ACCEPTANCE & CONFORMITY ____________________________________________

Every human being has a natural instinctual desire for freedom. Every human being seeks creativity, knowledge and happiness. We all want love and acceptance. Conflict arises when we are taught that in order to be accepted, we must think, act and behave as we are told , regardless of how we feel about it. The emotional indication is that “their” wishes are more important that ours. We capitulate because we are taught that “they” know best, that “they” are older and wiser or that we need “them” to be happy, to be successful or maybe even to survive. As children we learn early to conform for acceptance.

We forfeit our own feelings for acceptance. We learn to deny them, push them down and pretend that we don’t have them, but as we deny our emotions we begin to realize that we are denying ourselves. The question arises, “If how I feel doesn’t count, do I count? Over time discounting of our feelings takes a toll. We begin to doubt our emotions. We no longer recognize or listen to how we feel. We conform more and question less. We do more and feel less. We try harder and become more disconnected from our natural instincts and our analytical selves. Without ourselves, what have we?

When did the need for acceptance become an impediment to our judgment? When did conformity become a stumbling block to our growth? As children we were taught to obey our parents because they knew better than we did. As teens we begin to recognize the inconsistencies in our upbringing, the gaps between the actions and the teachings, the rules they made for you to live by, but they were rules they didn’t keep. If we didn’t openly rebel, we secretly begin to analyze the reality we were told verses the one we lived.

Most people carry on patterns they have lived, not patterns they were taught. Most of us came by our behavior patterns as an accident of birth, not a choice of deliberate consideration. Most of us develop habitual responsive patterns in our youth and continue to react to circumstances and pressures the same way in our adult life, without reconsidering the current appropriateness of our reaction.

In refusing to be honest with ourselves about our feelings we refuse to see that conformity against our better judgment is detrimental to our emotional self confidence. When we don’t live by our own truth, to gain acceptance of another, acceptance is not what we get. We get emotional bondage and declining self respect. Freedom , acceptance and self respect come from conforming to your own inner values like Shakespeare said,” To thine own self be true”.

Rebecca Kimbel /Motivational Speaker

Rebecca Kimbel is a powerful motivational speaker whosecompassion, wisdom and leadership skills can change your relationships, your neighborhood, your business and your life.