Acceptance Part II

I received a number of questions from clients and readers about the concept of acceptance. It appears that there’s a general understanding that acceptance is important toward maintaining healthy self-regard and psychological balance in one’s life, but HOW one achieves acceptance remains a difficult task or a mystery altogether for some.

In the text Dialectical Behavior Therapy for Binge Eating and Bulimia (Safer, Telch, & Chen, 2009), Radical Acceptance “involves accepting the way things are; there are circumstances that cause pain and that one cannot change; one must accept the resulting pain. Additionally, Radical Acceptance is accepting that one must change the things that one can and accept the complicated, tough, and painful feelings about the situation, as well as any that may arise as a consequence of making changes” (p. 162).

The following are some strategies that may be effective in helping you achieve Radical Acceptance:

• Say out loud what you have to accept; say it over and over in a tone of voice that conveys acceptance and belief.
• Allow thoughts of what you want or need to accept enter your mind while you attend to your body emotions.
• Imagine (in your mind’s eye) believing what you don’t want to accept.
• Write out in detail what you need to accept, not exaggerating or minimizing; factually and without judgment.
• Relax your face and body while imagining accepting what you need to accept.
• Imagine all things you would do if the facts you are trying to accept are in fact true.
• Rehearse in your mind those things that you would do if you really did accept reality as it is.
• Allow your mind to be open to all the consequences of the fact that this reality is as it is.

Let me know how these work for you.

With love,

Ellen

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