Adventures in Radical Acceptance

I remember the first time my therapist recommended that I read “Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha” by Tara Brach, PhD.  I had been in therapy on and off for about three years total, and I was angry, resistant, and hesitant to delve into anything that came across as zen or peaceful.  It went against my grain.  Nonetheless, my therapist offered the reading assignment (I’m so grateful for their courage), I rolled my eyes with all the passion of a teenaged rebel, grabbed my purse and my emotional support beverage, and made my way to the parking lot. 

When I visited Barnes and Noble later that week, and pulled “Radical Acceptance” off the shelf, on first glance it absolutely did not seem to be my style.  I resented the inviting art on the cover, I was turned off by the phrase “The Heart of a Buddha” (despite the fact that I knew little about Buddhism), and I suspected that I would have little in common with the author’s experience.   What could SHE possibly know about the things I was struggling with?

To this day, I can’t say what led me to purchase the book and begin to peruse its pages, but I'm grateful I did.  My first read found me kicking and screaming my way through.  I resisted its learnings- it was written with such anger-inducing simplicity!- and week after week, my therapist met me with a knowing (yet welcoming) smirk, as I vented about all the ways that I, certainly, knew better than its text. 

But let me tell you- close to fifteen years later, and it is a text I refer to regularly in both my work with clients and in my personal life, particularly given some of the struggles many of us are facing currently in terms of circumstances that are beyond our control.  Radical acceptance is simply based on the concept that we can accept, with our minds, bodies, and spirits, that circumstances just are…. Even if we don’t like or approve of them.  By accepting the circumstances as they are, we avoid entering into a state of suffering.  We can bypass anger, resentment, bitterness, and sadness, and the deep rabbit hole that results from going down those paths.

Radical acceptance is not becoming resigned to, or approving of, an unfair or unpleasant reality.  It’s not approval.  Rather, it’s about taking a look and what we can control versus what we cannot… and reaping the liberation and empowerment we find there.  It’s also about our attachment to suffering- the idea that our suffering results from our attachment to pain, rather than the pain itself. 

I by no means want to imply that radical acceptance comes easily.  It is a skill that must be practiced and polished…… it’s a practice.  Much like mindfulness or yoga, it’s a skill that requires intention and commitment.  I find that I am able to manifest radical acceptance much more easily in some facets of my life than in others.  And those difficult spaces are where I take a deep breath, reorient, and try again.  It’s a practice.

If you’re seeking some reading material, might I recommend “Radical Acceptance”.  I think that Dr. Brach may bring you some enlightenment and an easier way to face whatever ails you currently.  Radical acceptance has saved my butt in more ways than one, in the past year… and it only feels appropriate for me to pass along this gem of a skill.