How to Accept People You Don't Like - Allow People to Change

Show Notes:
Making the decision to accept & tolerate someone you don’t care for is really a grown-up decision to make. It’s real maturity to just put aside your feelings and any past experiences you’ve had with them and ALLOW the relationship to be better. Because it CAN get better. If we allow people to change and be different than they have in the past, then the relationship can get better and everyone can have a better experience.

I believe one of the biggest issues we have when dealing with people we don’t like is holding past offenses against them without any end in sight. We continuously remind ourselves of how they hurt us in the past and how those things have betrayed our trust and led to us feeling some type of way.

I think there are several possibilities for why we struggle with this.

• When you let something go, you might believe that there will be no justice for what happened, so you take it upon yourself to make sure there is by holding it against the person until you feel like it’s been enough (or everyone knows).
• You might not have taken to time to really unpack what happened. You haven’t evaluated why you felt the way you did, what the actual root cause was, and why you believe holding onto this is beneficial to you.
• Maybe you’re dealing with insecurity issues and don’t think you are being treated as fairly as this other person is and continue to hold a grudge and contempt for them until you feel how people view YOU has changed.

Regardless of what the reason is, we need to be making an effort to be more accepting of those people we don’t like or see as enemies and who have caused us pain.

The Bible tells us, in several different verses, to love your enemies & those that persecute you.

💖 Luke 6:27-28, “But to you who are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you. Bless those that curse you. Pray for those who hurt you.”

Here are the steps I take when I am working on accepting someone I don’t really like or that has caused me pain in the past:

1. Acknowledge Your Feelings
   1. Be honest about how you feel. It’s healthy & normal to have feelings. It’s what you do next that can cause the trouble.
2. Practice Empathy
   1. Try to see it from the other person’s point of view.
3. Truly Forgive Them
   1. Don’t keep this pain. Forgiveness is meant for you. It allows you to move on from what happened & no longer allow it to cause you pain.
   2. Colossians 3:13, “bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”
4. Stay in the Present With Them
   1. Don’t live life in the past with this person. Give them the chance to change.
5. Still Set & Enforce Boundaries Between You Both
   1. If you’re willing to continue having a relationship with this person or are forced to because of a common connection, like work or school or a community you’re involved in, you can still create boundaries to keep yourself safe.

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