HARD THINGS AND HOW TO ACCEPT THEM |Part 1: Radical Acceptance|
This month our DIALECTICAL BEHAVIOR THERAPY (DBT) group is studying one of the most essential DBT skills there is: Radical Acceptance.
Radical Acceptance means completely and totally accepting something that is difficult. It means accepting to the depths of our soul, with our hearts and our minds. This is when we stop fighting reality and insisting that life be different. When we stop fighting, we suffer less. It’s a powerful tool to help us move through hard times, both big and small.
In my own life, I’ve had to accept some hard things. For instance, when we were expecting our third child, I found out I had cancer. Life changed instantly for me, my family, and my unborn son. I staggered to catch up to the news and constantly fought the idea of being a young mom who was pregnant and had cancer.
I took on warrior terms to come to grips with my situation. I would say things like I’m going to “fight” this cancer. I hope the treatments will “kill” this disease. I even prayed and asked God to “stand against” the process of cancer in my body. You might ask, “But isn’t this a natural response by anyone who has cancer?”
Well, yes and no.
In reality, my body had created this cancer. And while using phrases like fight and kill did bring my instinct to survive to the forefront, energizing me And giving me the endurance to make it through the surgeries and treatments, ultimately what I had to do was accept the cancer and all it caused.
For instance, when I was in the throes of my illness, I would sometimes stay awake all night praying, crying, feeling angry, and worrying about the plight of my family. Don’t get me wrong, this is normal. There’s a process for going through traumatic illnesses—and denial, anger, and sadness are all a part of that process. I was grieving my way through my illness on many of those long nights.
But along the way, I had to come to grips with another painful reality: all of my best efforts, and those of my medical team, might not be enough to save me. Even though I was doing everything I knew to do (read: chemo, radiation, surgery, snake oil, peach pits, etc.) the cancer was still growing. What more could I do?
This is where Radical Acceptance helped.
I distinctly remember one day; I finally gave up the fight. I had come to the end of all my resources, expertise, control, medication, treatments, and interventions. It was in that moment that my prayers changed.
They went from:
“Here’s what I want you to do, God.” (as if God was my personal vending machine)
to:
“I cannot affect an outcome here anymore; I’ve done my best. Whatever is to become of me, is up to you. If I live, I live. If I die, I die. I’m letting go of needing this to be different than it is.”
That was a tough transition to make. The first time I said these things out loud, I cried for an hour. I felt like accepting my situation meant giving up. But it didn't. I had been wrestling with my reality for months and tried everything to turn my situation around. But when it wouldn’t budge, and sometimes even got worse, I didn’t know what else to do.
I finally surrendered to the truth of the matter and handed my well-being over to a Higher Power.
After accepting what was true (I had an aggressive cancer and the well-being of my entire family was on the line) and releasing the outcome of my situation to God, I could step into problem-solving.
Here’s what I did: I planned for my death AND I made a plan for my life.
By accepting what seemed unacceptable I could access new strength and a sense of control. If I was going to die, at least I could plan the shit out of my death! So, I began laying out a plan for several things:
My funeral
Care for my kids
Best ways to talk to little ones about death
Immediate strategic planning for the minutes and hours after I died
Who I thought my husband should choose as a second mother for our family (!!!)
What I wanted to do with my final days
Leaving memories for my children (I wrote love letters to them and I even wrote a poem for my family about leaving them, spending time in Heaven, and then meeting them again one day.)
It was such a rush of energy! Finally, I had a sense of direction and some say over how my life was going to go. For the first time since I being diagnosed with cancer, I felt empowered to make choices and have some control.
But remember, I also said I planned to live. Here’s what I did next:
I continued to follow the medical recommendations for my illness (treatments, diet, medications, etc.)
I lived in the moment, every single day, savoring each second that was given to me
I lowered all my expectations about people, life, and myself, and decided to enjoy whatever came my way—this also made me easier to live with!
I mindfully drank in every experience with my family as if it were my last because it could have been.
My enjoyment of everything absolutely exploded!
Instead of feeling the need to stay up all night praying and fighting with my situation, I began to sleep more soundly by employing a “breath-prayer” or mantra instead. When worry-thoughts bombarded me (which they often did), I whispered these three words under my breath, “Into your hands.”
This little three-word practice helped the energy of acceptance reset me as I imagined my burdens moving directly into a much larger, more capable set of hands than mine.
Eventually, I also added these other small but potent phrases to my prayer conversations: “It is what it is” and “God has a plan.” They also helped steady me.
Sometimes I had to whisper these phrases every few minutes to calm my fretful mind, but after I made a habit of it, my mind started to do it more readily. Eventually, it became my native language whenever difficulties arose, which they often did.
Next, I want you to remember that to accept something does not mean:
You agree with what’s happening
You give your permission for it to keep happening
You love the person or problem that caused it
That you must give up on trying to change it
That you approve of the circumstances
Instead, radical acceptance means that you have stopped fighting with reality and throwing fits about what has happened. You have decided to acknowledge and accept it instead.
Once you do this, you may feel intense sadness (as I mentioned earlier) because you have now given up on all hope of a better past or a better outcome currently. At the same time, you may also feel great relief because, now, you can finally let go of the fight over what should have been and deal more effectively with what’s in front of you—as it is.
New problem-solving abilities may arise as you shift your focus from denial to acceptance.
With the help of radical acceptance, I became able to tolerate the difficulties I was facing. It might help you, too. And you don’t have to have cancer to use this DBT super-power. When you’re on the freeway and someone cuts you off in traffic, rather than stewing on their rude driving habits or chasing them down to yell at them, try taking a deep breath and saying, “Alright, it is what it is. I’m safe and that’s what matters.” Repeat several times if necessary.
See also, PART 2 OF HARD THINGS AND HOW TO ACCEPT THEM—DIFFICULT PEOPLE.
-Cindy Finch, LCSW
FEBRUARY 9, 2020
