Radical Acceptance
Reality acceptance skills are skills for accepting your life as it is in the moment.
They are particularly useful when you are living a life that is not the life you want.
Goals of reality acceptance skills
The goals of reality acceptance skills are to reduce your suffering and increase your sense of freedom.
Isn’t Radical Acceptance Giving Up or Approving?
In reading books on how individuals survived in Nazi concentration camps during World War II, two things became apparent to me. First, a person had to have luck to survive. Second, if a person was lucky (i.e., was not killed for random reasons), then to stay alive the person had to radically accept that he or she was actually in the concentration camp and that the guards had all the power. What was right, wrong, or fair had no relevance. Those who gave up fell down and died or committed suicide. Those who openly rebelled, insisted guards stop breaking the law, or the like also died: The guards shot them or did something else equally brutal. Those who lived had luck, but they also radically accepted the rules imposed by the guards and people in power, and within those rules they did their very best to “work the system” and be effective in the environment they eventually survived.
A man is in prison with a life sentence for a crime he did not commit. He has used up his appeals, has no money or resources to hire a lawyer, and cannot get the Innocence Project to take up his cause. Accepting that prison is his home for the time being is critical. Without such reality acceptance, the prisoner might not adapt to prison, learn the skills necessary to survive in prison, and get whatever good things he can have while in prison. Tantrums and ghting the system can interfere with problem solving within the system and can lead to more punishment. Lying down on his cot, and giving up and giving in, can be just as problematic for this man and can also lead to punishment and recriminations.
Do you have examples where radical acceptance of facts of your lives has been important, either because such acceptance made things a lot better or because failure to accept made things a lot worse?
“Acknowledging or recognizing facts that are true; conceding the facts.”
“Letting go of fighting your reality (and also of throwing tantrums).”
Radical Acceptance is:
“Accepting all the way, with your mind, your heart, and your body.”
“Accepting something from the depths of your soul.”
“Opening yourself to fully experiencing reality as it is in this one moment.”
The idea here is to acknowledge what exists without anger or grudge, without bitterness, without meanness.
Despair (and passivity when action is needed), bitterness, resentment, and undue shame or guilt are all the results of failures in radical acceptance.
They are also often results of accepting distorted facts—facts not in evidence.
Thus the goal of radical acceptance is to fully accept just those facts that must be accepted. It is this full experience of the moment that ultimately will bring about peace and eventually, with repeated practice, some level of contentment with life.
What has to be accepted?
We only have to accept actual facts about the present and the past, and reasonable probabilities about the future.
Thus we have to be very careful not to accept distortions of the past (e.g., “My mother hated me from the very beginning of my life”), exaggerations (e.g., “I never get what I want,” “I hate everything about where I live”), catastrophes (e.g., “My whole life was ruined when I got fired”), judgmental assertions (e.g., “My wife is a jerk, and my children are no good”), or other similar beliefs or assumptions that are not actual facts.
Examples: Accepting that a loved one has died is very hard, but also very necessary if one is to build a life without that person. If you are lucky to live long enough, at some point you will have to accept that your hair is turning gray.
1. Reality Is What It Is
2. Everyone’s Future Has Limitations
A limitation on the future means that we may be less likely to achieve one or more desired outcomes.
Limitations are like probabilities. Accepting these limitations (or probabilities) can be important in setting goals and in avoiding failures that may only decrease the quality of our lives. The key here is that only highly likely limitations have to be accepted.
Limitations on our futures are caused by factors that have occurred in our lives, in the lives of others, and in our environment. If we do not change the causes that limit our present and future, then we cannot change, and reality itself will not change.
3. Everything in the universe has a cause
The point here is that everything that exists is an outcome of a cause.
The point is not to identify specific causes or imply that we can always know the causes of events in reality. Nor is it to define what constitutes a cause.
Thus causes can be physical, psychological, spiritual, or any other type of cause we may believe in.
If a cause occurs, the effect should also occur. Acceptance from this point of view is saying, “Everything should be as it is.” The point of this statement is that accepting what occurs in the universe is acknowledging that it is caused. What is caused should be, in other words. Or we can say, “Everything is as it is,” or “Everything is,” or “Everything is caused.”
For Whatever Happens, We Can Assume a Cause and Effect
Radical acceptance involves saying, “The rules of the universe are the rules of the universe.”
Then we can try to figure out what caused what. When we say that reality should be different, we are saying that somehow the rules of the universe should be different; not only that, but we are saying that we should get to say what the laws of the universe are. Of course, if we got to make up the rules of the universe, we might make a mistake.
There might be some unintended negative consequences as a result. Refusing to accept reality as it is, in essence, is saying that causes (or at least some causes) should not have effects. This would be a remaking of the laws of the universe.
For the most part, we only say, “Things should not be the way they are,” when we don’t like the way things are. We rarely say that about things we like, we want, or we accept.
The Rules of the Universe Are What They Are
Imagine that there’s a little boy on a bicycle. The child is on a hill, and the child is racing down the hill really fast on his bicycle. He goes into an intersection. Coming from the other direction down a long, empty road is a car. The car is going way over the speed limit. The intersection is unmarked: There’s not a stop sign, there’s not a stoplight, and there’s not a yield sign. The car’s coming the other way. The driver sees the child too late to stop, and the car and the child on the bike meet up right in the middle of the intersection. The car hits the child, and the child dies.
Should this have happened? Yes, it should have. There wasn’t a stop sign. There wasn’t a stop light. There wasn’t a yield sign. The car was speeding. The child was going fast. The car was going fast. The driver could not stop the car in time. The child was a child. Children go fast. People speed on long, empty roads. If we want to say that this should not have happened, we would have to create causes for it not to happen. We’d have to do something about all those causes. That is an example of accepting reality as it is and accepting that reality has causes. We do not, of course, have to approve of this. But, until the causes are different, that event should happen. It was caused.
If we want children biking down a steep hill to stop being hit by cars coming across an intersection, we may need to put up warning and stop signs or lights. We may need more police patrols or speed bumps in the road. Parents may need to teach their children better bike-riding habits. Simply saying that cars should not speed, or drivers should not hit little children, or children should look right and left before crossing an intersection does not cut down on accidents.
Do you have examples of situations in your lives where you have been saying, “Why me?” or “It shouldn’t have happened.”
In the story above of the car and the bicycle, we don’t know if the cause was lack of a stop sign or if the accident could have been avoided if the driver was not speeding. But we can accept that there was a cause, even if we don’t know it.
Radical Acceptance Does Not Require Knowing the Causes of Things
If life had to be pain-free to be worth living, no one would have a life worth living.
Acceptance requires finding a way not to say that life is a catastrophe.
Suppressing our desires for what we want is not an effective way out of this.
When we do that, we are acting as if it would be terrible if we did not get what we want, as if we could not be happy and could not tolerate not having everything we want. These beliefs, of course, just make things worse.
4. Life Can Be Worth Living Even When It Contains Pain
Put yourself in a situation discussed earlier: You are a person in prison for life, for a crime you did not commit. The Supreme Court didn’t overturn your conviction. What are your options?
You certainly cannot solve the problem. You’re not going to get yourself out of jail. And it just doesn’t seem possible that you’re going to start being happy that you’re an innocent person in jail. So we have to rule that one out. So what are your options?
You could be miserable, distraught, upset. You could cry every day for the rest of your life. Or you could accept it and figure out a way to build a life worth living inside a prison. To go from unendurable agony to endurable pain, you’re going to have to accept that you can build a life.
Because if you don’t accept it, what will happen? You’re not going to build a life. And building a life worth living actually takes a fair amount of work. Believing that you can’t do it makes it almost impossible. Believing that you can do it makes it a lot easier—so the chances are a lot higher that if you’ll actually accept that you are in prison for a crime you did not commit, you will build a life worth living.
They are particularly useful when you are living a life that is not the life you want.
Goals of reality acceptance skills
The goals of reality acceptance skills are to reduce your suffering and increase your sense of freedom.
Isn’t Radical Acceptance Giving Up or Approving?
In reading books on how individuals survived in Nazi concentration camps during World War II, two things became apparent to me. First, a person had to have luck to survive. Second, if a person was lucky (i.e., was not killed for random reasons), then to stay alive the person had to radically accept that he or she was actually in the concentration camp and that the guards had all the power. What was right, wrong, or fair had no relevance. Those who gave up fell down and died or committed suicide. Those who openly rebelled, insisted guards stop breaking the law, or the like also died: The guards shot them or did something else equally brutal. Those who lived had luck, but they also radically accepted the rules imposed by the guards and people in power, and within those rules they did their very best to “work the system” and be effective in the environment they eventually survived.
A man is in prison with a life sentence for a crime he did not commit. He has used up his appeals, has no money or resources to hire a lawyer, and cannot get the Innocence Project to take up his cause. Accepting that prison is his home for the time being is critical. Without such reality acceptance, the prisoner might not adapt to prison, learn the skills necessary to survive in prison, and get whatever good things he can have while in prison. Tantrums and ghting the system can interfere with problem solving within the system and can lead to more punishment. Lying down on his cot, and giving up and giving in, can be just as problematic for this man and can also lead to punishment and recriminations.
Do you have examples where radical acceptance of facts of your lives has been important, either because such acceptance made things a lot better or because failure to accept made things a lot worse?
“Acknowledging or recognizing facts that are true; conceding the facts.”
“Letting go of fighting your reality (and also of throwing tantrums).”
Radical Acceptance is:
“Accepting all the way, with your mind, your heart, and your body.”
“Accepting something from the depths of your soul.”
“Opening yourself to fully experiencing reality as it is in this one moment.”
The idea here is to acknowledge what exists without anger or grudge, without bitterness, without meanness.
Despair (and passivity when action is needed), bitterness, resentment, and undue shame or guilt are all the results of failures in radical acceptance.
They are also often results of accepting distorted facts—facts not in evidence.
Thus the goal of radical acceptance is to fully accept just those facts that must be accepted. It is this full experience of the moment that ultimately will bring about peace and eventually, with repeated practice, some level of contentment with life.
What has to be accepted?
We only have to accept actual facts about the present and the past, and reasonable probabilities about the future.
Thus we have to be very careful not to accept distortions of the past (e.g., “My mother hated me from the very beginning of my life”), exaggerations (e.g., “I never get what I want,” “I hate everything about where I live”), catastrophes (e.g., “My whole life was ruined when I got fired”), judgmental assertions (e.g., “My wife is a jerk, and my children are no good”), or other similar beliefs or assumptions that are not actual facts.
Examples: Accepting that a loved one has died is very hard, but also very necessary if one is to build a life without that person. If you are lucky to live long enough, at some point you will have to accept that your hair is turning gray.
1. Reality Is What It Is
2. Everyone’s Future Has Limitations
A limitation on the future means that we may be less likely to achieve one or more desired outcomes.
Limitations are like probabilities. Accepting these limitations (or probabilities) can be important in setting goals and in avoiding failures that may only decrease the quality of our lives. The key here is that only highly likely limitations have to be accepted.
Limitations on our futures are caused by factors that have occurred in our lives, in the lives of others, and in our environment. If we do not change the causes that limit our present and future, then we cannot change, and reality itself will not change.
3. Everything in the universe has a cause
The point here is that everything that exists is an outcome of a cause.
The point is not to identify specific causes or imply that we can always know the causes of events in reality. Nor is it to define what constitutes a cause.
Thus causes can be physical, psychological, spiritual, or any other type of cause we may believe in.
If a cause occurs, the effect should also occur. Acceptance from this point of view is saying, “Everything should be as it is.” The point of this statement is that accepting what occurs in the universe is acknowledging that it is caused. What is caused should be, in other words. Or we can say, “Everything is as it is,” or “Everything is,” or “Everything is caused.”
For Whatever Happens, We Can Assume a Cause and Effect
Radical acceptance involves saying, “The rules of the universe are the rules of the universe.”
Then we can try to figure out what caused what. When we say that reality should be different, we are saying that somehow the rules of the universe should be different; not only that, but we are saying that we should get to say what the laws of the universe are. Of course, if we got to make up the rules of the universe, we might make a mistake.
There might be some unintended negative consequences as a result. Refusing to accept reality as it is, in essence, is saying that causes (or at least some causes) should not have effects. This would be a remaking of the laws of the universe.
For the most part, we only say, “Things should not be the way they are,” when we don’t like the way things are. We rarely say that about things we like, we want, or we accept.
The Rules of the Universe Are What They Are
Imagine that there’s a little boy on a bicycle. The child is on a hill, and the child is racing down the hill really fast on his bicycle. He goes into an intersection. Coming from the other direction down a long, empty road is a car. The car is going way over the speed limit. The intersection is unmarked: There’s not a stop sign, there’s not a stoplight, and there’s not a yield sign. The car’s coming the other way. The driver sees the child too late to stop, and the car and the child on the bike meet up right in the middle of the intersection. The car hits the child, and the child dies.
Should this have happened? Yes, it should have. There wasn’t a stop sign. There wasn’t a stop light. There wasn’t a yield sign. The car was speeding. The child was going fast. The car was going fast. The driver could not stop the car in time. The child was a child. Children go fast. People speed on long, empty roads. If we want to say that this should not have happened, we would have to create causes for it not to happen. We’d have to do something about all those causes. That is an example of accepting reality as it is and accepting that reality has causes. We do not, of course, have to approve of this. But, until the causes are different, that event should happen. It was caused.
If we want children biking down a steep hill to stop being hit by cars coming across an intersection, we may need to put up warning and stop signs or lights. We may need more police patrols or speed bumps in the road. Parents may need to teach their children better bike-riding habits. Simply saying that cars should not speed, or drivers should not hit little children, or children should look right and left before crossing an intersection does not cut down on accidents.
Do you have examples of situations in your lives where you have been saying, “Why me?” or “It shouldn’t have happened.”
In the story above of the car and the bicycle, we don’t know if the cause was lack of a stop sign or if the accident could have been avoided if the driver was not speeding. But we can accept that there was a cause, even if we don’t know it.
Radical Acceptance Does Not Require Knowing the Causes of Things
If life had to be pain-free to be worth living, no one would have a life worth living.
Acceptance requires finding a way not to say that life is a catastrophe.
Suppressing our desires for what we want is not an effective way out of this.
When we do that, we are acting as if it would be terrible if we did not get what we want, as if we could not be happy and could not tolerate not having everything we want. These beliefs, of course, just make things worse.
4. Life Can Be Worth Living Even When It Contains Pain
Put yourself in a situation discussed earlier: You are a person in prison for life, for a crime you did not commit. The Supreme Court didn’t overturn your conviction. What are your options?
You certainly cannot solve the problem. You’re not going to get yourself out of jail. And it just doesn’t seem possible that you’re going to start being happy that you’re an innocent person in jail. So we have to rule that one out. So what are your options?
You could be miserable, distraught, upset. You could cry every day for the rest of your life. Or you could accept it and figure out a way to build a life worth living inside a prison. To go from unendurable agony to endurable pain, you’re going to have to accept that you can build a life.
Because if you don’t accept it, what will happen? You’re not going to build a life. And building a life worth living actually takes a fair amount of work. Believing that you can’t do it makes it almost impossible. Believing that you can do it makes it a lot easier—so the chances are a lot higher that if you’ll actually accept that you are in prison for a crime you did not commit, you will build a life worth living.