Hello everyone, I am Anthony. Welcome to my channel. Today's video, let’s continue to talk about how to accept the complexity of people. In the video on April 19th, we discussed how unconditional love is possible. We said at that time, unconditional love is not just about loving the specific qualities or abilities of the other person. We should love this quality, the complexity and possibilities behind it, and encourage this possibility. Certainly, you can see and love the complexity of another person, firstly, because you have accepted your complexity. This love built on complexity is beyond our general understanding of love.

General understanding of love is often based on specific moral qualities or abilities. For example, I love her kindness and compassion; I admire her for her profound thoughts and values, etc. These are certainly valuable qualities. However, these are phenomenal. On top of these phenomena, humans also have a kind of ontological morality, which is a continuous process of self-exploration. This exploration may make a person more and more complicated, even denying your own ideas, making the parties more confused. But this change and complexity is the deepest and innermost part of a person.

But that video, we just discussed a framework. There are many issues worth discussing in detail. For example, one netizen said in the comment section, "You said to be open and friendly to experience and an attitude of acceptance, but what if the experience itself is immoral? Such as cheating, lies, betrayal, etc." Indeed, when we say we need to accept the complexity of people, we must not just accept the bright side of people, and it must include the shadow side. Even this side of the shadow, this is the true meaning of complexity. So we use the word "acceptance" to avoid making subconscious moral judgments about good and bad, right and wrong in psychology. Then someone might ask, will this acceptance indulge people's dark side without any bottom line? In this video we will discuss these topics in detail. Before the video starts, let me say, if you have anything you want to discuss with me and consulting topics, you can contact my email to make an appointment.

So let's get back to today's topic. In fact, this topic is not easy to understand, because it is not a matter of pure logic and reasoning that can be understood. It requires a lot of inner experience. Of course there is another reason: the language we use in daily life, it's easy to confuse the issue. Like love, tolerance and understanding, these words appear too frequently in our lives. It can easily lead to a feeling of emptiness and hollowness. For example, "You have to learn to accept and tolerate your imperfections." The tolerance and acceptance in this sentence, in fact, it is the exact opposite of what I meant. What we mean here is love, understanding and acceptance, it is different from the general sense of tolerance and understanding.

General understanding and tolerance is usually tolerance as a means to achieve practical benefits. Forgiveness and tolerance as understood in traditional Chinese culture, it's basically like this. For example, in the Analects of Confucius, a disciple asked Confucius what is benevolence. Confucius said that if you can do these five things: Gong, Kuan, Xin, Min, Hui. The so-called "respect does not insult, widespread wins the crowd, trustworthy people, being sensitive leads to success, benefits are enough to make people." Confucius meant generosity can win people's hearts, popularity, do favors to others so that you can use them.

Therefore, tolerance in Chinese culture is not from a transcendent, unconditional spiritual understanding. Rather, it is deeply embedded in ethical hierarchies and networks of relationships. In the context of practical benefits, it is more of a strategic "tolerance." The purpose is to maintain order and gain loyalty or avoid destroying interpersonal harmony. For example, in "Zhenguan Zhengyao," it is often mentioned how Li Shimin "conquered people with virtue," "tolerance and tolerance of criticism." For example, in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, whether it is Liu Bei or Cao Cao, there have been a lot of acts of tolerance towards the enemy. But this kind of tolerance is purely to buy people's hearts. It is essentially part of the art of ruling. It’s an emotional investment. It does not have any deep empathy for individuals and recognition of spiritual complexity. The Confucian Way of Loyalty and Forgiveness, as the saying goes, "Do not do to others what you do not want others to do to you." The starting point is still to restrain your external behavior, rather than entering into the inner experience of others. The ultimate goal is to maintain stability and harmony of group order.

Another common confusion between tolerance and understanding, it is directed towards specific behavior. For example, a child has a father with a bad temper. He complained to his mother. Mom told him, "You have to understand your father's difficulties." The understanding here, it is not a psychological understanding. It means that you are at the behavioral level, be more obedient and submissive, don't complain. Another person hurts you. He said, "You have to understand my difficulties, to forgive me." This is also to make you compromise and sacrifice on a practical level. As long as you do this in reality, he doesn't care how you understand it.

What we mean here is understanding and acceptance, it is a purely spiritual understanding and seeing. It cannot be used as an ethical or legal basis. It's not an obligation. I understand why someone commits a crime, but this psychological understanding, it cannot be used as a reason or evidence for the other party to escape guilt. This is just my personal insight, ethics that do not necessarily touch or change reality. This is similar to what Kant said in What is Enlightenment? about two ways of using reason. Kant believes that in reality, we often need to be in a specific social identity, maintain "private use of rationality," that is, sometimes you need to obey and compromise in your behavior, have to implement some systems and rules that we ourselves do not agree with. But at the same time, as a person, a world citizen, we should have the right to truth and freedom, the right to public use of reason. You can obey orders, but you have the right to express your thoughts unconditionally. This right is not to change the social system and rules immediately. It is just to reserve a spiritual territory for enlightenment itself.

Same, this pure spiritual understanding we are talking about refers to a person who can have such a space. He is in this space, you can express any emotion and thought, rather than being judged by morality or diagnosed by psychology. He just needs to express it for his own purpose, no need to feel fear. Even if these ideas are contradictory, even if the person concerned denies today's idea tomorrow, it doesn't matter. In this space, no matter how he reveals his experience, both can get each other's unconditional understanding and attention. He has complete sovereignty in this space. That's exactly what Rogers said, "The person concerned becomes his or her own everything at every moment, all the richness and complexity, no hiding of oneself, be fearless within yourself."

Certainly, this is an ideal state. It is also very difficult to achieve. First of all, there are very few people who have this ability. Secondly, such a person cannot exist in any time and space to do this to anyone. So we say, this kind of pure spiritual understanding and tolerance, it is not an obligation in a relationship. I can't ask everyone around me to do this. But it can be used as an ideal state worth pursuing. If you have this ability, then you will be more likely to accept yourself. At the same time, you can also affect the people around you. This purely spiritual understanding is not linked to reality. Do not seek to change reality immediately, but it also preserves the spiritual purity, making the parties able to focus completely on exploring one's own experience, without having to bear the consequences of real actions.

That's it. Some people think this state is beautiful, but some people must be skeptical: How is this kind of acceptance and tolerance possible? Is it really not just an act? Why would anyone appreciate this complexity? But I think this appreciation and acceptance, it is a very advanced aesthetic experience. What I appreciate, it's not the other person's messy thoughts. It is the process of the flow of the parties involved. When a person is in an atmosphere of acceptance, when you keep expressing yourself, although his expression may seem chaotic, complex, conflicting, but as the expression deepens, his expression still tends to be purposeful and systematic. This purpose is his true self. This process of moving toward your true self is lovely. The parties gradually discovered, some voices seem to come from the self, it's just a personality mask and a defense mechanism.

He gradually became able to distinguish what experiences come from deep within, which experiences are the result of external implantation. Eventually his mind will become more orderly and coherent, rather than chaos. This process is obvious to the observer. It can be an aesthetic experience in itself. It's a thing that becomes purer, more in line with your purpose. For example, the originally messy items become layered and orderly, it will make people feel healed. Music is very similar to this psychological change of people. For example, the beginning of many classical music is very depressing, anxious and disturbing. Its rhythm jumps, as if exploring some dark emotions. As the music progresses, this melody becomes more and more layered and directional, more and more passionate. At the end, the composer reintroduced the melody that appeared earlier, make the listener feel a sense of belonging and deep harmony and satisfaction.

When we listen to music, as if I could see how a person's spirit unfolds step by step, experienced various conflicts and changes, finally back to oneself, completed integration.

Certainly, acceptance is actually a two-way process. One person to another, acceptance of complexity and richness, it also points to itself. When I see the richness of the other person's life, when you broaden the other person's life experience, I also feel my spiritual connection with the other person is deeper. The result is that I have done this, reaffirmed my own uniqueness and richness, and my deep connection with this world. So this acceptance of another person, equal in nature, there are no additional conditions. In this exchange, the most important thing is not how much professional knowledge and advice can I give to the other party, but first of all, we need an atmosphere, it is my spiritual world towards the other person, have genuine curiosity and interest.

Many people don’t have this curiosity and interest. They are content to use external labels to predict other people's hearts, content to see a poor, a monotonous and completely known world. Stereotypes are often true. However, there are always many things about people that cannot be predicted by external labels, unknown parts. These parts are often the most worthy of exploration and attention. This curiosity and interest in others, it is far beyond the general sense of psychological professional competence. It is not something that can be improved or changed simply by learning, but it actually creates this atmosphere of acceptance, the most precious thing.

When we have this sensitivity and interest in the uniqueness of others, we can give each other more easily, provide a safe atmosphere to express yourself. We discussed above, how is this acceptance possible? That's it. Some people may doubt, this acceptance, it really doesn't make a person more evil, worse? What Rogers said, this fearless freedom of expression, for many people, it's scary in itself. Rogers also realized this. He also said, “The life path I described, a more common response: Becoming one's true self, it means he is bad, evil, unrestrained, destructive. It means to release some kind of monster, making waves in our world. 'If I dare let these suppressed emotions come out, if I had the chance to actually experience those emotions, this will cause a catastrophe.'"

However, Rogers believes, it’s not the negative emotions themselves that are destructive. It is the repression and denial of this emotion. If a person accepts and experiences your anger as it is, then this anger that is accepted and transformed, no longer destructive, it won't make him collapse. He can allow himself to experience his sexual feelings, my lazy emotions, or hostility towards others, at the same time, your world will not collapse. Certainly, Rogers didn't try to prove it. He is just telling the readers based on his personal experience, accept your complex emotions, it is by no means an evil process.

But why are we so afraid? What negative emotions do you experience? I think one of the main reasons is that many people take the emotions and ideas that arise in their hearts directly equivalent to behavior. The reason why I am afraid of my own thoughts, because I thought of the practical consequences of putting this idea into practice. I can't bear the consequences of this. I will be very scared and afraid. Indeed, we need to take responsibility for our actions in the real world, bear the consequences. It is normal to be afraid of the consequences of reality. However, in my inner world, people don't need to have fear or guilt about themselves. I had an idea, a mood, doesn't mean I'm going to make it a reality.

Many times, these ideas are just a medium for me to explore my deep needs, just a tool. But in that fear, we are actually stuck in a psychological equivalence mode, just lost temporarily, distinction between inner world and external reality. Directly project your inner feelings onto the outside world, lost this sense of boundaries. I also lost this experience, the ability to reinterpret and reinterpret. This is usually due to the fact that we grow up, lack of effective feedback and reflection of these emotions. We may have experienced a too easy destructive external circumstances that amplify our emotions. When we simply express some negative emotions, others experience strong emotions. As a result, we feel as if we have a thought, it causes direct damage to others and the world. This is a slippery slope fallacy.

For example, some parents have unresolved mental conflicts of their own, unable to contain children. As a result, when children express certain negative emotions, the parents' own reactions are many times greater than their children's. Children do not feel feedback, it's your own feelings, it caused great harm to the parents. For example, in many schools in China, the teacher will monitor a student's every move, linked to his future. Maybe the student is a little tired, or rebellious feelings, guilt and fear immediately arise, thinking that I might achieve nothing in the future, or feel sorry for your parents, etc.

This state, in fact, it is similar to a kind of primitive superstition. For example, the ancients were very concerned about natural disasters such as wind, rain, thunder and lightning, very scared. I think I am in front of this natural phenomenon, you can only keep in awe and worship, not think. Once you think, as if it would bring about an unspeakable disaster. But we now know, you think about disasters in your mind, your words and discussions on disasters, it will not make the disaster more severe. This first, not because we know a lot of scientific knowledge, but we know that people's inner world is independent, is infinite, above and beyond nature. Therefore, facing natural phenomena, people are free to interpret, formulate a hypothesis, building a theoretical model, no need to feel fear.

Therefore, a person actively experiences his inner world, pursuing self-integration, in fact, it has something to do with humans breaking through their primitive fear of nature, bravely explore the mysteries of the world. They are all about moving oneself from the unknown to the unknown, freed from the fear of alien power.

That’s all for today’s video. We will continue to discuss this topic in the next video. If you have any confusion and problems want to communicate with me, just contact my email directly. For example, you want to discuss an article or a paragraph with me, a video, a social phenomenon, or your diary, please send me the relevant text in advance. I will read it before the formal communication. Or you want to discuss your life experience with me, confusion and emotion, all are possible. If you are concerned about privacy, security, any questions about payment and communication methods, please also tell me in time. If you are unable to pay or join the membership, please contact me too, I will provide other ways. Please refer to this picture for details. I will post this video, put it in the list of "Psychology and Education." Also recommend to everyone, check out my other videos in this list. Thank you for watching, goodbye!