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Mindful Awareness teaches us the art of acceptance. Emotional reactions to our circumstances are natural, but that doesn’t mean that we must respond to these emotions. The mindful skill of radical acceptance teaches us that we can experience these emotions without engaging in cycles of behavior that lead us to negative consequences. Acceptance teaches us that we are not our thoughts, and that we are not our emotions. At any time, we can choose which thoughts and emotions we wish to respond to. When we have learned the art of letting go in this manner, we have learned radical acceptance.
4.0 Acceptance
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.”
–from the Serenity Prayer of Reinhold Niebuhr
Now that you have a basic understanding of some of the techniques of mindfulness, we’re about to go on a journey of self-discovery. Think back for a moment to a time in your life when you knew exactly who you were, and what you wanted to be. It may have been a time in your childhood, or a time later in your life. Or it may be that you’ve never thought about exactly who you were and who you wanted to be. That’s okay too. Perhaps you’ve never just learned how to acknowledge your own motivations in this way.
If this is the case, close your eyes and think for a moment about who you would be if there were no barriers keeping you from living up to your own potential (Rogers, 1980). Suppose you had the power to transform yourself into anyone. Who would you become?
The vision you have right now is called your True Self.
Hold that vision firmly in your mind as you read and complete this session’s materials.
Your True Self is that part of you that recognizes when you’ve done something in character for you. It is the part of you that is the internal observer; the part that holds your highest aspirations and your highest dreams for yourself. It is the part of you that holds your core values. The Humanist psychotherapist Carl Rogers called it your Ideal Self. According to Rogers, the Ideal Self is the person you would be if you could “get out of your own way” and dare to be who you were meant to be.
The ultimate goal of Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy (MBE) is to find the road to your own True Self, and to live more fully in it. If you’re not living in your True Self, what is it that is keeping you from doing so? MBE may help you to answer this question. This session’s materials will help you to begin to integrate your True Self into your being by learning to accept all parts of who you are as parts of yourself.
Rogers, Carl (1980). A Way of Being, Houghton Mifflin, New York, NY.
4.1 Things that Cause Me Stress
Stress is a natural part of life. Even the most laid-back person has experienced stress at some point. Radical acceptance teaches us that a certain amount of stress is normal, and that what’s important in life is not avoiding stress but learning how to deal with it when it comes.
To explore ways of dealing with the inevitable stressors of life, complete the exercise Things that Cause Me Stress on the next page.
4.1 Things That Cause Me Stress Worksheet
4.2 Escaping Stress in the Present
One way of achieving radical acceptance is to practice letting go by paying attention to your immediate experiences. This is accomplished by focusing on the present moment. To illustrate how this works, go back to the list you’ve just created of Things That Cause Me Stress. For every item on the list that involves things that happened in the past, write a ‘P’ beside that item. For every item on the list that involves things that may or may not happen in the future, write an ‘F’ by that item.
Some of your responses might have both a ‘P’ and an ‘F’ beside them. You might be worried about something that happened in the past, and worried that it might happen again in the future. Maybe you’ve had past arguments with a family member, and you’re expecting a visit from them. Based on past performance, you’re expecting a future argument. For those items, it’s okay to place both a ‘P’ and an ‘F’ beside them.
Looking back over the list again, how many items don’t have either a ‘P’ or an ‘F’ beside them? If you’re like most people who do this exercise, you probably don’t have many, if any at all.
The point to this exercise is that most of the things that cause us stressful or depressing thoughts are things that involve past or future events. This means that we can consciously choose, right now in the present moment, which thoughts to give our energies to, and which thoughts and feelings to let go of.
It has been said that if you are worried about the past you are depressed, and if you are worried about the future, you are anxious. We have all been hurt in the past, and we tend to make educated guesses about what the future holds for us based on past performance. In this way, the future is just the past projected.
A way to achieve radical acceptance of the things that stress us out is to realize that if we are victims of our circumstances, then we cannot control our lives. This is because we cannot control what goes on outside of ourselves. We cannot control what other people do, and we can rarely control what life throws at us. If we are victims of our circumstances, we will always be victims.
But if we are victims of our beliefs about our circumstances, then we are always free to change our beliefs. Doing so frees us from the tyranny of the past and the anxiety of the future.
4.3 Crystal Ball Thinking
We are particularly good at anticipating the thoughts, actions, and feelings of others and ourselves by placing judgments on their perceived motives and intentions. Theoretically, this has survival value. If you’re around a dangerous person, it’s probably a good idea to anticipate what they might do that could threaten your wellbeing. So, we’re good at it. The problem comes when we guess what another person is feeling or thinking, and we get it wrong. How often have you assumed what another person might be thinking or feeling? How often have you guessed incorrectly, and how did that person react?
When I was actively practicing marital therapy, the past got brought up quite often between partners who were arguing. The reason for this is that when a partner has done something wrong in the past the other partner automatically assumes that this behavior will continue in the future, based on past performance.
The problem, from the point of view of the partner being accused of wrongdoing, is that until someone invents a time machine he or she cannot go back in time and correct past mistakes. They can only promise to do better in the future. If the other partner continues to bring up the past, this individual will be constantly battling the ghosts of previous behaviors.
By constantly bringing up the past, we forestall any opportunity for change in the future, because we judgmentally set up our perception filters only to look for evidence that confirms our assumptions. In this case, the assumption (or judgment) is that the past behavior will continue in the future. If we assume that this is true, then we’re going to have a hard time seeing any evidence that confirms the opposite assumption: That this behavior will not continue in the future.
Likewise, a lot of arguments among family members come about because one family member guesses at what another family member is feeling at a given moment. Consider this conversation:
Jane: “What are you mad about?”
Joe: “I’m not mad about anything.”
Jane: “Yes you are, I can tell. So what is it?”
Joe: “I told you, I’m not mad about anything.”
Jane: “Come on, I know you. I can tell when you’re mad!”
Joe: “I’M NOT MAD!”
In the above scenario, Jane’s interpretation of Joe’s emotional state became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Although Joe wasn’t angry at the start of the conversation, by the end of it he most definitely was!
In this context, radical acceptance means not making assumptions about what the other person is feeling or thinking. The easiest way to tell what a person is thinking or feeling at any given time is to simply ask them, and not to try to guess what their motivations or emotions might be. If you feel tempted to anticipate what a person is thinking or feeling, you are engaging in what I call crystal ball thinking.
Unless you have a crystal ball, you cannot possibly know what another person’s thoughts or feelings may be. We often generate stress for ourselves by assuming what a person is thinking or feeling, and then acting based on our own assumptions of what we think other people may be experiencing. The truth is that unless you have a crystal ball, you can never know for certain what another person is thinking or feeling. The only way to know is to just ask them.
What I hear a lot from my patients and clients is, “But how can I know they’re telling me the truth about what they’re thinking or feeling?”
If you ask them, there’s always the possibility that they can be deceptive in their answers, but if they are, then that’s their responsibility, not yours. You’re only obligated to act on the information they give you. You’ve given them the opportunity to be truthful. If they choose not to be, then you can’t control their need to be emotionally distant or deceptive. If you continue to second-guess and mistrust their answers, then it might be time to ask yourself why you wish to continue a relationship with a person you obviously don’t trust.
Another type of crystal ball thinking occurs when we try to make predictions about our own behaviors based on past experience. We can tell when this happens because there’s a tendency to use statements like the following:
“I always screw things up.”
“I’ll never find love.”
“I’m just not good enough for this.”
“I’ll never understand.”
Based on the examples above, you can probably come up with your own statements that reflect your own crystal ball thinking.
Note that identifying such statements doesn’t mean that we’re going to try to make them go away. Remember, trying is doing, and one of the objects of Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy is to leave doing mode and enter being mode. We’re not trying to change this inner dialog. Using the skill of mindful acceptance, we are just going to observe and describe these thought cycles to ourselves, without choosing to interact with them or to believe them to be true. Mindful acceptance means, in part, that we accept that on occasion our minds are going to engage in these crystal ball thinking cycles, but that doesn’t mean we have to believe what our minds are saying. Mindful acceptance is the knowledge that we are not our thoughts, and we are not our feelings. We are something else.
That something else is the True Self. The True Self accepts that minds occasionally generate thoughts that can be negative. But the True Self also recognizes that these thoughts are just thoughts, and they are neither true nor false unless we choose to believe that they are. True Self recognizes that our brains are going to do what they’re good at, and that’s generating thoughts and feelings. But when we’re living in True Self, we can recognize that even though our brains are going to generate thoughts and feelings, we don’t have to let those thoughts and feelings bully us or push us around.
The True Self also knows through experience that if we can enter being mode and sit quietly with these thoughts and feelings that they may eventually subside. And even if they don’t, True Self knows that those crystal ball thoughts cannot touch us unless we choose to let them. They are only “true” if we decide to make them true.
The way to escape crystal ball thinking is to remember your mindful awareness skills. Crystal ball thinking is just another type of thinking, and thinking is doing. The goal is to move from troublesome thoughts about the past or anxious thoughts about the future by shifting from doing mode to being mode. In the being mode, there is no past, and there is no future. There is only this present moment. If we are truly connected to the present moment, then we avoid the temptation to blame others or ourselves for our past mistakes, or to try to anticipate what our future mistakes might be.
In being mode, mindful acceptance becomes possible because we are not using our crystal balls to make educated guesses about our own motivations or the motivations of other people. Educated guesses are still guesses, and mindful acceptance is a way of setting such guesses aside while being present in the moment with self and others.
When we learn the art of acceptance, we also learn to accept that whatever other people may be feeling or thinking in the present moment is their responsibility, and not ours. The only responsibility we have to ourselves is to change ourselves to accommodate our own sense of wellbeing. When we can ground and center ourselves using mindful acceptance, we are able to share our own sense of wellbeing with others.
If this involves changing how we respond to difficult people, the choice is still ours. We get to decide whether such a change is worth it or not (Coyle, 2009). Radical acceptance doesn’t mean accepting any sort of abusive treatment from others. It means being able to set firm and consistent boundaries with abusive people. In some cases, mindful acceptance can mean accepting the fact that an abusive person isn’t going to change, and in that case, we will have to accept the loss of the relationship.
That’s okay too. Living in True Self means accepting that you as a worthy child of the universe do not have to accept being abused, whether that abuse is physical, sexual, emotional, or verbal.
Coyle, James P. (2009). An Exploratory Study of the Nature of Family Resilience, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York.
4.4 Mindful Acceptance
“Never underestimate your power to change yourself; never overestimate your power to change others.”
– H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
One of the more difficult lessons of life is that we cannot change the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of others. We can only change our own thoughts, feelings and behaviors. The best we can do where others are concerned is to ask them to change. Then if they are willing to change, they will; however, if they are not willing to change, then at that point we’ve done all we can do. Further attempts to get them to conform to our expectations of them are doomed to failure because we are not in charge of how other people choose to live their lives.
In Session 1 we discussed some of the skills of mindfulness. One of those skills is being non-judgmental. If we are trying to change others in an attempt to get them to conform to our expectations of them, we are judging them to be less than perfect (by our standards, at least) as they are now. But what if we set aside attempts to change others? What if, using the power of being non-judgmental, we were able to recognize that people are doing the best they can in the only ways they know how? Would such a change in viewpoint allow us to accept them for who they are?
4.5 A Basic Mindful Meditation
Mindful meditation is letting go of doing mode and embracing being mode while focusing on the moment. This act of letting go allows us to enter being mode because we are accepting ourselves and our situations in the present moment, free of expectations, judgments, or assumptions. It is an exercise in mindful acceptance of self.
One of the simplest ways to do a mindful meditation is to focus on something and to allow ourselves to experience it through our senses, without expectations or assumptions. For centuries, Buddhists who practice mindful meditation have focused on the breath. The reason for this is that our breath is always with us. By focusing on our breath, we may engage in mindful meditation almost anywhere, at any time by directing our attention to the sensations of our breathing.
The following basic mindful meditation contains instructions on how to practice Mindful Breathing. You may wish to record yourself speaking it so that you may play it back and follow along. Alternately, you may watch a video recording of it for free at https://www.mindfulecotherapycenter.com/videos. You may also look for Basic Mindful Meditation in the ‘Search’ box on the website.
Read over the bullet points below at least once to gain an understanding of the process of basic mindful meditation before trying it:
- To begin this Basic Mindful Meditation, find a comfortable position, free of distractions, either sitting or lying down. Align your spine so that you are free of any stress points. If you are wearing any tight clothing, you may wish to loosen it. It is best to practice this meditation at least an hour after eating, as digestion tends to interfere with relaxation.
- When you find your comfortable position, close your eyes.
- Remember that at any time during this meditation, should you encounter thoughts or feelings that become overwhelming to you, it is best to cease the exercise until you can return to it in a calmer state.
- To begin, first center yourself. To center yourself, let go of the cares of the day by turning your attention inward. Focus on nothing but the sensations of your breathing.
- To allow yourself to just “be,” gradually become aware of thoughts and feelings you may be experiencing.
- In being mode we realize that just because we are having thoughts and feelings, we do not have to act upon them.
- Notice the sensations of your abdomen as it rises and falls with each breath. Turn your attention inward as you focus only on your breathing. You are not trying to go any place; you are not trying to do anything. You are simply present in this moment, observing your body as you breathe.
- As you continue to focus only on your breathing, you may notice that from time to time your mind begins to wander. This is only natural. It’s what minds do. Be aware that if your mind wanders, you don’t have to follow it. Simply wait for your mind to return to you by continuing to focus on your breathing.
- If you do notice your mind wandering, don’t consider this to be a failure. If you start judging yourself for allowing your mind to wander, such thoughts are simply more thoughts, and one of the objects of Mindful Meditation is to empty your mind of thoughts so that you can just “be.” If you find yourself having such thoughts, just return to your breathing and allow your mind to come back to you by returning your attention only to your breathing.
- As you continue to breathe, remember that there is no past, there is no future. There is only this present moment. Allow yourself to be in this moment…here and now. Any time your consciousness wanders, return to the ‘now’ of the present moment.
- To end the meditation, gradually expand your awareness. If you are sitting, allow yourself to become aware of how your body contacts the chair. If you are lying down, allow yourself to feel how your body contacts the bed or the floor.
- Continue to expand your consciousness outward until you become aware of your immediate surroundings.
- When you feel you are ready, slowly open your eyes and return to yourself.
- Conclude this mindful meditation by taking with you any insights, thoughts, or feelings you may have gained in your practice. As you end this meditation, open your eyes while remaining calm, yet alert and relaxed.
Guided Basic Mindful Meditation
The video below contains a ten-minute guided mindful meditation. You may wish to try the video for yourself. You may also use the recording for your own Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy groups, or create your own.
4.6 Radical Acceptance
“To be a human being means to possess a feeling of inferiority which constantly presses towards its own conquest. The greater the feeling of inferiority that has been experienced, the more powerful is the urge for conquest and the more violent the emotional agitation.”
– Alfred Adler
Mindful acceptance means learning what we can change and what we cannot. Radical acceptance is a type of mindful acceptance that is the ability to set aside our expectations and assumptions about self and about others so that we may be more accepting of our own true selves and of the other people in our lives.
Radical acceptance is the knowledge that if our problems come from our circumstances, there’s little we can do to change the situation, but if our problems come from what we believe about our circumstances, we can always change our beliefs.
Radical acceptance is the idea of mindful acceptance taken to the next level. Think about the last time you were stressed or depressed, and ask yourself, “Was my stress or depression the result of the circumstances in which I found myself, or was it the result of what I believed about those circumstances?”
If our distressing thoughts and feelings are the result of our circumstances, then we will always be victims of our circumstances. But if our distressing thoughts and feelings are the result of what we believe about those circumstances, then we have the power to change our world. We often cannot control what life throws at us, but we are always in control of what we think and feel about what happens to us. We can choose what to believe, and therefore what meaning to create, from the experience.
The Lakota have a saying, “It is a good day to die.”
This saying doesn’t mean that the Lakota went into battle hoping to die. It meant that they were wise enough to know that if they were prepared for their own deaths and had accepted the fact that one day they would die, then nothing else could conquer them.
What if you knew that today was your last day on earth? What would you differently? Who would you wish to speak with? What would you like to tell them? How would you treat the people you meet today?
“It is a good day to die,” is not a wish to cease to exist. It is an acknowledgement that a life lived fully is a life that is at peace with whatever may come. It is a life that focuses on the joy of living in the moment. This radical form of mindful acceptance asks the question, “Once we have conquered our fear of death, what else can touch us?”
The lesson of this saying is that there are things within our control, and things not within our control. True wisdom is the ability to know what we can control and to distinguish that from what we must accept. It is a way of saying, “I am one with all that is, all that was and all that ever will be.”
Suppose you could graph this concept. It might look something like the drawing below:
In this graphic, there are things we have the power to change, and things that we must accept. In other words, true wisdom lies where change and acceptance meet. This is not always as easy as it sounds. A rule of thumb for making this determination of what we can change and what we must accept is to ask ourselves, “Am I trying to impose my own will on what the universe is showing me?”
Wisdom lies in remembering that in this life, we don’t attract what we want, we attract what we are. The good news is that we have the ability to determine who we are, and nobody else can take that from us. When we are secure in this knowledge, we will gain the wisdom to know that which can be changed and that which should be accepted. This is the essence of radical acceptance.
Optional Activity: Naming Ceremony
Most indigenous peoples from around the world named their children after things found in nature. We are familiar with this practice through the names of Native Americans like Sitting Bull or Crazy Horse, but many people aren’t aware that the practice was worldwide.
Native American names have obvious sources in nature, but did you know that many other names have their origins in the natural world? My middle name, “Bruce,” means “brushwood thicket.” The name “Glen” originally meant “from the fertile valley,” the name “Mary” means “wished for child,” the name “Ann” means “merciful one,” etc.
As you begin your journey to living in True Self, you may wish to select a new name for yourself that reflects this new identity. To do this, first go outside to a natural place. The wilder, the better. If you have the time and the opportunity you may wish to do this activity in a national or state park.
Prepare yourself by taking several deep breaths, and by grounding and centering yourself. Once you feel prepared, go into the forest. Keep your attention open and accepting. Set your intention on the activity.
Continue to walk in the forest until you find something that appeals to you. This could be any natural object, animal or plant that your find yourself attracted to. This thing that caught your attention shall be your new name.
For example, if you are walking on the trail and see a hawk fly overhead, you might choose the name, “Flying Hawk.”
Once you have found your new name, you may wish to have a ceremony where you announce it to your family and friends. This ceremony may be as formal or as informal as you like. This is your own rite of passage, so you may craft it to meet your needs and expectations.
Now that you have your new name, use it when exploring the skills of Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy.
At our workshops, selecting this name is one of the first things we do. Workshop attendees are addressed by their “nature name” for the duration of the course. This helps to reinforce the idea that attendees are becoming new people, as are you as you progress through this workbook.
4.7 Radical Acceptance of True Self
“All behavior is purposeful if you understand the context.”
– Alfred Adler
People do all sorts of crazy things. Some people smoke, some people do illicit drugs, some people engage in risky hobbies like skydiving or rock climbing, some engage in criminal activities, and many participate in behaviors that, to an outside observer, might look downright harmful. Have you ever had a friend or family member who insisted on doing things that were potentially dangerous to themselves or to others?
Adler’s quote above explains such self-harming behaviors.
To someone without a substance abuse problem, it is difficult to understand how someone could abuse dangerous drugs like opioids or methamphetamine. To someone not in the depths of despair and depression, it might be impossible to understand how suicide might look like a viable option to a person locked in their own personal hell. Suicide might even be considered a selfish act to a person who doesn’t understand the harsh effects of depression on the human mind and brain.
But to someone with an addiction problem, or to someone with suicidal tendencies, their behavior makes perfect sense. Perhaps to a person with an addiction, getting high beats the alternative of having to live with overwhelming emotions. Perhaps to a suicidal person, death looks like a more viable option than having to live with overpowering emotional pain. In either case, to the person engaging in the behavior, the behavior makes perfect sense.
Every human being has experienced occasional feelings of shame, guilt, blame, or inferiority. Such feelings are a natural part of the human condition. Unfortunately, they can also be the source of many of the problems we experience with our relationships, careers, spiritual endeavors, and day-to-day living.
As human beings we’re conditioned to disown certain parts of ourselves. We don’t like to admit our feelings of anger, shame or guilt, because doing so might mean that we are less than perfect. But what does “perfect” really mean?
Try this sometime: Ask three of your closest friends or family members what their idea of the “perfect day” is. I’m willing to bet you’ll get at least three different answers. So if you do get three different answers to the question, “Describe your perfect day,” what does “perfect” really mean?
The obvious answer to this is that the term “perfect” is defined by the individual. This means that your idea of perfect might be completely different from my idea of perfect. Each of us is in charge of what “perfect” means to us.
The good news about this is that if “perfect” is self-defined, and if my own personal idea of what “perfect” means is causing me stress, then I am free to change it at any time. The way to do this is to realize that all of us have feelings of depression, stress or anxiety from time to time. All of us fail to live up to our own expectations for ourselves from time to time. We may choose to beat ourselves up for failing to be “perfect,” or we may choose to realize that as human beings, failing to be “perfect” is a natural part of existence.
By learning to love ourselves “warts and all,” we learn the art of radical acceptance of the True Self.
The next page contains an exercise for determining who you are and what you would like to become. It is designed to help you identify your True Self, and to accept that this is who you are. You may wish to make several copies of the exercise, doing one each week until you complete the course. Notice how your answers change over time!
The last session in this course and in this workbook is Living in True Self. You may re-visit the Radical Acceptance of True Self exercise after completing Session 12 as a means of charting your progress over the duration of the course, so you may wish to keep your answers as you do this exercise for the first time.
4.7 Radical Acceptance of True Self Worksheet
The more experience we gain in achieving radical acceptance, the more we can live in True Self. Such acceptance allows us to deal with ourselves as we really are. There are two ways to achieve this: We may either change the way we see ourselves to bring it more in line with our True Selves, or we may change our concept of True Self to bring it more in line with the way we see ourselves. When we have done either of these (or both of these), we will be living in Wise Mind.
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