The Enduring Power of Cultivating Tolerance
By cultivating tolerance, we achieve what is essential to build healthy, long-lasting relationships that give us space for mutual growth.
Learn to Cultivate Tolerance
The crazy world we live in sometimes asks us more than we are prepared to give. Our main challenge is to become flexible and malleable.
God, give us the grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other. This prayer was first printed in a monthly bulletin of the Federal Council of Churches and has become enormously popular. It has been circulated in millions of copies.
~ Reinhold Niebuhr
Therefore, it has nothing to do with submission, not even with a state of indifference to the reality of things. In other words, to be flexible, to be malleable is to calmly deal with and accept situations that we cannot change.
With Yoga, we learn that our ability to be flexible and to be able to adapt to different things with happiness is a positive and necessary attitude.
From this, we start to forget the idea that the world must give us what we want, and thus, we adapt to situations, to people, to the world as a whole, all without losing joy, contentment.
Cultivating Tolerance as a Spiritual Virtue
When we cultivate the virtue of tolerance, we achieve what would be essential for building healthy, peaceful, long-lasting relationships that give us space for mutual growth. However, to get to this point, we must first understand what this relationship is like. Because, understanding that we will hardly find all the virtues we expect in one person, after all, all people have many virtues and many other defects. When we relate to them, they do not exist ways to avoid these characteristics.
And it is also important to note that this thought is true for ourselves: no one will accept 100% of what we are.
If you can recognize these facts, you will understand that there needs to be an adaptation in any relationship, whether to a greater or lesser degree.
Sometimes we may not live up to the expectations that others have of us. Nor will others always be willing to adapt to what we like or dislike?
The biggest challenges in relationships will happen when what we don’t like needs to be worked on.
If it is possible to put a distance between this aversion and you, or else, the issue will be resolved if you can change something about it.
However, this is impossible to do most of the time. It is in this situation that the attitude of cheerful tolerance must enter.
In other words, the solution is to accept the other as they are. Don’t act like people or things need to change because that’s how you want it.
After all, this is not the reality of life. It is a fact: when we expect someone to change, that person may be having the same thoughts about us.
Perhaps the solution is to lower our expectations of the people around us. We do spontaneously, as we do not expect anything special from them, we will not be frustrated.
This thought is true of us: no one will accept 100% of who we are.
If we extend this attitude to everyone we relate to, then there will be no more disappointments. They may surprise us, but they will never disappoint us. However, it is necessary to have people as they are, just as we can appreciate natural phenomena.
Think about the Rain
Although it can bother us as we walk down the street, it remains a blessing.
After all, a winter without rain can mean a summer without water and even without electricity. Like the forces of nature, people also have elements that can mean attraction or rejection.
It is not possible to understand the rain with something other than what it is since that would be a foolish thought. Let us appreciate, then, the rain as a blessing, which brings us fertility and life. In the same way, we must understand people and realize that small changes are complex, both for them and for us. There is no other option if you want to escape suffering: you have to accept people as they are.
To be able to adapt, it is necessary to respond to the person, basically and not his actions, understanding that every action has a reason. When you can understand this issue, you will also understand how to deal with sadness or even the fit of anger from someone close to you.
Avoid a mechanical reaction to these situations. Try to consciously respond to the person you are in conflict with. Keep in mind that we are all identical, that we are all humans, and have emotions. In other words, learn how to respond and not react!
When you complete this understanding, you will remain calm, as conflict resolution involves this understanding and acceptance of the reasons that move each one of us. Use your free will to learn to be tolerant without losing your joy.
That is, take action after thinking about them because mechanical responses do not correspond to freedom.
Such reactions are contrary to wisdom, contrary to what would be done if you were more serene.
Mechanical attitudes correspond to a lack of maturity, which when it takes over us and makes us forget everything we have learned.
Until you assimilate some values such as non-violence and decency, you should continue to be very careful and observe yourself, your attitudes, and your thoughts. Your “Internal Observer” will be a necessary tool to deliberately choose your mindsets, actions, and words through peaceful adaptation.
In this contentment, compassion, purity, forgiveness, and acceptance are present. Accepting everyone as they are, accepting ourselves as we really are, taking things life presents to us as they are, avoiding any kind of lamentation, resentment, or guilt.
When you come to this understanding, you will also come to a deep reconciliation with the world and with yourself, expanding your heart in such a way that you can accept any circumstance, the way it presents itself.
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About the Author
Humanity Healing Network is an Ageless Wisdom education outreach of Humanity Healing International. https://humanityhealing.net
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