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Radical Acceptance

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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…

  1. Rejecting reality does not change reality.
  2. Changing reality requires first accepting reality.
  3. Pain can’t be avoided; it is nature’s way of
    signaling that something is wrong.
  4. Rejecting reality turns pain into suffering.
  5. Refusing to accept reality can keep you stuck
    in unhappiness, bitterness, anger, sadness,
    shame, or other painful emotions.
  6. Acceptance may lead to sadness, but deep
    calmness usually follows.
  7. 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!

 

 

Using AND Instead of OR/BUT

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The next topic in the flow of DBT is “Using AND instead of OR or BUT.”  As I started to write, I was struck that maybe I had written about this before, and looking back, I saw a post on using AND instead of OR; here, I’ll give a short review of OR and then concentrate on BUT.

When we use AND instead OR we allow everyone to have their own opinions, their own way of doing things, their own solutions to dilemmas, instead of pitting people against others in figuring out which part of the OR is “correct.”  There is rarely only one way to do something, so when we put a stake in the ground that one OR the other must be correct, we negate all other ways to solve a problem or get something done.  We also can alienate our friends and family.  That is the negative of OR.  The positive to using AND is a reduction of tension. We don’t have to be in conflict with others in order to prove ourselves “right.”

Here are some of the examples I used last time…

  • Either I’m right or you’re right. ⇒ I like seafood restaurants and you like steakhouses; we’re both right.
  • Either I can do this perfectly or I’m a failure. ⇒ I can make mistakes and not be a failure; everyone makes mistakes.
  • Either I am loved or I’m worthless. ⇒ Sometimes I mess up and I’m still loved.
  • Either I choose option A or option B. ⇒ Sometimes option A and option B are both viable options along with many more choices.

Check out these examples of how two things can be true…Is the first one a duck or rabbit?

           

 

Moving on to BUT…It’s the same essential premise of tension reduction by allowing others say in life.  How many times has someone apologized to you and then added BUT…?  How many times has someone said to you, “That’s fine, BUT…”?

When we come to God in repentance there’s an expectation that we’ll come broken, without justifying our actions, without rationalizing our motives, accepting the responsibility of our wrong-doing.  We come without saying, “I’m sorry, BUT…”  Sometimes we even ask God to forgive us those things we may have done that we don’t remember.

Likewise, then, when we apologize to someone else, it’s best to bring it without justification and rationalization – No, I’m sorry, BUT.  This can take two forms:  1) I’m sorry, BUT you did…  2) I’m sorry, BUT I thought…  In the first, the apology is negated because it sounds like it’s the other person’s fault.  In the second, the apology is negated because it sounds like there wasn’t wrongdoing.  This then leads to a conclusion that we should just say, I’m sorry for what I did.

However, there is a place for AND here, especially if the hurt or wrongdoing was unintentional.  For example, if we step on someone’s foot, we’d say, “Oh, I’m sorry;” and because it’s an accident we could add “AND I didn’t see you there.”  A couple of other examples for when there’s hurt feelings due to misunderstanding, might be:

  1. I’m sorry what I said was hurtful,
    AND it wasn’t my intention to cause you pain.”
  2. “I’m sorry what I said hurt you,
    AND this is what I should’ve said.”
  3. “I’m sorry what I said was hurtful,
    AND please let me rephrase that.”

 

Using AND here validates that feelings were hurt and acknowledges that it was unintentional.  It allows the one hurt to see that the other person is genuine in their apology. If the one hurt can accept that (this is where I get tripped up!), then the other person could try again. Hopefully this all makes sense!!

Changing Us (Morning Reading)

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                                                          I can change
only myself,
but sometimes
that is enough.

~Ruth Humlecker

 


Happiness is more fleeting for some of us than for others. We may ponder this notion but fail
to grasp the reason. However, careful attention to how “the happy ones” go through life will
enlighten us. We will note how seldom they complain about others’ actions. We will discover
their willingness to accept others as they are. We will see that their attention is generally
on the positive aspects of people and circumstances rather than on the negative.

We can join the parade of “happy ones” by letting go of our need to change
people and situations that disturb us. Even when we are certain other people
are wrong, we can let go of controlling them. Doing this means changing
ourselves, of course.But this is the one thing in life we do have control over.

I will change myself if I think something needs changing today!
~From A Woman’s Spirit

The first part of the Interpersonal Effectiveness Module was about working with others in the relationships we want to keep. The second part is about accepting others within ourselves while we still live life with them.  This reading then seemed like a great transition – we are responsible for making changes only in ourselves.