the “brain noise” that often accompanies judgment and resentment. Instead, you can be centered, balanced, as well as poised, present, productive, powerful, purposeful, and patient.
In order to see the perfection of your own actions and life ask:
Question 5: What specific trait, action, or inaction do you perceive YOURSELF displaying or demonstrating that YOU dislike, despise, resent, or want to avoid most in your life – something that you’re trying to tolerate and accept in yourself?
Once you have identified it, go to a moment where and when you displayed it, and identify how it SERVED other people, and how it served you.
In doing so, you can dissolve the shame, internal guilt, and other emotions you’ve experienced when you perceive that you’ve not lived up to the unrealistic fantasies and expectations you have of yourself.
The Buddha says the desire for that which is unobtainable (the one side) and the desire to avoid that which is unavoidable (the other side) is the source of human suffering.
Yet, society continually tries to provide mass solutions to help you become one-sided, instead of helping you realize the true perfection of the whole of who you are so you can embrace both sides.
The false ideals and moral hypocrisies that inundate our world can so easily trap you into having unrealistic expectations of yourself and other people. As such, you’ll likely end up with drama in your life because you're expecting the world to be something it's not going to be.
YOU DON’T HAVE TO GET RID OF HALF OF YOURSELF IN ORDER TO LOVE YOURSELF – ALL PARTS OF YOU SERVE THE WORLD
I'm telling you right now, you don't have to get rid of the half of yourself you perceive as being “negative” in order to love yourself. Nor is it wise to try to merely tolerate and accept parts of yourself that you don’t like.
Instead, it is wise to appreciate every part, because each and every part of your life forms part of your magnificence.
Perfection is already inside you.
Perfection is both-sided.
You need both sides of yourself.
There are times when you're going to be kind and cruel, nice and mean, positive and negative.
I would love for you to love all of it instead of accepting and tolerating half of it.
After all, how are you going to love yourself if you're trying to get rid of half of yourself? How are you going to love the people around you if you're trying to get rid of half of them? And if you don’t love all of you, how can you expect anyone else to love all of you.
So, I don’t advocate the language of acceptance and tolerance because I believe it to be an incomplete language – one built out of moral hypocrisies and a non-reflective, self-exaggerating forgiveness and a self-minimizing apology mentality.
This often results in a dissociated victim mentality, as a result of projecting a false attribution bias and a false causality label, which is what some Buddhists refer to as source of the illusions and the karmic wheel.
Instead, I'm inspired to help you get to a point where you can appreciate and love yourself, as well as the people around you so you can feel love and gratitude for everything you perceived as being IN the way that you can now see was helping you ON your way.
To sum up:
You have control over your perceptions, decisions and actions.
Whatever you're judging in others is pointing back at you. In other words, what you’re judging in them you’re judging in yourself.
I firmly believe that adopting an "accept and tolerate" approach towards ourselves and others is not the most complete and effective way to master our lives and destinies.
Instead, I encourage everyone to learn to appreciate, recognize, and be grateful for the role that others play in our lives and how all parts of ourselves contribute to our growth and self-mastery.
By using the Demartini Method to balance our perceptions and dissolve polarized emotions, we can transform so-called negative experiences into something to be grateful for, liberating ourselves from judgment and resentment, which leave us feeling empty and distracts our minds.
I urge you to embrace all parts of yourself and others, understanding that our magnificence is made up of every aspect of our being.
In my opinion, it's wiser to transcend the language of acceptance and tolerance, which is based on moral hypocrisies and a victim mentality. Embrace instead a mindset of appreciation and love, fostering gratitude for the challenges that help us grow and achieve our goals. By doing so, you will be equipped to navigate life's obstacles, ultimately becoming the master of your own fate and the determinator of your destiny.
In the Breakthrough Experience, I teach you how to breakthrough the limitations of deflective awareness (where you're too proud or too humble to admit what you see in others is also in you) to reflective awareness (where the seer, the seeing, and the seen are the same).
In other words, where you realize that everything is in a state of equanimity and equity, and you can see the order behind the apparent chaos.
Most people live in a world of drama and chaos where they perceive they are the victim. These people are often run by the amygdala and tend to react before they think. As such, they tend to live a life spent seeking and avoiding and are run externally.
I’m more interested in helping you learn to master and take command of your life so you are run from within.
I said in the movie The Secret many years ago, that when the voice and the vision on the inside are louder than all opinions on the outside, you begin to master your life.
At the Breakthrough Experience, I’ll work through the Demartini Method process with you so you can become crystal clear on your mission, vision, purpose, highest values, and highest priorities.
There is no reason for you to live anything less than an inspired and extraordinary life. Why settle for tolerating and accepting others and yourself, when you can be inspired and grateful for every interaction, relationship and grateful for yourself the way you are?
Are you ready for the NEXT STEP?
If you’re seriously committed to your own growth, if you’re ready to make a change now and you’d love some help doing so, then book a FREE Discovery call with a member of the Demartini Team so we can take you through your mini power assessment session.
You’ll come away with a 3-step action plan and the foundation to empower your life.
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In 2 days you’ll learn how to solve any issue you are facing, transform any emotion and reset the course of your life for greater achievement and fulfillment.
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Get ready to take your life to a whole new level of meaning and purpose.
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