Radical Acceptance
Radical acceptance can be found in the "Distress Tolerance"
module of Dr. Marsha Linehan's Dialectical Skills Training Manual. While this concept is not limited to Linehan’s
DBT it is a cornerstone of
her ground-breaking work especially in the treatment of those with Borderline
Personality Disorder. It is included in a section entitled, "Basic
Principles of Accepting Reality". In this section Linehan outlines the
following:
"freedom from suffering
requires ACCEPTANCE from deep within of what is. Let yourself go completely with what is. Let go of fighting reality.
("la libertad requiere
la aceptación del sufrimiento de las profundidades de lo que es. Déjese llevar
por completo con lo que está. Deja ir de la lucha contra la realidad.)
ACCEPTANCE is the only way out of hell.
Pain creates suffering only when you refuse to ACCEPT the pain.
Deciding to tolerate the moment is ACCEPTANCE.
ACCEPTANCE is acknowledging
what is.
(Acknowledging -> reconociendo)
Aceptación es reconocer lo que es.
To ACCEPT something is not the
same as judging it good."
One of the most troubling
aspects of most mental illnesses and Borderline Personality Disorder
specifically, as well as what results from trauma and sexual abuse and the like is a black and white,
"all-good" or
"all-bad" polarized way of thinking. Dialectical thinking
systematically weighs contradictory facts or ideas with a view to the
resolution of their real or apparent contradictions. Learning to see, understand
and appreciate the very broad paradoxes life offers us more often than not and
learning how to incorporate them into our thinking is a major difference
between much mental illness and mental well-being. As we look to explore more
about Radical Acceptance here it is helpful to begin firstly with some notion
of paradox. For those who have a mental illness, a personality disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder,
have been abused and so forth, it can be especially challenging to consider
radically accepting what you may well, up to now, have simply been unable to
even imagine tolerating.
"Radical Acceptance
offers gentle wisdom and tender healing, a most excellent medicine for our
unworthiness and longing. Breathe, soften, and let these compassionate
teachings bless your heart." — Jack Kornfield, author of “A Path with
Heart and After the Ecstasy, the Laundry” (see left to purchase this book)
"La aceptación radical ofrece suave y
tierna sabiduría de curación, un excelente medicamento para la mayoría de
indignidad y de nuestro anhelo. Respira, suavizar y dejar que estas enseñanzas
compasivo bendiga tu corazón". - Jack Kornfield, autor de "un camino
con corazón y Después del éxtasis, el Servicio de lavandería"
Radical Acceptance - The Pathway to Freedom
by A.J. Mahari
Whether you have a mental
illness, personality disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, love and care
about someone who does, or whether you are stressed out, often anxious, or if
you have been sexually abused or had a traumatic or even a merely difficult
up-bringing (most have some wounds from childhood) or consider yourself to be
healthy and just fine
Radical Acceptance can and will enhance your overall quality of life and your
spiritual experience in and of everyday life.z
Radical Acceptance requires that you change the direction that you allow
your mind to go in. It requires that you accept that you have the ability to
act with the power of choice and that most things we think and do are choices. Practicing acceptance, actually being accepting of whatever is, is a
choice. It is a choice that brings with it
emotional freedom. It
is a choice that replaces chaos and suffering with manageable pain and in time,
peace of mind.
Radical Acceptance practice
allows us to unearth the very root causes of so much of our emotional angst and
suffering.
Mindfull-> Atención
Radical Acceptance is a way of saying yes to each and every moment
mindfully (Atención). If we can radically accept that we won’t always be accepted
or liked by others and that life is full of challenges, for example, we can clear the
pathway from the power of rejection and negative experience and/or thoughts and
how we may have experienced them as severing our belonging. We can then
make way for much more positive thoughts and feelings. Rejection or any other
defined negative experience only has the power that we continue to give it.
Radical Acceptance, in essence frees us up emotionally in reassuring ways that
allow us to take back our personal power, or to not give it away to
circumstance and whim anymore.
Practicing Radical Acceptance
will, as Dr. Wayne Dyer, talks about in his book, Your Sacred Self”
enable you to become more in tune with your “observer self”. It is from this “observer self”
that one can begin to see things much more clearly. You can merely observe
and accept whatever is. You don’t have to react to it. You don’t have to interpret it
as “good” or “bad”. (HASTA AQUI COPIE), It can just be and so too can
you just be. Just be with it, whatever, it is. Radically accept it. By doing so you will be
exercising the power of your “observer self” and as a result you will be able
to choose to stay in a calm and peaceful state no matter what emotions you are
observing and/or feeling. Your “observer self” does not do anything with
the emotions that you feel or that are at hand. They are just observed as existing. No more and no less.
Literally, using radical
acceptance, through your
“observer self” will gift you with the true “power of now” (Eckhart
Tolle). The power of now
is the inherent reality that willfully we can experience whatever the now has
to offer us through observing and radically accepting without interpreting or
taking any action whatsoever. This is freeing.
In Your Sacred Self Dr.
Wayne Dyer says, "The little three-letter word ego has had
various meanings applied to it...there are many misinterpretations of the word ego...I
look upon the ego as nothing more than an idea that each of us has about
ourselves. That is, the ego is only an illusion, but a very influential
one...The ego is a mental, invisible, formless, boundaryless idea. It is
nothing more than the idea you have of your self -- your body/mind/soul self.
Ego as a think is non-existent. It is an illusion. Entertaining that illusion
can prevent you from knowing your true self."
As I have written in my
up-coming ebook, (Coming Very Soon) The Shadows and Echoes of Self: The Essential Journey of Reclamation, "Your true self awaits your
mindful radical acceptance of things, thoughts, feelings, people, and events in
your life. Your true self awaits your warm nurturing loving kindness,
your forgiveness, your attention to his/her woundedness and pain. It is in
these precious new moments of radical acceptance that the true self begins to
slowly re-awaken from a trauma-induced slumber of denial and bullying
abandonment through one's own pain by his/her false self. That knock on the
door of your soul is your spirited inner-child, authenticity personified
clamoring to get your attention that he/she might have, finally, his/her wounded
unmet needs satiated" (A.J. Mahari)
Learning about, reading about,
and then beginning to practice Radical Acceptance is a crucial aspect of
learning to find, know, and continue to develop your authentic self. Radical
Acceptance, in my experience is like a pause button on a VCR, it gives you time
to experience things that you otherwise wouldn't. These experiences over time
begin to be life-changing. These new experiences, even seconds at a time will
open small new windows for any and all who have become enslaved to the
repetitive and self-defeating worry thoughts and cognitively-distorted beliefs
of his/her false self.
There is an inherent reality
in each now that is missed and lost if we aren't radically accepting
what is in each unfolding present moment. Ekhart Tolle, in his book, The Power of Now
says, "Instead of 'watching the thinker' you can also create a gap in
the mind stream simply by directing
the focus of your attention into the Now. Just become intensely conscious of the present moment.
This is a deeply satisfying thing to do. In this way, you draw consciousness
away from mind activity and create a gap of no-mind in which you are highly alert and aware
but not thinking. This
is the essence of meditation...The single most vital step on your
journey toward enlightenment is this: learn to disidentify from your mind.
Every time you create a gap in the stream of the mind, the light of your
consciousness grows stronger."
It is important to not have
your sense of self dependant upon the content of your mind. Living merely at
the whim of each and every thought denies your soul room to be and to breathe.
We are much more than our minds. In fact, as Tolle points out in his book, The
Power of Now our minds our tools that we have at our disposal for specific
tasks. Like any tool, a drill or a screwdriver, which we put away after we are
finished using it for a specific task, we also need to lay down our minds from time to time.
We no longer merely think, in this day and age, but we
are actually more often than not, addicted to thinking and to processing information.
We are addicted to
thinking as a means of escape and also because we have identified ourselves
with our thinking. We are much more than we think. This ghost-self that
is addicted to thinking is the ego. To the ego, of which the false self is king, the present moment rarely
exists.
The more you practice Radical Acceptance and allow the space of observation
to permeate your experience the more you will learn to lay down your mind. This makes room for you
to get in touch with a much more profound aspect of self - your true self, in
all its authenticity which is the spiritual aspect of who you are -- your soul.
If we are able to be fully
present through radically accepting what is observing things such as our
inner-body, our thoughts and feelings, events around us, surrender from a place
of loving kindness and forgiveness and understanding and be a witness to the
unmanifested of each moment we will be open to the ever-transforming reality of
the power of now.
Radical acceptance means that
we have to consciously choose to be aware in and of each and every moment. We need to be willing to choose
to accept what is. Willing to surrender our wilfullness. Wilfullness is
what often leads us to choose to deny what is and fight it with illogical
thoughts, worry, anxiety and the like. It is not a fight that we often win
really. Not accepting what
is causes a tremendous amount of anxiety and worry and traps you in your
suffering. Even if we have pain, accepting it
and not fighting it can keep our pain from turning into suffering. There is a
difference between pain and suffering.
Most of us don’t realize how
much of our thinking is narrow, black and white, at times, and also very
repetitive. Not to mention, often, negative and protective, often without
cause. These kinds of thought patterns are always destined to give us similar
feelings. Feelings that
create anxiety and worry and leave us fearful and even angry. Feelings
that, if acted upon, often produce very unwanted impulsive self-defeating and
regrettable behaviour.
So much of what can be ruminated about and dwelt upon is what produces most
of the anxiety and worry that many are suffering with and from. You can choose to stop
it. You really can. By staying in the moment, being mindful, and radically
accepting whatever is you can eliminate the ruminating and the need to worry
and react in anxiety-producing ways. So much worry and anxiety
originates with "what-if" thoughts or thoughts that build each
feeling into a catastrophe of sorts usually with very dramatic reaction. If you
make a choice to accept what is in the unfolding moment, mindfully, one moment at a time you can
spare yourself the suffering from these cognitively-distorted anxiety-producing
thoughts.
Radical acceptance does provide emotional freedom. It does this by freeing up our minds long
enough with new information and possibility that we see that ruminating,
dwelling on thoughts and worrying about things past or future robs us totally of every here and now
unfolding present moment.
Life lived mindfully, with radical acceptance of all that is in each and
every unfolding here and now moment is manageable and transforms endless
suffering into manageable pain and in time, into a greater more stable and
consistent peace of mind.
When you radically accept something as being just as it is, no matter how
initially undesirable the thought, emotion, or reality might be, you are
freeing yourself to be able to, over time, cope much more effectively because
you will be at the root of what actually is and not responding to how things
appear to be or how you wish things were.
It is very important to work at tolerating the thoughts and feelings that
you may have, for so long, felt very adverse to. Radically accepting them gives you an opportunity to get to know them in a
new and more productive and manageable way. You will come to gain more insight
into how you think and how that leaves you feeling by accepting what is and
allowing yourself to equally accept
how what is really feels without trying to deny it, push it away, mask
it and/or escape from it. (MEQUEDE AQUI)
Radical Acceptance unleashes
our potential to experience the power of each and every now. It gives us an wonderful
opportunity to experience more of what is, as it is and to learn to not
react to anything and everything out of faulty thinking or faulty
interpretations.
Whether you have a mental
illness, personality disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, love and care
about someone who does, or whether you are stressed out, often anxious, or if
you have been sexually abused or had a traumatic or even a merely difficult
up-bringing (most have some wounds from childhood) or consider yourself to be healthy and just
fine Radical Acceptance can and will enhance your overall quality of life and
your spiritual experience in and of everyday life.
© Ms. A.J. Mahari January 16,
2006
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Monday, 02
February 2009 09:33
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Borderline Personality Disorder is a formidable personality
disorder. It is a complex and multifaceted mental illness that negatively impacts
efforts to build relationships. In fact, if anything, the issues that
those diagnosed with BPD have, often make relationships next to impossible to
manage in any way that is constructive and age-appropriate.
Dr. Marsha Linehan pioneered one of the most popular therapies for the
treatment of BPD called Dialectical Skills Training (DBT) One of
the central principles of DBT, housed within the Distress Tolerance Module of
Linehan's Skills Training is Radical Acceptance.
Radical Acceptance has its roots in ancient Buddhist philosophy. As it is
applied by Linehan in her DBT skills training it denotes the choice that can
be made by those with BPD to be "willing" as opposed to
"willful". Most
borderlines, at some point or other, find themselves in what are referred to
as unregulated moods in which they are not able to effectively manage their
emotions. This is, in fact, an example of willfulness.
When one is willful, one is rigid and not flexible.
Most borderlines are willful because they lack the
emotional maturity to flow with things as they unfold, particularly
relationally. Borderline
willfulness has become second nature due to years of protecting and defending
against pain and anxiety from within and largely is the result of the very
elaborate defense mechanisms required just to feel as if one isn't about to
die or cease to exist.
Willfulness frontera se ha convertido en
una segunda naturaleza debido a los años de protección y defensa contra el
dolor y la ansiedad desde dentro y en gran medida es el resultado de la
elaboración de mecanismos de defensa necesarios simplemente para sentirse
como si uno no está a punto de morir o dejar de existir.
ya que la madurez emocional para fluir con
las cosas tal y como se desarrollan, en particular relacionalmente.
Emotions overwhelm borderlines. Most with
BPD feel the need to defend against emotional pain, the roots of which, or
cause of which, for most is hidden deep within their unconscious and is often
not even a small part of their conscious awareness - or
it it is it is more often than not dissociated from because again, it brings
with it too much pain. Pain, that for those with BPD, feels like it is an outside force, a
monster that lurks in the dark recesses of their minds just waiting to get
them, so to speak. Borderlines' emotions feel more like they are
coming from outside of self because they are often, in fact,
repetition compulsions of the original core wound of abandonment -
mounting discomfort, pain, stress, distress, terror, and unmet needs that
were experienced at a very young age and that did not meet with nurture or
were not soothed.
These are the
well-worn neuronal tracks of borderline abandonment fear and abandonment
depression that leave the borderline feeling out of control, helpless, and in
need of rescue. The very rescue that he/she needed as a young child, didn't get. These
needs and the reactions to them of those with BPD persist and repeat as
ingrained life schemas well into chronological adulthood. They become
automatic responses that the borderline has very willful and protective
responses to.
Learning the stance of willingness required to practice Linehan's
Distress Tolerance skills can and does produce incredible change over time
when practiced. Adopting a willing attitude of radical acceptance creates
change because one learns how to stop the whirlwind cycle of borderline emotional dysregulation. A
dysregulation that is not only very emotionally painful but also keeps those
with BPD from being able to get to know the authentic self that was lost to
the narcissistic injury of the core wound of abandonment suffered or
perceived by the borderline in the very early stages of psychological
development, usually before 2 years of age.
As I address in my 2 ebook series, Understanding Borderline Personality -
The Impact of the Core Wound of Abandonment - The Lost Self and The Rock and a Hard Place in BPD those with BPD will remain
stuck, trapped in distorted thoughts loops and impulsive and damaging
behaviour unless and until they can radically accept where they are right now
and what has happened in the past. Radically accept the past in a way
that ceases judging it so that one can then begin to come to the realization
of how his or her unresolved core wound of abandonment has
created and continued to perpetuate an attitude that is not only willful but
that is rigid and steeped in negativity, doubt, lack of trust, and a lack of
hope - all of which perpetuate the pain and suffering that is Borderline Personality Disorder
Radical Acceptance can also play an important role for those who are non
borderline but have a family member or partner or ex-partner with BPD as I
outline in my ebook, The Other Side of BPD - Mindfulness
and Radical Acceptance For the Non Borderline - Non-Borderlines
can free themselves emotionally from the chaotic and painful roller coaster
ride of loving (or having loved) someone with Borderline Personality
Disorder.
Radical acceptance is
the vehicle of transition between knee-jerk protective reactions that further
borderline suffering and the borderline's learning
how to begin to tolerate some emotional distress that over time comes to be
dreaded less, feared less, and then reacted to less.
The Radical Acceptance of DBT, when practiced, helps the borderline
develop the core skills necessary to build emotional mastery and turn what
has been unbearable and unmanageable suffering into manageable pain.
Manageable pain when it is faced, and is no longer abandoned pain is the
juncture at which a new foundation of self understanding can begin to be
formed that is necessary for recovery to be a possibility.
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