Radical Acceptance: the DBT way

This is erm, adapted, from the worksheets we're handed out on Radical Acceptance from the Distress Tolerance section of DBT.

Basic Principles of Accepting Reality
Freedom from suffering requires ACCEPTANCE from deep within of what is. Let yourself go completely with what is. Let go of fighting reality.

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.

To ACCEPT something is not the same as judging it good.

So, basically, we don't have to like it, we can damn well hate it, to accept something. But acceptance is the key, being able to sit with the emotion, and not run from it, being able to sit with an emotion that some past or current event causes, instead of hiding it, or hiding behind it. The therapist we were going through this with today, he said, yes, there are some very big things in some of your lives that you're not going to accept easily, or maybe never, but start with the small stuff. Start with what you can accept.

For example, I seem to pick up friends who have very little in the way of concept of time. They are perpetually late, forgetful, etc. It winds me up horrendously, they both know this - Hell, I have a very posh mobile phone so I can tell people if I'm going to be 2 minutes late! I have had to accept that these two people, they are late most of the time, they both have a very relaxed sense of time, and screaming and crying and shouting isn't going to change that. Their lateness makes me uncomfortable and anxious, but I have to sit with that.

The second part of this err adapted sheet:

Turning the Mind

Acceptance of reality as it is requires an act of CHOICE. It is like a fork in the road. You have to turn your mind towards the acceptance road, and away from the "rejecting reality" road.

You have to make an inner COMMITMENT to accept.

The COMMITMENT to accept does not equal acceptance. It just turns you towards that path. But it is the first step.

You have to turn your mind and commit to acceptance OVER AND OVER AND OVER again. Sometimes you have to make the commitment many times in the space of a few minutes.

One thing I'd like to add: acceptance, and the commitment to it, does NOT mean forgiveness. For me, I have to ACCEPT I was abused as a child, but that doesn't mean I have to forgive the fuckers that did it.

These are not MY words by taken from a workbook I was given to read through while inpatient