Radical Acceptance: Start where you are

"Radical Acceptance" Start where you are.

Healing, whether it is body, mind or spirit,  is a process. First one must accept there is a problem, or a stuck point, or that you are going in circles, or simply have given up or feel a need for healing or hel. You finally admit that your circumstances and/or feelings are overwhelming. Sometimes people have to get to the point of desperation, or need to "bottom out: as they say in AA.  You will need to stop denying your feelings, putting on a brave face, spouting toxic positivity, or acting stoic or indifferent. This is the actually the first step of every 12-Step program, “admitted we have a problem” with alcohol, emotions, drugs, food, sex, power, anger, income etc.  

More often than not, admitting this does not happen until you “bottom out” meaning you blow your life up to the point you can no longer deny you have a problem. For some people this might mean going to jail or losing a relationship and/or family, or losing a job. For others it might mean getting caught at some unethical behaviors and feeling (healthy) shame. Everyone’s “bottom” is different; it is personal. And some people need to bottom out numerous times until they can no longer be in denial. This is “radical acceptance.” You face reality and accept all of it, whether it is realizing you are an alcoholic or a sex addict, or your spouse is, or you realize you hate yourself or your life. This is also what Pema Chodron calls “start where you are.”

Getting to this place of radical acceptance, coming out of denial typically takes emotional venting, expressing despair or hopelessness, lots of self-hate and self-loathing, and often feeling like or presenting as a victim. When coming out of denial there is no balanced picture, no ability to take accountability for your own choices and actions. When working with a therapist or healer in this stage all that they can do is to encourage you to “get it all out.”  Your therapist, healer, sponsor, or Teacher can create and hold the space for you to  "explode" and can keep you a bit balanced as you rail “against the bad guy” or vent about being victimized, even helping you to vilify other people in your life. The person helping you will help you blame, well, everything, your parents, society, life, the universe. Anything to get your emotions and energy flowing after years of being stuck and stuffing your feelings and creating narratives for yourself that helped to help keep you stuck as you tried to explain away your feelings and/or circumstances that were eating you alive. 

This is the first stage of healing, finding the hurt, becoming aware of your created narratives and your now dysfunctional coping strategies. It is not rational, neutral, or mature. There will be blame, exaggeration, even complete lack of accountability. There will be no discussion of “let’s see it from the other person’s perspective” or this happened because of your childhood. This is a time of raw emotions, tears, rage, despair and more and nothing more can occur until this has run its course. Sometimes this can take a year, even years, sometimes months.

Only after you have surfaced from this stage, truly moved into radical acceptance of what is true for you now in all your circumstances, your choices, and your feelings can you start to examine your role in it all and look at what you learned, and eventually look at the “spiritual” aspects of the situation, the lessons.  You made choices, you accepted certain conditions and behaviors and even though you didn’t know any better, you now get to see and learn how you ignored red flags or tolerated behaviors from others and even yourself in order to get what you want.  You put up with your choices, always, to get what you want. You want peace, you want to appear “spiritual” and “forgiving”, you want to be loved, you want power, you want sex, you want the money offered, you want recognition; the list is endless. 

What you haven’t learned yet, is to want your Self. What you haven’t learned yet is that you want a better life, you want to be able to make better choices.  Sometimes with radical acceptance comes the responsibility of living with your choices. You are married to a narcissist or alcoholic, have children, have no income, no support system and cannot leave the relationship at this time. Now you have to make new choices on how to live with your current reality until circumstances change and only then might you even have different choices available to you.

Admitting you have a problem or problems, venting your emotions, blaming everyone and everything, is the first stage but you can also get stuck in that stage. After a while it is a very comfortable place to be, everyone “feels bad” for you, comforts you, shares their own stories, and often you will find members of the opposite sex are attracted to you and your shared wounded self. At this stage you are also a target for narcissists who love to take over wounded people and present as a hero so they can win your attention and hero worship and ultimately move into controlling and using you.

Sadly, mainstream talk therapy psychology can often keep you stuck in this stage and so will new age people as many co-dependents become therapists and (self-proclaimed) healers.  You can stay in this stage, garnering attention and hugs for decades even moving through a few marriages, jobs, and passing on your sad story approach to life to your children. Few therapists/healers have the courage,strength or training needed to challenge people to actually step into healing, into recovery, into new behaviors. As a therapist (or new age healer type) if you work with deep recovery work rather than endless "support," you tend to lose clients. And if you are a co-dependent therapist/healer you will not be able to tolerate the reactions you will have to face, endure and move through when you challenge people to start the journey of recovery, compared to simply offering motivational comtent and encouragements.

Once you move into radical acceptance and venting the path changes. People can get confused. “Why did you agree with me that s/he was a bad person, or a narcissist or was acting like a narcissist?” and now you are pointing out my own selfish self-centered behaviors?  Why? Because you have moved on from stage one recovery, radical acceptance which typically involes a blow-up of venting, blaming, and being the victim. 

With the recognition and release of all the pains you have suffered you are now ready to start to work on changes and developing new skills of self-care.  Perhpas for the first time in your life you are ready for a more mature understanding  of your circumstances and the part you played in it all and the choices you made at the time, doing the best you could. Now, with new insights and growth it is time to examine the choices you made, learn how dysfunctional they were (but you didn't know that at the time), how you made them and why, and the consequences. 

This is still only the beginning stage of healing. This is why there are 12 Steps in 12-Step programs. This is why  spirituality is called a Path. It is a Path and a Practice, not fixing a flat tire. And in fact 12-Step programs and having a Spiritual Path is a lifestyle choice, not a fix-it patch. Just like living a healthy lifestyle is a forever practice that will develop, morph, and evolve over your lifetime, so it is with being emotionally healthy, and spiritually evolved. Just as children evolve and grow and obtain new skills so are we children, children of the Universe, of Spirit, of your Higher Power. This means there is no rush. There is no “getting there”. As a lifestyle it is a daily awareness and practice filled with challenges and progress and joy.

Living as an authentic person is the Path of Spirituality. Living as an authentic person is a choice, every day, every moment. Authentic is an energy, there is no role model and no one way to do it as each person is an individual. Books, YouTube, and research will give you an education and tools but not the courage or strength to use them.  Education without action or practice is like growing an organic garden and not eating from it but instead eating fast food, and telling everyone you have an organic garden. You can wow people with your narrative, your story, but it will soon be apparent that you are “presenting” rather than living authentically. 

Being honest with yourself is the skill that you learn and earn in the first stage of healing. You learn and practice admitting (to a safe person or group) you have problems, uncomfortable feelings, made horrible choices,  protected yourself by using the narratives of victim/self-blame and blaming others, hate yourself, and many other embarrasing or shame-based realizations.  This early stage of radical acceptance takes some time as you, for the first time, practice honesty with yourself and at least one other person or group. This by the way is the only way to start to heal toxic shame. Some people move too quickly through this stage. They learn the vocabulary of pop psychology or new age verbiage and become skilled at “presenting” rather than actually doing the uncomfortable and messy work of healing and growing.  

If you move too quickly through this stage you will not develop the courage and strength to start trying out new behaviors. Your biggest obstacle in moving forward will be your fragile attention seeking ego. Healing and learning means failing and not giving up and for this you must have the strength to be resilient, to believe in your Self and your Higher Power enough to have faith in your Self, your Path and Spirit to trust the process of learning, rather than constantly seeking accolades, complements, and attention.

At first you might need to be with an individual or group that will nurture you, give you complements, affections, and affirmation.  But remember this is a process so don’t get stuck in one stage. Later on you will need to challenge yourself. Work with a group so your desire to ego please some authority figure can be kept in check. Work with a group to discover your how attached you are to “presenting,” looking good, or to discover how much you desire to “seek power” by manipulating the group to win affection or hero worship. Work with an individual who will support you but also has the skills and strength to challenge you, not just stroke or feed your ego. 

You need someone who has done their own recovery work (ask for disclosure and listen carefully) and will not allow you to hero worship but instead will create the space for you to have the strength to admit and accept who you are right now, the good and the bad, to accept your life as it is right now, the good and the bad. Only then can you begin to even consider how to re-invent yourself in your current circumstances. 

You cannot pray or wait for your circumstances to change first. Your circumstances exist in order for you to change. Most of all, work with Spirit, your Higher Power. Learn to receive energy through silent meditation or study with someone who can create this learning for you so you can master it.

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