Radical Acceptance
Feeling happy and healthy is all about balancing acceptance and change. If we are experiencing any form of distress, we should make changes to the behaviors and factors that contribute to our suffering; however, many people try to change qualities that make them unhappy without also practicing acceptance of what they’re dealing with. This can make our needed positive adjustments feel more pressurized, increasing our discomfort because we can't accept the present state we’re in. Before we can truly start to improve our reactions, emotions, and circumstances, we must practice acceptance. This might sound contradictory to transformation, but this acceptance ultimately helps us minimize our emotions so we may see more clearly and have more energy to advance our skills.
When we stop fighting reality, stop responding with impulsive or reactive behavior, and let go of the bitterness causing us to suffer, it's called radical acceptance. This is a valuable but challenging skill to learn - it takes a lot of emotional flexibility and requires us to shift our perspective and emotions to see our situations in a new way. When we practice radical acceptance, we accept something fully, without judgement. This means we don’t struggle against it, we don’t get frustrated by it, and we don’t try to change it into something it’s not. We don’t get angry, discouraged, or otherwise stressed about it. We use our mindful breathing and practice awareness to simply observe it as it is. We radically accept the present moment we’re in, including all of our thoughts, feelings, and circumstances inherent to that moment. This moment is shaped by a chain of events that have already taken place, a combination of our decisions and other people’s actions in the past. When we radically accept a moment, we gently and nonjudgmentally acknowledge all of the circumstances and our actions that led to our current situation.
Radically accepting something doesn’t mean we accept every bad habit we have or that we give up on bettering ourselves. With the exception of the unfair injustices that happen to us in life (such as assault or abuse), we use radical acceptance to calmly acknowledge that we have contributed in some way to our present moment. We are responsible for our present moment, to some extent. Even in a situation that's completely out of our control, we contribute the situation in a positive or negative way with our perspective, beliefs, emotions, or attachments. We can improve a bad situation with a positive mindset. Many people feel as though they’re at the mercy of life, and this can disrupt our sense of stability and overwhelm or frighten us. If we feel as though life is happening out of our control, it can make us very defensive and angry. When we recognize our role in creating a situation and we acknowledge how our beliefs have shaped our perspective, we can radically accept our reality and work towards making it more enjoyable and liberating.
If a woman believes that she is naturally a “hot-headed” person, she may think that it’s her default emotion to be angry. As a result of this belief of that she isn’t in control of her anger, she is constantly hostile. Even to herself. She hurts her wellness with excessive drinking, belittles herself, and berates other people. If she would practice radically accepting herself, realizing in the moment that she is feeling the emotion of anger (probably for a specific reason in response to something in her past or in the future) instead of being an angry individual, then she could use that awareness to realize she needs to heal her distressed emotions. If she uses radical acceptance to embrace her anger as a temporary emotion instead of a default personality trait, she could feel inspired to do something to soothe her difficult feeling and reduce the amount of time she suffers in anger. Radically accepting the present moment helps defuse difficult emotions and opens up the opportunity for us to recognize the role we’ve played in creating our current situation; ultimately giving us the insight of what we need to change. What has led to us feeling as we do? What could we do to improve our situation? What elements are truly outside of our control? When we nonjudgmentally accept what we cannot change in a situation, we can use all of our strength and energy to acknowledge what we can change, and we’ll truly have the best chance of transforming our discomfort.
Use radical acceptance to see situations more clearly.
We need to change the issues in our life that cause us suffering, but we simultaneously need to accept ourselves fully during the process.
Use radical acceptance to see situations more clearly.
We need to change the issues in our life that cause us suffering, but we simultaneously need to accept ourselves fully during the process.