We all face challenges, uncertainties, and disappointments. These are features of human life. The question is how we react to them.
Often the way we react to something ends up being worse than the thing itself—causing us more pain for much longer. We wallow in resentment or bitterness, adopt a victim mentality, or ruminate and complain, extending the cycle of misery. When we take something difficult and add resistance to it, it only adds to our suffering.
One powerful practice to break this cycle is “radical acceptance,” accepting situations outside our control without judging them. The idea is to reduce the pain and suffering associated with challenging situations.
Radical acceptance involves accepting reality as it is, so we don’t needlessly extend an emotional reaction that makes it worse. With such a practice, we’re building up our tolerance for distress, which can be quite valuable in all sorts of circumstances. Essentially, we’re preventing pain from turning into further suffering.
Such acceptance makes great sense on paper but can be exceptionally difficult to do in practice, especially given the way we’re wired. Our emotions come strong and quick, and they can flood our system with anger, stress hormones, and other physiological phenomena if we let them.
Can we interrupt the circuit and bring calm and more productive responses instead of becoming the victim of emotional flooding? Can we learn to move on from our initial responses more quickly and effectively?
Accepting things as they are means embracing the present moment and no longer resisting reality. It means acknowledging what’s happening without denying or avoiding it or wishing it away.
With such a practice, we focus on the things we can control, letting go of things we can’t.
Can we learn to accept that life can be good and worthwhile even when it includes pain and suffering? Can we let things go instead of letting them gather inside of us, forming reserves of bitterness and resentment?
What Acceptance Doesn’t Mean
In this context, accepting things as they are doesn’t mean being complacent, avoiding difficult issues, settling, or giving up on our goals and aspirations. This kind of acceptance doesn’t mean approving of bad situations or passively accepting situations like manipulation, injustice, harassment, or abuse. Acceptance doesn’t mean condoning or agreeing with things, and it doesn’t mean that we stop tending to the fire in our belly or taking action.
Rather, acceptance means that we stop fighting reality. Why not acknowledge and work with it instead? Acceptance means taking a productive, compassionate, and nonjudgmental approach to reality, because it serves us and those around us better.
Clearly, part of the challenge involves knowing when to take reasoned, wise action and when to engage in radical acceptance so that we don’t get caught in downward spirals. Also, acknowledging the current reality without denying it helps free up our thinking so we can come up with new ideas for appropriate actions to take, because we’re using the more advanced parts of our brain.
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