One of the costliest mistakes we often make in relationships is trying to get the other person to behave in a certain way that suits our fantasies. You pay dearly for this in the long haul. The new person you’ve created is only a façade, a figment of your imagination that’s come to life and would soon fade away, as all figments eventually do. Your attempts to get a person to become someone other than their true selves could be your mind trying to tell you that you’re not really in love. Human beings often have a hard time distinguishing between love, lust, admiration, and infatuation.
When you have a real, solid, and affectionate connection with someone, you don’t try to get them to be who they are not to suit your own interests. We are all unique individuals with specific personalities and sets of characteristics tied to the cores of our beings. This doesn’t necessarily mean that if a person has bad habits that would inhibit their wellbeing and those of others around them we should let them self-destruct. It’s perfectly okay and humane to try to get the ones you love to shake off dangerous, bad habits.
However, trying to change the way a person thinks, talks, acts, dresses, and relates to others will often stint the progress of your relationship. At this point, this person is no longer an important part of your spiritual growth or journey. They are just time-bombs waiting to explode when they can’t take it any longer.
It’s often easier said than done
Letting people be can be quite a difficult mental frame to get into. We are all guilty of trying to turn our friends and partners into people who suit our personalities to the letter. If you’re a religious person with strong core values, you’d most likely try to change the perception of your free-thinking partner. You are not a fan of piercings or tattoos, so you try to force the person you claim to love to take the rings out and undergo laser removal surgery. Your schools of thought on nearly everything are different from theirs and you try to force your philosophies and beliefs on them.
Place yourself in their shoes and you’d find how mentally draining and exhausting it is to be around someone who won’t let you be yourself. Humans need to be more open-minded and accommodating of values that differ from theirs. If this were the reality of the world today, then there would be no wars or anarchy. However, even young children often find themselves being intolerant of other children’s early ideologies.
Worse, when you can’t get someone to behave a certain way, it often breeds malice and causes you to hold burdensome grudges against them — even without realizing it. Whatever relationship you two share would slowly implode, and honestly, you both deserve better than that.
They are who they are for a reason
We don’t always fall in love with the people we would normally imagine ourselves with. The universe sets certain kinds of people in our paths to help us discover more about ourselves and to grow spiritually. Spiritual growth is not merely about developing a heightened consciousness and devotion to a higher power, but it’s also about undergoing a personal reawakening, a transformation where you begin to see life from other perspectives.
The people in your life can help you achieve this. You’ve grown spiritually when you become non-judgmental of a person who lives a life different from what you’ve always believed to be “ideal.” The universe sets that religious person on your path to help you become more accepting of people who choose to believe in higher powers. That person with those unique tattoos uses them to tell a story about themselves, a coping mechanism that makes them seem more beautiful once you understand it. This is spiritual growth.
Communication is the key to learning to let people be. Talking about everything that boggles your mind is the only way to truly understand and accept another person. The best relationships are often those where the partners are free and open with each other. Words are the gateway to a person’s mind and soul. Listen to them, understand the reason why they do the things they do and learn to accept them for who they are.
It’s not always going to be easy, but when you truly love someone, you’ll accept them for the unique person they are. That’s what it means to be in a truly awakened union.
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