Radical Acceptance

When there is nothing else you can do within your control, it often points to needing to practice radical acceptance.

Radical acceptance is a distress tolerance skill (rooted in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy or “DBT”), aimed at reducing the individual anguish of current hardship. It is when you fully acknowledge and accept what is happening in the present moment is beyond your control. Radical acceptance is not agreeing or validating the current hardship, but rather taking ownership of the fact that you cannot always be in control of circumstances in your life.

Radical acceptance is learning that pausing, attending to yourself, and letting yourself accept that you cannot change this immutable situation. It is allowing discomfort to be present while embracing releasing added suffering, which is often resistance to things beyond our control.

Practice allowing your feelings to be present without needing to change them for a moment, noticing the physical sensations and thoughts surrounding this immutable circumstance and letting it just be what it is. This skill is not to replace behavioral change within your control or to excuse harmful behaviors or negative external circumstances. It is a tool to let yourself let go of what is outside of your control.

Some helpful phrases you can tell yourself are:

• “I accept the present moment as it is in this moment”
• “I acknowledge my feelings without trying to force them to be something else”
• “I am letting go of control over all things”
• “It is okay to release control over ____”

Something I try to remind my clients of is that all things shift. Once we acknowledge that this feeling is temporary and will not last forever, that sometimes there is nothing more that can be done about this circumstance, it can help to ease the pain of the hardship.

-Chima