Intentional Acceptance
I’m starting to move away from conditional relationships into intentional relationships, so in this journal session I tried to explain what that means to me.
intentional: Deliberate, done on purpose. An aim or a plan
conditional: If, then statements. How things will be based on some other factor.
I fudged those definitions a little to make my point, honestly, but words are the barrier to exchanges of ideas in any case. Conditional acceptance versus Intentional acceptance is the difference between “I accept you if…” and “I accept you because”.
I cannot depend on conditions, because those change with different circumstances. It’s not to say that intentions remain the same forever, just that they are not negotiable once they are decided upon. I won’t have an if, then statement for intentions unless I’m separated from source. In other words, I can only be conditional with my intentions if I’m on the verge of shifting my morals. Intentions are defined and separated completely from what may actually manifest. As they say, “the road to Hell is paved with good intentions”, which implies that intentions do not require a particular ending to occur. Intentions are a vow but that doesn’t mean the vow is safe from being be broken. Conditions imply in their definition that there is at least half a chance the very foundation of the agreement will crumble.
Intentional acceptance means the benefits are established from the beginning. Intentional relationships require all sides to have intentions of their own while being fully accepting of others. Personally, knowing this allows me to not try so hard to validate what I bring to the table. The relationship can be calibrated to be mutually beneficial, but this requires the separate parties be open and transparent. The more intentional relationships we can foster in this life, the more likely we are to achieve what we set out to do without ever having to feel like its us against the world. When people say we need each other, it isn’t just for the sake of not being lonely. We need each other to manifest our ideas.
Originally written in Collective Journaling at The Stoa
