Turning the Mind#

How can radical acceptance help in a distressing situation?#

• When distressed, you may act in a way that’s ineffective or destructive. Radically accepting a situation ‘as it is’ is the first step in recognising the problem & using distress tolerance skills to minimise it.
• Radical acceptance is a choice.

Radical acceptance also applies to yourself. It means learning to accept yourself for who you are, and embracing yourself without judgement or criticism.

Examples of radical acceptance include:

• Forgiving someone who treated you extremely poorly in the past
• Injustice from the past
• Accepting that some things cannot be changed
• Coming to terms with anger & trauma of the past

• To accept reality, you have to actively make that choice. At the fork in the road, you have to go down the path of reality & acceptance to move forward.
• Radical acceptance begins with a commitment to accept:
  • Commitment =/= acceptance, but it is the first step towards it.
  • Sometimes you have to turn your mind & make that commitment over and over again, sometimes in the span of a few minutes.
  • Each time you do, you’re making a choice to move forward.

• The commitment to accept can be distressing, but is an important step to moving forward.
• Fighting the anger and distress only extends suffering, especially if the situation is in the past.

Acceptance does not mean agreement. Radical acceptance is just the acceptance of reality, it doesn’t mean that you condone the situation. If we reject reality, we can’t fix it.

• This is the way it has to be
• All the events have lead up to now
• I can’t change what’s already happened
• It’s no use fighting the past
• Fighting the past only blinds me to the present
• The present is the only moment I have control over
• It’s a waste of time to fight what’s already occurred
• This moment is exactly as it should be, given what has happened before it

• This moment is a butterfly effect from many other events before it
• The present moment is as it is, even if I don’t like it
• Fighting anger only extends suffering
• It’s just what has happened, nothing more
• The past can’t be changed
• Acceptance doesn’t mean I can’t change anything
• Acceptance is the first step forward