There are two key aspects of Radical Acceptance: recognition and compassion. The first part, recognition, is what Buddhists often call mindfulness. This is the practice of understanding what is happening to us physically, mentally, and emotionally, without being ruled by it. But Radical Acceptance also means not overlooking another important truth: the endless creativity and possibility that exist in living. By accepting the truth of change, accepting that we don’t know how our life will unfold, we open ourselves to hope so that we can move forward with vitality and will. As so beautifully modeled by actor Christopher Reeve after her was paralyzed in a riding accident, we can throw our full spirit into recovery—we can ‘go for it’ in physical therapy, in sustaining rich relationships with others, in growing and learning from whatever we experience. In fact, through his efforts Mr. Reeve has discovered a level of recovery formerly deemed impossible. By meeting our actual experience with the clarity and kindness of Radical Acceptance, we discover that whatever our circumstances, we remain free to live creatively, to love fully.” pg. 39 We all commit mistakes, we all feel shame and guilt. But the first stage towards finding others�� forgiveness is accepting the pain, and feeling compassion for oneself. We can’t have one without the other. Recognition without compassion means that we’ll be left noticing what’s happening, but without the tools to cope with it. And, if we just see everything through the lens of compassion, rather than self-reproach, we might tip too far into self-pity. In Chapter 6 we discuss desire: what it really is, how it affects us, and how we can meet it with Radical Acceptance. We also explore how there’s often a deeper desire underneath the superficial one we’re experiencing—for example, desire for a person might be masking our deeper desire to be loved and appreciated.

For example, if we’re afraid, we might recognize that our minds are racing, our bodies are tense, and we feel compelled to run away. In doing this, we don’t try to change or manage the experience, we simply take it as-is. We can’t accept an experience until we clearly see what we’re accepting. The image of the Buddha seated under the bodhi tree is one of the great mythic symbols depicting the power of the pause. Siddhartha was no longer clinging to pleasure or running away from any part of his experience. He was making himself absolutely available to the changing stream of life. This attitude of neither grasping nor pushing away any experience has come to be known as the Middle Way, and it characterizes the engaged presence we awaken in pausing. In the pause, we, like Siddhartha, become available to whatever life brings us, including the unfaced, unfelt parts of our psyche.” pg. 60Our greatest needs are met when we relate to one another, when we are fully present in every moment instead of worrying about the past or future, and when we accept and revel in the beauty—and the pain—that’s always around us. Can we allow ourselves to open to the realness of suffering, and then offer it into a boundless heartspace?’ In Chapter 5, we recognize that every mental and emotional experience has a physical impact—and, therefore, what’s happening inside our bodies is an excellent place to begin our friendly questioning. We also discuss how trauma can cut us off from those physical sensations, and possible ways to reconnect with ourselves. Friendly Questioning

Radical Acceptance goes against all of our conditioned reactions. Rather than embracing physical and emotional pain, we tend to resist it. We tense up our muscles and our minds. We start thinking about what could be causing the pain, how long it might last, what we can do to make it go away. Perhaps we blame ourselves for the pain, thinking that it’s a sign of our own shortcomings. There will be times when we doubt that we really have Buddha nature—times when we feel angry, judgmental, unfocused, or self-conscious. At times like these, it’s helpful to remember the story of Siddhartha under the Bodhi tree. When we overly focus on ourselves, chase what we think we want, and worry about the future, we cut ourselves off from the things that keep us most connected to ourselves and others. After all, life is our ability to be fully present in each moment, and to gracefully accept and revel in the beauty and pain of life as it unfolds moment to moment. Radical Acceptance is About Mindfulness and Compassion The wisdom in this story is that each of us is golden by nature; sometimes, we just need help chipping away at the mud and concrete. To discover our “Buddha nature,” we need to distinguish between "doing bad things" and being a "bad person."One of the things I like about this book is the many sources it draws on. It is personal, telling, for example, of joining an ashram and having a falling out with its leader, of a divorce, of difficulties in raising her son. It draws on her professional work, relating stories of exchanges that, as a psychotherapist, she has had with her clients. And most of all it is literary, skillfully so. She retells and interprets stories from the tradition, as well as anecdotes from contemporary American life, all to the end of introducing the outlines of a kind of consciousness she calls "Radical Acceptance." Radical Acceptance reverses our habit of living at war with experiences that are unfamiliar, frightening or intense. It is the necessary antidote to years of neglecting ourselves, years of judging and treating ourselves harshly, years of rejecting this moment’s experience. Radical Acceptance is the willingness to experience ourselves and our life as it is. A moment of Radical Acceptance is a moment of genuine freedom.” pg. 4 With the wing of recognition, we can identify, 'Okay, what I'm feeling is anxiety,' or 'This feels a lot like anger.' Once we recognize feelings, we can make space for them, and each time we do this, we're able to give our feelings more room. This is how the practice of radical acceptance evolves. She has been persuing a spiritual path for many years and speaks with knowledge and compasison. Yet, she admits that when she is continuously approached by a difficult student or her son misses the bus and has to be rushed to school, she sometimes gets caught up in the anxieties and difficulties of just living life. Again and again, it is mentioned that she has to keep reminding herself of her spirituality.

When we offer ourselves the same quality of unconditional friendliness that we would offer to a friend, we stop denying our suffering. As we figuratively sit beside ourselves and inquire, listen and name our experience, we see Mara clearly and open our heart in tenderness for the suffering before us.” pg. 81 Much of what we’ve discussed so far has been focused on ourselves as individuals: personal meditations, personal growth, and so on. However, humans are social creatures, and our spiritual journey can’t happen in isolation—a great deal of our pain comes from our relationships with each other, and it can only be healed through relationships. But acceptance does not equal complacency. A 2019 meta-analysis indicated that cancer patients who practiced acceptance-based behavior had less psychological distress while living with their condition.

Talks, Meditations and Resources to guide you:

Radical acceptance is about accepting what life offers, as it is. That does not mean, you should be non-reactive to whatever bad comes your way, it's about becoming self-aware in tough situations, pay attention to the negative emotions within and take care of these emotions to become mindful and at peace. So the first step of radical acceptance is to practice the sacred art of pausing. This allows us to fully access our intelligence and heart. We tend to get caught up in familiar narratives or judge ourselves in familiar ways. So, if we can simply tune into what’s happening in our bodies, we can recognize particular feelings. As I opened to pain without resisting it, everything in my experience softened and became more fluid. The most profound impact that this book had was not while I was reading it but later, when I would try and become frustrated at being unable to implement it's teachings. I would chastise myself or the book or ideas and suddenly become aware that I was falling into a pattern explicitly detailed here and given instructions on how to unravel the habits I had become so used to. This course was previously offered on Udemy. If you have taken this course on Udemy and don’t want to take it again, please explore some of the other courses here.

For many of us, feelings of deficiency are right around the corner. It doesn’t take much--just hearing of someone else’s accomplishments, being criticized, getting into an argument, making a mistake at work--to make us feel that we are not okay. Beginning to understand how our lives have become ensnared in this trance of unworthiness is our first step toward reconnecting with who we really are and what it means to live fully. Can we extend this friendly curiosity towards ourselves? The moments when we feel hurt, angry or afraid, are often the moments we most need to be kind towards ourselves. However, often the times when we need radical acceptance the most, are the times it might seem impossible to practice it. Myths and misconceptions tend to surround radical acceptance. Here are some of the most common misunderstandings. Radical acceptance means you ‘approve’ of the situation This chapter begins much like the last one. This time we discuss the emotion of fear—why we experience it, why it’s necessary, and how to avoid becoming overwhelmed by it. Her breaking down of specific concepts and applying them (somewhat) systematically is helpful and for most of the book, a breezy read (I found the last few chapters that I was losing a bit of patience), and her inclusion of specific exercises and meditations connected to each concept by chapter is helpful. As, to whatever degree it is, the book has some role as a discussion and instructional guide for practitioner/therapists interested in integrating meditative practices and Buddhist spirituality into their work it would have been extremely helpful, and in my mind helped her cause of this as a serious discussion, if she had spent some focused time and energy on the challenges of doing so, some cases that didn’t go so well, places where the two traditions can seem (and maybe or maybe not be) contradictory or incompatible.When I started this one, I almost didn't go past the first chapter, because it was not really resonating with me at all. And parts of the book (like the closing chapter on discovering our true essence and realizing we are nothing but awareness..... super hippy dippy) totally fell flat. While fear of pain is a natural human reaction, it is particularly dominant in our culture, where we consider pain as bad or wrong. Mistrusting our bodies, we try to control them in the same way that we try to manage the natural world. We use painkillers, assuming that whatever removes pain is the right thing to do. This includes all pain—the pains of childbirth and menstruating, the common cold and disease, aging and death. In our society’s cultural trance, rather than a natural phenomenon, pain is regarded as the enemy. Pain is the messenger we try to kill, not something we allow and embrace.” pg. 105 As the sun sets, you finally sit down to have a moment to yourself, but the stressors of the day linger.