let’s talk about radical acceptance. this is therapy talk, so forewarned if that’s not your particular type of topic of conversation. however! i’m going to look at this kind of therapy as something akin to one of my favourite fables from aesop – “the tree and the reed”, which is more commonly known as “the oak the reed”. i found this really interesting 1980s colouring book with these amazing aesop’s fables illustrations inside of it, and it’s had me thinking about this wisdom, ancient in nature that remains worthwhile today.
radical acceptance is a cognitive behaviour practice which involves “fully acknowledging and embracing the present moment, including its difficulties and discomforts, without trying to change or control it“
sounds a bit hokey, right? if you’re anything like me, you might find this shit kinda downright insulting. this was introduced to me during a particularly shitty portion of my personal work journey. everything was awful – i was traumatized, horrified, betrayed, sick, and on the verge of complete mental collapse. i was deeply offended when a therapist brought this up to me, and i immediately became defensive, very defensive even. “oh just accept how shitty it all is?” i remember saying.
but that’s not what radical acceptance is.
radical acceptance is a verb, it’s an action, and it’s a practice that is done constantly, all day long, and constantly changing. for me, the more i would fight and stress and worry and claw my skin and mind and heart raw over things, the more pain i found myself in, both emotionally and physically.
but when i began to accept situations for what they were, as they were, the ones i can’t control or fix or do anything about – aka my strained relationship with a close friend. before i began doing my personal work, i would fight frequently with this friend. screaming matches over our differences would punctuate cute selfies and girls’ nights.
once i began doing this work and accepted that i can’t fix things for my friend – that only she can do that work for herself, and that fighting her on it, is pointless and causing me only heartache.
so, you know what happened? our friendship, as long as it had been, dissolved. we grew apart.
i hold no malice to her about it, either. i loved her and still love her now. i understand that we grew into two different people on two different paths. i accepted that her values and goals and priorities were not in alignment with mine. i didn’t hang around our friendship anymore like some jaded cop trying to get a fucking retirement pension.
and i’m not here to say that it didn’t suck – it sucked. i lost a long friendship, one that i thought would last forever. and even while it sucked, and even while i grieved that loss, i accepted those situations as they were. i still accept them as they are.
our friendship ended. it was really great when it was really great.
so before we get too far here, let’s look at the aesop’s fable:
it’s similar to what radical acceptance asks of us.
don’t fight the wind, move with it.
kinda profound, right?
accepting that things that are beyond our control just are, and will be and we must deal with them as they are. we can make boundaries, we can make plans, we can try our best to move with them, and we may need to adjust it all as we go.
i’m reminded here of some lyrics from an artist called schur, found in his song “cactus” which is about doing personal work by using psychedelic plant medicine to gain perspective.
i should
meditate in traffic
i could
vegetate in my hatchback
hit the
dmv for practice practice
waiting in line under hospital lights
i find this pertinent to another experience of mine. i live with a couple chronic illnesses that flare into episodes requiring occasional trips to the hospital. i used to rage and lose my shit and get so twisted up about it all – the betrayal of my own physical body, something i couldn’t control. i would sit fuming in those shitty hospital chairs in the trauma informed rooms that smell vaguely of piss and cleaning supplies.
and now, i know that i have to get checked out, it’s for my health, i can’t choose it or control it, it’s the luck of the old genetic lottery, so imma have to pack up my book and my bag and water bottle and go sit under those hospital lights and wait my turn. the task is no longer something i’m forced to do kicking and screaming against my will, it’s something i get to do. i live in my body and respect and value my body and i need to take care of it thusly and so i do. i just do.
and now? i feel a lot less fucking stressed. like yeah sure, when i’m barfing up my asshole, things aren’t great, but that’s just how it be sometimes. i can’t change that. i try to sit in the hospital and just know that i’m doing what needs to be done. a hospital trip isn’t a rage filled stress induced crash out for me anymore. it’s just another thing i have to do that day.
radical acceptance, for me, has also been simply accepting that all that self reliant, self righteous shit i’d been mainlining for years, was actually harmful. it isn’t a badge of honour or point of pride to walk around slung through with slings and arrows to appear tough or cool or hard.
i accepted that this label of “ice queen”, and the actions that go with it, aren’t helpful. i try to not give my past self who used all this edgelord shit as mega copium too much shit.
obviously i’m not some asshole in yoga pants sitting on a $200 meditation pillow they got from indigo thinking i’m levitating above everyone with a crystal jammed up my asshole, sorry, sacral chakra. this is something that’s really helped me. maybe it will help you too, maybe it won’t. maybe it’ll seem as hokey to you as it did to me, and seem totally bullshit, and that’s cool, man.
hey, we don’t all walk that same road and we all reach our peace through a variety of different modalities.
i just really try, god, i really do, to not fight the wind anymore.
hospital vespers 