We’re coming close to the last DBT concepts/skills and have covered many things like living in the present, regulating mood, tolerating distress, and working within relationships with other people. Once we have attempted all of these things, if there is a situation or person that we believe will never change, there is one last step – Radical Acceptance.
Radical Acceptance is accepting
the situation or the person as they are:
⇒ All the way, completely, totally
⇒ With your mind, heart, and body
⇒ Without fighting reality, throwing tantrums,
and hanging onto bitterness.
There are just things that are reality, and no matter how much we want them to change they won’t be different. Here is the list quoted from Marsha Linehan’s DBT Skills Training for Why we should accept reality…
- Rejecting reality does not change reality.
- Changing reality requires first accepting reality.
- Pain can’t 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 other painful emotions. - Acceptance may lead to sadness, but deep
calmness usually follows. - The path out of hell is through misery. By refusing to accept the misery that is part of climbing out of
hell, you fall back into hell.
The longer we strive against something that’s not going to change the more miserable we feel. I’ll admit that sometimes it’s easier to stay there because it’s familiar. And sometimes accepting feels like giving in, giving up, or losing; and it can be. The question then becomes, do we want to remain miserable?
I want to highlight two thoughts from the list above and then move into How to use Radical Acceptance. The first thought is from #2 – changing reality requires first accepting reality. When we can accept that reality is what it is, our emotions calm, our focus changes, and our thoughts are easier to control. If there is a sliver of chance that something could change, it’s not going to happen until we accept what is first in order to calm ourselves. The second thought is from #7 – the path out of hell is through misery. I believe this is supported by the Bible in a way. We can only come to a risen Savior for redemption through Godly sorrow, a contrite heart, and a desire to change. If we try to come to God without those we will indeed fall back into hell. I’m not saying there has to be weeping and wailing, but a deep heart felt sorrow for the sin we’ve committed against God and his word.
In Linehan’s work, she does not have an acronym for Radical Acceptance, but in working to use it myself I came up with one that helped me remember how to do it – It takes a lot of EFFORT!
E – Expectations: many times, we find ourselves stuck in what “should” be.
F – Facts: the fact of reality remains, and it’s not going to be how we think it “should” be.
F – Factors: there are always factors that have led to this reality, and we can review those to understand that it’s not just an arbitrary circumstance.
O – Overall: the acceptance has to be overall, complete, for it to stick.
R – Release: we release any expectations and any control we think we have or should have to God.
T – Turn the Mind: whenever we notice our minds starting to slip back into fighting with reality, we’ll have to choose at that fork in the road to turn the mind toward acceptance. And repeat. And repeat. (Turn the Mind is a separate skill, but I felt like it’s really a part of this process.)
One last note on Radical Acceptance…It is not approval, compassion, love, passivity, or against change; it is simply accepting what IS. Sometimes there are things that interfere with our ability to use it…Not knowing how, believing it means our acceptance implies approval of the hard reality, or overwhelming emotions that we’re struggling to regulate.
Sorry this got a little long!
Even though this is the last DBT topic,
I have other things to write about.
Stay tuned!
