Change has a cycle of four phases. These are rejecting, resisting, accepting, and demanding. We choose to repeatedly go into this cycle. This is a big source of puzzlement for me.
Why do we need to go through the phases of rejecting and resisting before accepting change? This has been our experience over centuries and yet we tend to consume our energy and efforts on rejecting and resisting change. However, we know that we shall proceed to accepting change. This is a dilemma indeed.
We experience the same in all facets of life. One example is when Edison invented the light lamp. It did not look good. All financers and investors refused the new invention. They saw the ugliness of the lamp, but not the potential it provided. One banker only could see the future unfolding before it did and agreed to finance the light lamp.
I am giving this example to show even the invention provided light almost all people preferred to stay in their dark of rejection rather than the light of acceptance. Those people who rejected ended up accepting the change only after they passed the early signs of incoming opportunities.
We do the same with our emotions. We reject negative emotions and waste energy fighting them until we deplete ourselves of energy and accept them. Again, back to the same conclusion what started with rejection ended up in acceptance?
The rejection of negative feelings is an example of seeing their dark, but not their light. These feelings have a positive pole. They alert us to incoming threats. They enhance our survival potential. We need them as our bodies need the toxic carbon dioxide but within limits. As much as we fear carbon dioxide we need it if our bodies are to function properly. It is again seeing the ugliness of the light lamp rather than its great potential. We see the negative terminal and overlook the positive one.
The same applies to positive emotions. They have positive and negative poles. Too much of happiness may lead to our unhappiness. Too much success may lead to suffering from the success syndrome and turn into failure. We need to accept the negatives emotions for they are the buffer against excessiveness. They give us stability. They keep us in balance.
Humans pay huge prices for not accepting reality. We live many examples of human sufferings for not accepting minorities, race differences, discrimination, and many more.
We pay heavy prices and fight and only after huge sufferings, we accept what we rejected before.
Humanity is in accepting and not rejecting human differences.
