How To Embrace Change With Radical Acceptance
I have to switch therapists. I found out last week that the group my therapist works for won’t be taking my insurance anymore. That means I have to change therapists. For almost two years, she has given me EMDR therapy. I have cleared so much trauma from my body and dealt with intergenerational trauma. Yet, I have more work to do in therapy.
I have sensed for some time that I need to move on with another therapist. Not because my therapist isn’t good. She’s very good, and I feel comfortable with her, perhaps too comfortable. With her, I am now completely in my comfort zone, which can happen in therapy, and it’s not conducive to trauma recovery.
“When you think long and hard about it, recovery isn’t about settling down into what is comfortable. Ultimately, recovery is a journey that is filled with challenges and opportunities to learn and grow as a human being. Therefore, you must be accustomed to learning to push the boundaries in healthy ways and discover new things about yourself. This is not to say that you can’t savor the small victories as they come. While these victories can be sweet, there is always work to be done on yourself–and you must push yourself to become the best person you can be, both in recovery and in life.” Dr. Belis Aladag, medical reviewer for First Steps Recovery
Trauma recovery isn’t about settling down into an emotional couch. It’s a journey and not a destination. All along the journey, we grow and learn. We also widen our window of tolerance, a concept introduced by Dr. Dan J. Siegel, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine. The term refers to the “zone of arousal in which we are able to function most effectively,” according to Johns Hopkins University.
Radical Acceptance Help Embrace Change
Accepting change is another way we can widen our window of tolerance. We don’t have to like whatever changes come into our lives, but we can practice radical acceptance to make peace with them. Radical acceptance is accepting your life–your feelings, circumstances, and past. You accept your life with your whole being.
Radical acceptance is not approval of abuse or injustice. It is not love or compassion. It is not against change, nor is it passivity. Radical acceptance cultivates distress tolerance and increases resiliency.
I learned three ways to practice radical acceptance from a therapist a few years ago. First, you must observe the reality you are fighting against. Next, remind yourself that reality cannot be changed and that there are causes for it. Lastly, practice accepting reality in your mind, heart, and body.
That same therapist also taught me about opposite action, or listing all the behaviors you would do if you accepted reality. With her help, I created a list of behaviors: healthier eating, sleeping better, self-kindness, letting go of harmful thoughts, being vulnerable with others, and connecting with others by being transparent. By practicing these behaviors, I cope with events that have not happened yet.
Studies show that radical acceptance helps trauma survivors. In one study, researchers had 120 people write down personal negative events during six training sessions. The radical acceptance group used a dialectical behavioral skill (DBT) that promotes acceptance of negative events. In another group, the participants reappraised their interpretations of the events but did not use a DBT skill.
The participants who practiced radical acceptance improved their ability to use emotional acceptance and cognitive reappraisal. The other group improved only in cognitive reappraisal. Researchers concluded that “cultivating acceptance can subsequently improve the ability to reinterpret reality for coping adaptively with negative events.”
Radical Acceptance Journal Prompt
Writing in my journal helps me put into practice what the therapist taught me. Here’s a journal prompt to help you practice radical acceptance.
Write about the situation you are struggling to accept. What emotions are you feeling? Write them down. List their characteristics: location in your body, shape, and texture. The last two might seem silly, but picturing an emotion as a shape and texture helps process it. Why are you resisting this change?