Radical Acceptance
Quell Pain before it turns into Suffering
By Bluestone Psychological Services
“Yes, I love to talk about it, but it is time to learn skills so I can do better with it!” bemoaned a client. They are right. Clients benefit from expression and venting but also need the skills to feel better. “Feeling better” is not even the best way to describe it. “Tolerating their pain” conveys a more accurate understanding of what acceptance skills provide.
Acceptance and more specifically radical acceptance is a way to begin tolerating distress and pain.
What is Radical Acceptance?
Radical acceptance is a distress tolerance skill that is designed to keep pain from turning into suffering.
Radical acceptance is NOT approval, but rather completely and totally accepting with our mind, body and spirit. Emotional pain can be debilitating. It is often coupled with the exacerbation of it to the point of suffering.
By choosing to radically accept the things that are out of our control, we prevent ourselves from becoming stuck in unhappiness, bitterness, anger and sadness and we can stop suffering. It doesn’t give us the permission to be helpless. It acknowledges the denying of a difficult reality. It says this denial will not change the reality. It helps us get unstuck from damaging thoughts about ourselves and others.
We cannot change the fact that uncertainty and unexpected events can impact our lives.
The First 3 Steps to Practicing Radical Acceptance
3 steps to practicing it according to DBT’s founder, Marsha Linehan:
- Observe that you are questioning or fighting reality (“it shouldn’t be this way”)
- Remind yourself that the unpleasant reality is just as it is and cannot be changed (“this is what happened”)
- Remind yourself that there are causes for the reality (“this is how things happened”) and you are also a part of the cause.
“Acceptance can transform but if you accept in order to transform, it is not acceptance. It is like loving. Love seeks no reward but when given freely comes back a hundredfold. He who loses his life finds it. He who accepts, changes.”
― Marsha M. Linehan
More Skills Are Available
Our compassionate, collaborating therapists have more skills to show you. Approaches of distress tolerance, mindfulness and acceptance are a great step towards feeling better. Use our quick and easy form to get started.
Add’l content provided by:
David A Morris, LCSW