At the receiving end.

We feel acceptance and understanding are ways to give kindness to others. Even if they do things that aren't kind.

This is not integrity. This is a way to lie to ourselves because we are too afraid to stand up for ourselves.

Would you do the same unkind thing to the other person? What would stop you? Why do you allow them to do it to you then?

People show themselves through their actions. Giving them the benefit of the doubt at your expense is an act of self-sabotage.

From The Way of Integrity by Martha Beck:

A lot of my clients try to follow the Golden Rule to a fault: they are continually accepting, even apologetic, toward people who treat them badly. “Well,” they reason, “I’m treating others the way I want them to treat me.” These people are telling as many lies as Cindy, though a very different kind. They’re violating the opposite of the Golden Rule (I call this the Elur Nedlog, which is Golden Rule spelled backward). This version says, “Never allow others to treat you in ways you would never treat someone else.”