“Acceptance”
“For after all the best thing one can do when it is raining is let it rain.” - Henry Wadsworth Longsfellow
I’ve been pondering the concept of radical acceptance and making space for discomfort as I ride out this flu-fibromyalgia combo that I’ve had for the last few days. Fighting the rain (or pain in my current situation) isn’t going to make it rain less…I can’t control the weather, all I can control is my response to it.
The more I struggle with it, the more likely it will continue or even worsen. When we struggle, pain develops into suffering extending our painful experiences. According to Andrew Harris, a therapist from HopeWay, radical acceptance is a distress tolerance skill from dialectical behavioral therapy designed to prevent pain from shifting into suffering. A common misconception (this is where I constantly get tripped up!) is that radical acceptance means being ok with the pain that is happening to us, but it doesn’t…
“Radical acceptance is NOT approval, but rather completely and totally accepting with our mind, body and spirit that we cannot currently change the present facts, even if we do not like them. By choosing to radically accept the things that are out of our control, we prevent ourselves from becoming stuck in unhappiness, bitterness, anger and sadness and we can stop suffering.”
Letting go of control - physically, emotionally, and/or mentally - is really difficult for me (especially as someone with OCD), but it is the way forward out of suffering. It’s scary too! There’s an analogy in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy called “Dropping the Rope” that’s been really helpful for me (Check out this video from Nathan Peterson for a great visual). In this analogy, you’re stuck in a tug of war with a monster made up of your anxiety and fears and they are angry and antagonizing you to keep tugging against the rope, but when you drop it…the struggle and distress decreases. In radical acceptance, we drop the rope. We’re not saying the monster doesn’t exist, but we’re deciding to not let it pull us into a state of suffering.
So I choose to breathe through the discomfort, find gratitude in the small things to open my mind to more than the discomfort, use the tools I have to cope, and ride out the storm till it passes.
“..Focusing on what we can control versus what we cannot, can be liberating.”
