What is Radical Acceptance?
Radical acceptance is learning to say yes to life, just as it is, accepting life on life’s terms without resistance because it is not within your control. Radical is complete and total acceptance in your mind, your heart, and your body.
What has to be accepted and why?
Reality has to be accepted; it is what it is as it is because it is— no more, no less. Whether you choose to accept it or not, the past and the present are factual. If you avoid/refuse to accept the facts, it will not keep it from being true.
Begin to accept that pain and emotion are a part of life, and they don’t have to consume you. Your acceptance is not an agreement with the pain; it is the alternative to avoiding and resisting something you have no control over. Working through emotions with acceptance prevents them from becoming amplified in a manner that affects your behavior, thoughts, and feelings, not to serve you.
- Refusing to accept reality does not change the facts.
- Implementing necessary change that is within your control requires first accepting reality.
- Pain can not be avoided; it is nature’s way of signaling that something is wrong.
- Rejecting reality turns pain into suffering.
- Refusing to accept reality can keep you stuck in unhappiness, bitterness, anger, sadness, shame, or painful emotions.
- Acceptance may lead to sadness, but deep calmness usually follows.
Radical Acceptance Coping Statements!
To begin implementing radical acceptance in your life, you may find it helpful to use a coping statement to remind you that it is what it is as it is because it is— no more, no less. Below are some of my favorite coping statements!
- “All the events have led up to now.”
- “I can’t change what’s already happened.”
- “Fighting the past only keeps me distracted from my present.”
- “The present is the only moment I have control over.”
- “This moment is as it should be, given what’s happened before it.”
- “This moment is the result of over a million other decisions.”
- “The future is not yet happening.”
- “I will cross that bridge if/when I come to it.”
- “It is what it is, as it is, because it is— no more, no less.”