Evidence-based trauma treatment: How Radical Acceptance works

Radical Acceptance has been a potent tool for me. It’s something I believe can be incredibly valuable for every single person in addressing how they experience and express trauma, pain, and things that can be difficult to wrap our minds around conceptually. 

Today I wanted to dive deeper into the topic of Radical Acceptance and how this can help us as survivors of sexual assault, rape, and trauma to reclaim our lives. 

Radical Acceptance has been a potent tool for me. It’s something I believe can be incredibly valuable for every single person in addressing how they experience and express trauma, pain, and things that can be difficult to wrap our minds around conceptually. 

I found that radical acceptance, as I practiced it, activated a tremendous amount of grief and sadness. It reduced a lot of the pain and angst I was feeling around trying to control what I had no control over. Using this skill allowed me to enter into that grief, and shortly after processing it, I felt a sense of clarity around everything. 

Radical acceptance is a mighty force in helping people release what’s not changeable or in our control, recognize what is in our control, and work with it.

Let’s dive in!

Radical Acceptance Explained

I like the use of radical in the phrase radical acceptance because it evokes the feeling of a “big movement,” something out of the box, outside of our normal realm of understanding.

Radical acceptance feels like returning to true nature and instincts as we connect to the greater world. Perhaps it’s how we’re meant to be connected to our systems; not so future-oriented, aligning with trying to reach goals that are superimposed on us by our culture, but more what serves us.

Radical Acceptance starts by being an acknowledgment. We acknowledge that reality is the reality and accept it, no longer resisting what is true and accurate. 

We’re no longer trying to change what cannot be changed. 

This concept can sound frightening to many as it may sound like we’re supposed to approve or allow everything, but that’s not the case. What’s so crucial about radical acceptance is that it’s really about releasing the efforts to resist or change things that won’t change, accepting them as they are, and accepting how we feel about them.

It’s necessary and required for change to happen. If we want to change anything, we must first accept our circumstances. 

Radical acceptance always leads to and is always in partnership with change. 

Acceptance and Change in DBT

Acceptance is not in opposition to change. It is not inaction, it is not complacency, it is not allowing. It is in an active and dynamic relationship with change. Both are required to progress toward a goal or a life we want to live in recovery.

In Dialectical Behavior Therapy, radical acceptance shows up as a concrete coping skill, a way of dealing with intensely distressing situations. In DBT, we acknowledge that there are moments when we can be in high distress about something that we cannot change. 

This distress can stem from other people, our relationships, other people saying and doing hurtful things, other people not wanting to be in relationships with us, or the fact that we can’t control what happens in our day-to-day lives. 

For example, when somebody experiences an unexpected breakup with their partner, there might be a lot of distress around the shock. We can see that if someone is not accepting the breakup - they’re resisting it, claiming it shouldn't be happening, stating they should still be together - their distress continues to rise, especially as the truth keeps coming back. 

A skill for radical acceptance can be around accepting the truth, moving out of this distress and angst around forcing something that will not change. 

When we finally accept the situation, the distress tends to fall into grief, the sadness we may have been trying to avoid. The opposition to change, or acceptance, was really about preventing the grief. 

This realization can often bring our distress down, and we learn how to cope.

As I said previously, acceptance and change are in a dynamic yet creative relationship with each other. By accepting the relationship is over and the change I was hoping for is not possible, I can now move to make changes that are in my power. It stops me from going to a place of intense shame or sadness where I can now find peace and comfort. 

I can also practice self-respect and setting/maintaining boundaries. These are beautiful changes. Change may not look how you want it to, but it can become a much more effective picture. 

We have both simple and major ways to practice acceptance. A major way is accepting universal truths or significant things that happened to us. Simple ways can include something as small as traffic.

It’s so simple, but for many people, traffic is hard to accept (myself included). It almost feels in the moment that traffic owes me an excuse for daring to show up. We can move into a place of resistance around that truth - trying multiple routes, driving recklessly, and passing as many people as possible - but that’s unacceptance. 

OR we can accept that traffic happens and there’s nothing we can do about it. From there, we can ask ourselves, “What is it that I can/need to change?” Maybe it’s your feelings about the situation. How can you change your feelings? Turn on a podcast or music, call a friend, eat a snack, get a stress ball to fidget with, take deep breaths, etc. You can also adopt the phrase, “We’ll get there when we get there.” 

The traffic hasn’t changed, but change has happened. 

Radical acceptance, when we’re talking about considerable acceptance, is when we must face the world as it is. There are real limits to the future for everyone. Not everything I wish for myself will come true, regardless of how hard I try. 

For me, one of the most important truths to accept is that painful events will happen in life. It’s out of our control. It’s impossible to live a life on this planet without experiencing pain. When we accept this, it doesn’t mean we’re inviting more painful events or are complacent, but saying I’m not going to give over more of my time, energy, or resources to prevent something I can’t control. 

Instead, we might devise a plan to manage those events so we can move on when they inevitably happen.

One common mistake is the belief that you must get to the other side of this painful thing before allowing yourself to experience happiness or a sense of meaning. I personally held this exact belief. I couldn’t connect to my life until I reached a goalpost that I couldn’t keep up with. That led to many years of feeling like I was working for the future while not enjoying my present time.

Radical Acceptance is not a replacement for taking decided action and mobilizing when we need to change.

We can radically accept that our world, at least in the U.S., operates on white supremacy, capitalism, and patriarchy and creates a lot of systems that overpower and disempower people in our culture. These are the limits that many people face. 

We can’t simply tell individuals they should be able to overcome these systems. We can radically accept the systems for what they are, allowing us to see the true beast to defeat it.

Essentially, by radically accepting our world for the truth of what it is, we can identify the problems and limitations we have on an individual level and recognize that they aren’t just about the individual but are systemic. 

These problems and limitations connect to the different operations of the system that continue to funnel power and resources upwards toward the most powerful, wealthy, and privileged. 

We can plan ways to change it as soon as we catch that. 

Radical acceptance reminds us that we might be limited as one person, so we connect to communities and organizations and add our power and voice to others. That’s when we see systemic change happen. Radical acceptance is vital for that.

Degrees of Radical Acceptance

There are also levels of radical acceptance. It’s similar to a vine or ivy that continues to climb. The more you accept, the more that gets presented to you that you will have to accept, and so forth. 

In my experience with radical acceptance, after I was assaulted, the first acceptance was that it happened. It was more of a superficial acceptance, not my deep/meaningful acceptance with it now, but it was acceptance nonetheless. From there, I realized I had to continue living after it, and with that realization came more facets of life that I’d need to accept.

I had to put effort into caring for myself on a fundamental level. I had to accept the specific symptoms that came up for me; I had difficulty eating, sleeping, focusing, etc. The acceptance allowed me to recognize that these were symptoms of what happened to me. Rather than telling myself that I should be sleeping or keeping food down, I could accept that there was a reason for the inabilities presenting themselves and get help. 

Where radical acceptance really became essential to my recovery was around that more profound, meaningful acceptance of what happened. 

In our culture, we have a variety of meanings around rape. I had to contend with all of them as survivors do. Initially, I was in a space of feeling like I failed myself. I failed to protect myself as we’re all told to do. I was now a victim or a survivor, a term I had not fully grasped yet. I had survived, yes, but I’m not alive anymore. I barely felt functional. 

Acceptance meant coming to terms with the transformation of my brain and how it now operated. PTSD set in, and I was having flashbacks, intense anxiety, fear of leaving my home, difficulty sleeping, difficulty connecting in relationships, etc. 

Radical acceptance was not so much about saying to myself, “Well, this is life now.” It’s more about saying, “This is trauma. This is PTSD. It’s painful and hard. Let’s get help.” 

It helped me stop blaming myself for what was happening in my life: losing friendships, struggling with making new relationships, and isolating myself. I stopped piling on shame around these things once I began using radical acceptance as a skill. It also helped me move forward with seeking treatment.

I connected with a therapist and psychiatrist who was instrumental in my recovery. It took a lot of work to accept that my circumstances wouldn’t change by simply allowing time to pass or by the sheer will of me just wanting it to change. I had privilege on my side as I was already educated on trauma recovery and how to seek proper help. I was a psychologist when I was raped, so I knew what PTSD looked like and recognized it when my symptoms showed. My privilege also afforded me the ability to access services and support much more easily than others.

One of the main areas I practiced a lot of acceptance around was accepting that traumatic things happen without any warning or ability to stop or change them. This isn’t to say there’s nothing we can do because there are definitely things we can do to try and keep ourselves safe, but we can’t control other people’s behavior. 

A lot of my trouble around leaving my home and connecting with other people came from this fear that I couldn't control other people's behavior or that I couldn’t prevent trauma from happening again. 

Radical Acceptance is not giving up

One thing to be mindful about is the feeling of despair or nihilism. That's resignation, not radical acceptance. Radical acceptance is complemented with compassion. 

It’s also different for everyone, and everyone needs to accept different things. 

A common thing that many people have a hard time accepting is their family. We don’t get to choose who our families are, and we don’t get to choose what happened during our childhood. 

When we radically accept these aspects, we can then ask ourselves, “What do we want to do about this?” We can radically accept what happened and recognize that it may have caused pain, suffering, and trauma. We can accept that it may have interfered with how you grew up. All of these acceptances can be a part of that picture, but what do you want to do about them now?

We may also utilize radical acceptance with our partners or relationships. People frequently get tied up in how their relationships are supposed to look. Our culture loves to tell us exactly how they should be. With radical acceptance, we allow our partners and friends to be exactly who they are and maintain our freedom to choose how we will engage in that relationship. 

When we resist acceptance and try to control our partners and friends, we’re blinding ourselves with a fantasy. We’re closing our eyes to the reality of what it is and how it’s affecting us. 

If we peek behind the curtain, we might not actually be okay with the relationship. Therefore, when we’re working out of interest of the fantasy, we’re not making the necessary changes that could benefit our lives and well-being.

Simply put, we can’t change other people or their actions, but we can change how we engage with them. 

Radical acceptance may mean we decide the relationship has to change, either by ending the relationship or setting boundaries. It allows us to be clear on how the relationship is impacting us.

How to Radically Accept:

Radical Acceptance as a skill is more of a practice. 

First, consider what it means to accept your reality and why that might be important. 

• What does it mean to you personally? 

• What does it mean about your values? 

• How is it that you want to live your life, and how will acceptance enable that to happen? 

From there, the practice often acts opposite to our urges to resist. 

• Notice if your body takes a particular posture when you’re resisting. 

• Recite acceptance statements to yourself: 

• “I accept that they did this.” 

• “I’m choosing to accept it because that is my value.” 

• “I accept that they are not doing or saying what I want them to.” 

• Notice your thoughts rather than avoid the idea that something might not work out. You’re in a place where you can choose your next steps. 

• Implement “willing hands.”. Turn your hands/palms upward when you’re sitting in meditation or when something is happening that you disagree with.

A key part of radical acceptance will always be regarding your emotions, the meaning they hold for you, noticing when sadness, pain, or grief arise, and taking care of it. 

Radical acceptance means accepting that we are human and feel what we feel; those feelings will not disappear just because we accept them. It also involves regarding ourselves with radical self-compassion. 

-

I hope this blog post finds and helps those having difficulty accepting certain pieces of your life and story. Radical acceptance is frequently a huge turning point for many survivors once it clicks, so I feel incredibly passionate about sharing it.

This is your reminder that you are not alone. Trauma may manifest itself in many ways, but you are certainly never alone in your feelings.

You can listen to this episode on my podcast, “Initiated Survivor.” The episode is titled “Radical Acceptance” and is available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify! 

Thank you for reading. Until next time!

Want to learn more about YOUR specific trauma recovery style? Take the QUIZ and get unique skills specific to you!

If you want to start therapy today, sign up to work with me here. I offer trauma therapy with multiple approaches to best meet the needs of trauma survivors. You can sign up for my mailing list to get tips for trauma recovery right to your mailbox. You can also listen to my podcast, Initiated Survivor, anywhere you hear podcasts. Follow me on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Youtube to get awesome survivor content.

Trauma therapy in AL, AZ, AR, CA, CO, CNMI, CT, DE, DC, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, ME, MD, MI, MN, MO, NE, NV, NH, NJ, NC, ND, OH, OK, PA, RI, SC, TN, TX, UT, VA, WA, WV, WI, WY

DBT therapy n AL, AZ, AR, CA, CO, CNMI, CT, DE, DC, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, ME, MD, MI, MN, MO, NE, NV, NH, NJ, NC, ND, OH, OK, PA, RI, SC, TN, TX, UT, VA, WA, WV, WI, WY

Virtual group therapy in AL, AZ, AR, CA, CO, CNMI, CT, DE, DC, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, ME, MD, MI, MN, MO, NE, NV, NH, NJ, NC, ND, OH, OK, PA, RI, SC, TN, TX, UT, VA, WA, WV, WI, WY