Radical Acceptance

Throughout my life, I have observed reality and asked questions about justice, social gaps, and injustice. These were times when I not only resisted reality but also fought it with all my strength. I had a strong idea that the world should be a fair place.

After my PhD, in which I studied how belonging to a high social class affects the way people think, feel, and act, I realized that not accepting reality as it is caused a lot of suffering in my life. Injustice and immoral actions are painful and need to change, but resisting them led me to get stuck in the emotions they created, adding another layer of suffering. I thought that accepting reality meant agreeing with it or being powerless to change it. This is, of course, a mistake. Reality is what it is, and even if I want to change it, I need to accept it as it is first, and then choose the most effective way to act. Any thought like, "This is not fair," "This should not have happened," or "Why me?" is a sign of resisting reality.

Choosing to stop resisting reality and accepting it requires going through very painful emotions, like anger, rejection, humiliation, and more—emotions we do everything to avoid feeling. It is hard to stop, surrender, and allow ourselves to feel without escaping into looping thoughts or actions that usually make things worse. Instead of trying to get rid of the emotion or suppress it, we allow ourselves to be with what needs space, as much as we can. This does not mean the pain will disappear, but it gradually reduces the suffering caused by resistance to reality.

I also remember the impact of accepting reality. In the years I managed a high school for teenagers with mental health challenges, there was one thing I radically accepted: the students exactly as they were. I intuitively understood that accepting them fully could support their belief in themselves and in the hard work needed to change patterns and create lives worth living. These were spaces of movement between acceptance and change. This requires willingness to face moments when we do not get what we want and to develop acceptance of what exists. We learn to understand the movement between dark and light, between contraction and openness in our hearts and bodies, and to see that these polarities are part of a larger whole. Acceptance and change do not contradict each other.

Another principle of radical acceptance is that everything in the world has a reason. We may not always understand the reason, in the moment or at all, but there is an order and causality we need to humbly accept.

Writing about radical acceptance is one thing; practicing it is completely different. Practicing radical acceptance is like a roadmap: at every crossroads, we must choose it again. Marsha Linehan says the way out of hell passes through misery. This means observing our emotions, continuously learning to accept and carry them so they can eventually break down and release. To do this well, it helps not to add "fuel to the fire"—not to think about the past or worry about the future, but to be with the alive energy of the emotion, because what stays in the dark grows in the dark. We carry the pain and keep returning our attention to the path of acceptance instead of resistance. Pema Chodron compares this to staying in the middle of a flowing river and allowing ourselves to flow with it. We want control, stability, and certainty, but organic flow is infinite space. When we are under pressure or in a storm, we cling to the riverbank, and then trouble begins. We can connect to this inner space, it has always been there and will always be there, and we can touch it through the natural openness inside us. This does not mean ignoring what needs to be done in life, but it allows us to do things from a broader perspective. It is not easy, but with continuous practice, we can improve.

Grant me peace to accept the things I cannot change,Courage to change the things I can,And wisdom to know the difference.

Serenity Prayer, Reinhold Niebuhr

Picture taken from thecommonqueen.com