Lessons Learned: How Acceptance, Vulnerability, Forgiveness, and Compassion Make Sense to Me

Copyright © 2019 Robert Ackerman With J. Ibeh Agbanyim.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-5320-8541-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-8543-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-8542-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019917814

iUniverse rev. date: 11/05/2019

Contents

Acknowledgments

Author’s Note

Part I Acceptance

1 Dream Big

2 The Importance of Having a Twenty-Five-Year Plan

3 How Can I Accept This?

Part II Vulnerability

4 An Attractive Feature

5 Being Myself

6 A Risky Enterprise

7 A Liberating Exercise

Part III Forgiveness

8 It Won’t Happen to Me

9 I Do Have a Choice

10 Never Forgive Enough

Part IV Compassion

11 It Can Happen to Me

12 How Do I Want to Be Treated?

13 Empowering Cast Members

14 I Remembered You

Afterword

References

About the Authors

Acknowledgments

E xpressing myself in writing is more difficult than I ever could have imagined. It is humbling and yet rewarding, and without the constant support and encouragement of family, friends, and colleagues, it would be almost impossible. I want to thank everyone who has ever offered a positive comment and took the time to coach and teach me. They cared, and it mattered.

Through my active participation in the world around me, I have learned to always be humbled by and grateful for my unique place in it. I see and feel the rewards as well as the fulfillment in helping others achieve their dreams, and this is first and foremost in my mind as I move forward each day.

Once again, a special thanks to Ibeh, who helped guide and encourage me to once again put my thoughts into words.

Author’s Note

I love stories, and I have collected a few over the course of my life and career that resonate with me. I’ve worked in both the public and private sectors. I’ve also wandered into others as life may have it. Each chapter here intends to tell a story to humanize the topic without offering a concrete solution; instead I let readers draw their own conclusions and hopefully find the story useful.

Part I shares how accepting people the way they are—especially after learning about them and their past—has been one of my biggest challenges to overcome. Sometimes I tend to dwell on people’s past mistakes rather than accept their new attitudes. Intellectually, I know that all people learn and grow. I hope that sharing my stories and learning how I am working through this personal issue will encourage others to examine their acceptance challenges.

Part II is about how I have noticed over the years the enormous power that comes from being vulnerable to experiences that were usually not easily discussed. I have learned that sharing those experiences from a place of vulnerability provides much relief and even transformation.

Part III is about forgiveness. I have realized that forgiveness isn’t for the perpetrator but is rather for the offended, and this has lessened the psychological weight I carry each time I feel hurt by others.

Part IV is about compassion. Having compassion toward others has shaped the way I see others and myself. I have been on the other side of compassion, when I was met with aloofness, resentment, and insensitivity. It’s painful and discomfiting to be on the receiving side of a lack of compassion.

There is no prescribed sequence to follow when reading this book, as each part stands on its own. The truth is that we all have individual life lessons and stories. I present mine to liberate myself from the burden of carrying them alone as well as offer new perspectives to my readers.

With that said, even though these are my stories and experiences, they might not work for everyone.

Part I

Acceptance

1

Dream Big

A clash always exists between reality and illusion. Reality is what is known from an observer’s position and is generally accepted over a period of time. On the other hand, others can narrowly accept illusion, even though it’s real to the person who’s experiencing it. In this instance, attention to what is at stake can be overlooked. Having a clear understanding of a particular situation is a critical component in a relationship. This means focusing on the challenge at hand and not being distracted by different previous experiences, especially when the new situation requires a different set of approaches in problem solving. In this case, it would be wise to look at the situation from both your and the other person’s perspective. That is, have a 360-degree view before you make a decision, and then engage in an honest discussion with the person involved in the process to ensure that your own blind spots are not clouding you.

My aha moment occurred when I understood that other people’s experiences and how they interpreted them differently than I did wasn’t about them; rather, it was about me discovering myself through those experiences. In hindsight, many similar events had happened in my life in different areas, such as leadership, relationships, and spirituality, to mention a few, in which I missed the opportunity to ask different questions. This new insight led me to understand that the more I think about how I experience my daily events, the more I realize that how I focus my attention on my experiences determines my response or reaction to those events. I have also realized that those things I focus less attention on start to diminish.

For instance, when I initially decided to resign from my comfortable job to pursue my passion, it was challenging to my family and me because it was a new frontier. But as I continued to pursue my passion, my fears and worries about missing my previous comfortable job started to become less important to me. I sometimes feel that it’s good every now and then to have my head in the clouds because if I look the second time, what was once an unrealistic idea could begin to make sense to me.

As I mentioned earlier, it was frightening and unsettling the first time I thought about leaving my comfortable job to pursue a different passion. It was entirely different from my