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Radical Acceptance: The Hardest Skill That Will Save Your Life - Marsha Linehan | Therapy Decoded | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: Radical Acceptance: The Hardest Skill That Will Save Your Life - Marsha Linehan
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Summary
Core Theme
Pain is an inevitable part of life, but suffering is a choice made through resistance to reality. Radical acceptance, the practice of fully acknowledging reality as it is, is presented as the key to overcoming suffering and beginning the healing process.
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There is a kind of pain that comes from
life itself. And there's another kind of
pain, the one that comes from refusing
to accept it. If you've ever screamed
inside your mind, "This shouldn't be
happening." If you've ever begged
reality to be different, if you've ever
been paralyzed by the injustice of what
life has handed you, then you already
know what it feels like to suffer.
Because here's the truth. Pain is
inevitable. Suffering is optional. I'm
not saying this to minimize your pain. I
would never do that. I know what it
means to suffer. I've lived it. I spent
years in a psychiatric hospital,
consumed by suicidal thoughts, desperate
to escape my own mind. I have been where
many of you are now, fighting reality so
fiercely that it nearly cost me my life.
That's why I'm here to talk to you today
about something that might sound simple,
but isn't radical acceptance. Radical
acceptance is not giving up. It's not
agreeing with what happened. It's not
saying it's okay that someone hurt you.
And it's not about approving of what's
unfair, cruel, or devastating. Radical
acceptance means this, fully accepting
reality as it is, not as you wish it
were. It means opening your heart to the
truth. Even when that truth breaks your
heart. It means looking pain in the eye
and saying, "Yes, this is real. This
happened. This is happening." Because
when we don't accept what is, we get
stuck in hell. We cling to anger, shame,
bitterness, and regret. We replay the
moment over and over. We torture
ourselves with should have and could
have. We resist what already is. And
that resistance becomes our prison. Let
me give you a simple equation. It's one
I teach often. Suffering equals pain
multiplied by resistance. If you're in
pain and you resist it, that resistance
multiplies your suffering. You don't
just feel the pain of what happened. You
feel the pain of believing it shouldn't
have happened. You feel the pain of the
fight. But what happens when you stop
fighting? When you take your hands off
the wheel and say, "This is where I am
right now. This is real." That's when
something miraculous begins. Suffering
starts to shrink. The pain may still be
there and but your fight against it
isn't. And that space, that tiny opening
between pain and resistance, that's
where freedom lives. I wish I could tell
you radical acceptance was easy. It's
not. We are wired to avoid pain, deny
reality, and resist anything that
threatens our sense of control.
Especially when the pain is traumatic
and when someone abused you, left you,
betrayed you, when the world was cruel
and you were powerless. Your mind clings
to one belief. It shouldn't have
happened. And maybe it shouldn't have,
but it did. Radical acceptance is the
act of no longer arguing with the past.
It's turning toward the wound and
saying, "I may not have chosen this, but
I choose to stop being its prisoner."
It's not passive. It's the bravest thing
you will ever do. Let's be very clear.
Radical acceptance does not mean you
like what happened. You approve of it.
You stop trying to improve things. You
let people hurt you again. You suppress
your feelings. It simply means you stop
denying reality. Because as long as
you're waiting for the past to change,
you are trapped. And when you're
trapped, you can't heal. You can't grow.
You can't live. Let me tell you
something personal. There was a moment
years ago when I stood in a chapel and
begged God, "Help me. I can't live like
this anymore." What I was really asking
for without knowing it was the ability
to accept. To accept my pain. To accept
that I was emotionally sensitive. to
accept that the people who were supposed
to help me had failed me. To accept that
I had survived but I wasn't living. That
moment became a turning point because I
stopped waiting for life to be fair and
I started learning how to live anyway.
That's when healing began. Radical
acceptance is not something you do once
and you're done. It's a skill, a
practice, something you have to return
to over and over. There will be days
when it feels impossible. when your
heart screams no when you want to run,
fight, numb or hide. But if you can
pause like even for a second when
whisper this is happening, you create a
moment of power, a moment of peace. You
get out of the war and back into your
life. In the chapters ahead, I'll walk
you through why we resist reality and
how to gently let go. The neuroscience
of emotional avoidance and pain amplification.
amplification.
How radical acceptance fits into DBT's
core skills. Step-by-step guidance on
how to begin practicing it. How this
skill saved my life and how it might
save yours. But for now, I just want you
to hear this. You are not weak for
struggling. You are not broken because
you're in pain. You are brave for
staying even in the unbearable. You
don't have to like it. You don't have to
be okay with it. You just have to begin
by right here, right now with what is
and that is where everything changes.
Why we resist reality and how that
resistance destroys us.
If radical acceptance is the key to
ending suffering, then resistance is the
lock that keeps it tightly shut. Every
time you find yourself saying, "This
can't be happening. I don't deserve
this. It's not fair." You are not just
thinking thoughts. You are resisting
reality. And that resistance, as
understandable as it is, is often the
very thing destroying you from the
inside out. Let's talk about why we do
it and how to begin loosening our grip
on the fight. Resistance is a survival
instinct. Your brain is wired to detect
threats and eliminate pain. So, when
life becomes unbearable, when tragedy
strikes, when someone betrays you, when
your dreams collapse, your mind says,
"This shouldn't be happening. This isn't
safe. Reject it. Push it away. This
resistance feels protective at first. It
gives you a sense of control, a way to
fight back. But here's the trap. What
you resist persists. What you avoid
grows. The more you resist reality, the
more power you give it to dominate your
emotional life. Resistance isn't always
loud or obvious. Sometimes it's
disguised as logic. Sometimes it shows
up as perfectionism or anger or
numbness. Here are some common forms
resistance takes. Rumination, replaying
the event over and over, wishing it had
gone differently. Denial, pretending it
doesn't hurt, that it doesn't matter.
Blame, fixating on who caused the pain,
hoping it will somehow fix it. Control,
obsessively trying to fix the unfixable.
Numbing, using substances, screens,
food, or work to not feel. Each of these
might help you not feel for a little
while, but none of them will help you
heal. Because healing can only happen
when you feel the truth, not when you
fight it. I want to be very clear. There
is always a cost to resisting reality.
It might cost you your peace. It might
cost you your health. It might cost you
your relationships. It might cost you
years of your life. In my own life,
resistance nearly cost me everything. I
resisted my pain so fiercely that it
turned inward into depression, self
harm, suicidal ideiation. I fought
reality so hard that I became a prisoner
to it. And only when I surrendered and
only when I said, "Okay, this is
happening." Did I begin to get free.
Radical acceptance is not a loss. It's a
release. It's not weakness. It's the
strongest thing you can do. Let's look
at this from a psychological and
neurological perspective. Studies show
that when we resist emotions, especially
painful ones, the brain stress response
intensifies, cortisol rises, heart rate
increases, the amygdala, your threat
detector in goes into overdrive. In
contrast, when we allow emotions to
exist without judgment, without pushing
them away, the brain actually calms
down. You begin to regulate, not just
react. This is the basis of mindfulness.
It's also the foundation of dialectical
behavior therapy. You can't change what
you don't first acknowledge. And that
means facing reality and not hiding from
it. So why do we do it? Why do we hold
so tightly to a version of life that
doesn't exist? The answer is simple and
human. Because we think accepting it
means agreeing with it. We think if I
accept this pain, it means I'm okay with
it. If I accept their betrayal, it means
I forgive them. If I accept this
diagnosis, it means I'm giving up. But
that's not how acceptance works. You can
radically accept something and still
fight to change what you can. You can
accept the abuse happened and still hold
your abuser accountable. You can accept
your grief and still grieve fully.
Radical acceptance is about what is
real, not what you wish were real, not
what should have been real. There's one
phrase I hear all the time. It's the
mantra of resistance. It's not fair. And
you know what? You're right. It's not
fair. People are hurt for no reason.
Children are abused. Loving people are
abandoned. Good people get sick. But
fairness is not a requirement for
reality. It never has been. Clinging to
the belief that life should be fair will
only keep you at war with life itself.
And no one wins that war. Sometimes
people say to me, "But Marca, if I
accept what happened, I'll fall apart. I
won't survive it. I need my anger. I
need the fight." And I get it. Sometimes
resistance is all we have left. It gives
us a sense of power, a sense of purpose.
But here's the paradox. The more you
cling to resistance, the more your life
becomes about the pain, not the healing.
Radical acceptance is what allows you to
step out of survival mode and into real
life. You don't have to go from total
resistance to full acceptance in one
leap. You can start small. Here's how.
Notice when you're fighting reality
through your thoughts, emotions, or
actions. Name it. This is resistance. I
am resisting what is. Breathe into it.
Let yourself feel the tension. Whisper
gently to yourself. I don't have to like
this, but I can stop fighting it. Every
time you do this, you create a crack in
the wall and light begins to enter.
Maybe no one ever told you this, but I
will. You are allowed to stop fighting.
You are allowed to rest. You are allowed
to accept what happened and still want
more for your life. You don't need to
justify your pain. You don't need to fix
the past. You just need to stop being at
war with reality. That's how you save
your life.
The anatomy of acceptance. How to do it
when everything hurts.
Radical acceptance sounds simple, but
when you're in pain, it feels
impossible. How do you accept what
shattered your world? How do you accept
what breaks your heart every time you
remember it? How do you accept something
you never asked for, never deserved, and
never wanted? Here's what I want you to
hear. Acceptance is not a single moment.
It's a process, a practice, a path. And
it doesn't happen all at once. It
happens in tiny moments. One breath, one
whisper, one truth at a time. In this
part, I'll walk you through the
stepby-step anatomy of acceptance so you
know not just what radical acceptance
is, but how to begin it. Step one,
notice the resistance. The first step is
awareness. Before we can accept
anything, we have to recognize that
we're not accepting it. Ask yourself,
what am I fighting right now? What
reality am I refusing to accept? What
thoughts keep circling in my head? Maybe
it's I shouldn't feel this way. They
should have loved me. This shouldn't
have happened. That's resistance. Name
it. Label it. Say, "This is me
struggling to accept what is." The
moment you name it, it begins to lose
its grip on you. Step two, pause the
judgment. Here's what usually follows
resistance. Judgment. We judge the
situation. We judge the people involved.
We judge ourselves for not being okay
with it. But here's the truth. Judgment
adds another layer of suffering to pain.
you're already hurting. You don't need
to attack yourself for it. Try replacing
judgment with gentle observation.
Instead of saying, "I'm so weak for
feeling this way," say, "I'm feeling
pain right now, and that's okay. You're
not doing it wrong. You're human." Step
three, tell the truth. Radical
acceptance demands one very hard thing,
telling the truth to yourself. You don't
have to like the truth. You don't have
to agree with it, but you do have to
acknowledge it. Say the words out loud
if you can. This happened. They left. I
lost them. I'm in pain. This is my
reality right now. Not as a victim, not
as a punishment, but as a person
choosing to face life head on. The
truth, when spoken gently, becomes a
foundation, not a weight. Step four,
feel what you feel. You cannot radically
accept reality without allowing yourself
to feel the pain of it. There is no
bypass, no shortcut. You have to let the
grief in, let the rage in, let the
despair in. Your emotions are
messengers, not enemies. Radical
acceptance is not numbing. It's the
opposite. It's letting the pain move
through you instead of living inside
you. It's crying when you need to,
screaming into a pillow, writing the
angry letter you never send, breathing
through the tears you feel it so you can
release it. Step five, return to the
body. Pain often pulls us into the mind
into spirals of thought, judgment, and
fantasy. Acceptance brings us back to
the body. Use your senses. What do I
feel right now? What do I hear? What is
the sensation in my chest, my stomach,
my hands? Radical acceptance is not only
a mental act. It's a physical practice.
Soften your shoulders. Place a hand on
your heart. Ground your feet on the
floor. Let your body know we are safe
now. we can be here. Step six, speak the
acceptance statement. This may sound
simple, but it's powerful. Say out loud,
even if you don't fully believe it yet.
This is what's happening right now. I
may not like it. I may not want it, but
I am choosing to stop fighting it.
Repeat it once a day, once an hour if
you need to. It's not about perfection.
It's about commitment. Even 1%
acceptance is a start. Even one moment
of surrender cracks the wall wide open.
Step seven, choose what's next from this
place of truth. Once you've begun
accepting reality, you finally gain the
freedom to act from a place of clarity,
not desperation. Now you can ask, given
this is true, what do I need? What can I
do to care for myself? What boundary do
I need to set? What's one small kind
action I can take? Acceptance doesn't
mean you stop trying. It means you stop
trying to control what's uncontrollable
and instead you focus on what is. This
is where healing starts. This is where
strength begins. Real acceptance is
layered. You might think you've accepted
something and then weeks later it hits
you again. That's normal. Acceptance is
layered. You peel it back one emotion at
a time, one memory at a time. Sometimes
it hurts more right before it gets
better. That's not failure. That's
progress. You are not starting over. You
are going deeper. You can do this one
moment at a time. You don't need to
master this overnight. You don't need to
be a perfect acceptor of reality. You
just need to keep showing up. Keep
choosing to open, not close. Keep
choosing to breathe, not brace. Keep
choosing to live even with the pain. And
every time you do, you build a new life.
A life rooted in truth. A life built on
peace. A life that belongs to you, not
your pain.
what radical acceptance looks like in
real life.
We've talked about what radical
acceptance is. We've talked about why we
resist it. And we've talked about how to
begin the practice. But what does it
look like in real life? Not in theory,
not in therapy, but in the raw, messy,
deeply human places where we actually
live. Let me show you what radical
acceptance looks like. When it meets
grief, rejection, illness, abuse, and unfairness.
unfairness.
These are not hypotheticals. These are
the places where real healing begins and
where radical acceptance saves lives.
Accepting rejection. You fall in love.
You trust someone. You let them in. And
then they leave. Sometimes without
explanation, sometimes in a way that
rips the floor out from under you. Your
mind screams, "They shouldn't have done
this. I gave them everything. How could
they leave?" The pain of abandonment is
real. But the suffering comes from the
refusal to accept that they are gone.
Radical acceptance doesn't mean you stop
loving them. It means you stop waiting
for them to come back. You stop arguing
with what is. You feel the ache and you
say, "They left. It hurts, but I will
not leave myself." That's acceptance.
That's power. Accepting grief. Your
parent dies, your child dies, your best
friend is taken too soon. Grief is one
of the hardest places to practice
radical acceptance. You're not just
missing someone, you're missing a future
that will never happen. The mind says,
"This isn't fair. I should have done
more. I can't survive this." But here's
what radical acceptance does. It says,
"This person is gone. I wish they
weren't. I will miss them every day, but
I will let grief move through me, not
control me. You don't stop loving them.
You stop pretending they're still here.
You stop holding your breath, hoping it
was all a dream. And in that release,
you begin to live again, accepting
injustice. Someone hurt you. They got
away with it. They never apologized.
There was no accountability, no closure,
no fairness. You say, "It shouldn't have
happened. They don't deserve to be
happy. I'll never get over this." But
radical acceptance means facing this
truth. it did happen. They might never
make it right. And your healing is not
dependent on their remorse. You don't
have to forgive them. You don't have to
trust them. But you do have to stop
giving them power over your present.
That's not weakness. That's wisdom.
Accepting illness and limitations.
You're diagnosed with something chronic
or you live with a disability or your
body no longer does what it used to.
Your identity shifts. Your goals
collapse. Your future feels stolen.
Radical acceptance says, "This is my
body now. This is my mind now. I didn't
choose this, but I choose to care for
myself anyway." You let go of who you
were supposed to be, and you become who
you are. There is grief in that, but
also freedom. Accepting trauma. Maybe
someone broke you open in a way that
words can't explain. Childhood abuse,
sexual assault, war, neglect, being
invisible in the moments you needed to
be seen most. Your mind says, "This
ruined me. I'll never be okay. They
should have protected me. All of that is
true." And yet, radical acceptance
doesn't excuse what happened. It
acknowledges it. It says, "This
happened. It was wrong. I didn't deserve
it, but I will not let it define the
rest of my life." You stop pretending it
didn't hurt. And you stop letting it be
the author of your story. You reclaim
your voice, accepting yourself. This may
be the hardest one of all. You look in
the mirror and hate what you see. You
replay every mistake you've made. You
hold yourself hostage for not being
perfect. Radical acceptance means
looking at yourself as you are and
saying, "I am doing the best I can. I am
a work in progress. I am allowed to take
up space. I don't have to earn my
worth." It doesn't mean you stop
growing. It means you stop growing from
shame. That's how real change happens.
Not from self-hate, but but from
self-respect. The common thread in every
example. Do you see the pattern? In
every example, pain is real. But
suffering grows when we resist the truth
of that pain. Radical acceptance doesn't
remove the pain. It removes the war
around the pain. It gives you energy
back. It gives you clarity. It gives you
the power to take your next breath, your
next step on your terms. Why this
matters so much? Because here's the
truth no one likes to say out loud. You
can do everything right and still
experience pain. You can love well and
be left. You can try hard and still
fail. You can be good and still get
hurt. And if you keep waiting for life
to be fair, you'll be waiting forever.
Radical acceptance isn't about
surrendering to suffering. It's about
surrendering to reality so you can stop
suffering unnecessarily.
Real peace comes after acceptance, not
before. You don't wait to feel peaceful
to practice radical acceptance. You
practice radical acceptance and peace
begins to find you. It won't be instant.
It won't be perfect, but it will be
real. And that's enough.
The cost of non-acceptance. How
resisting reality destroys our mental health.
health.
If radical acceptance can save your
life, then non-acceptance, fighting,
denying, resisting what is can quietly
destroy it. Not all at once. Not with
sirens and explosions, but slowly,
silently, like a tree dying from the
roots. In this part, I want to show you
what happens when we don't accept
reality. when we live in resistance
instead of presence because the cost of
non-acceptance is high and most people
don't even realize they're paying it.
The mental toll of resisting reality.
When you resist reality, your mind goes
to war. And that war looks like chronic
anxiety, persistent depression,
explosive anger, constant exhaustion,
self-hatred, dissociation, hopelessness.
This isn't weakness. This isn't
dysfunction. This is what happens when
your inner world tries to reject the
outer one. Your mind is saying that this
can't be true. But your body knows it
is. That tension between what is and
what you wish was is the root of
enormous psychological suffering. What
happens in the brain? Neuroscience shows
that when we're in a state of
non-acceptance, our brain's threat
system stays activated. The amygdala
fires constantly. The preffrontal
cortex, the rational wise part of you
gets hijacked. You become stuck in
fight, flight, or freeze. This isn't
just emotional pain. It's neurochemical
chaos. Your body is reacting to
something it can't control. And your
mind keeps trying to control it anyway.
This is how people stay trapped in
trauma responses even when the danger is
long gone. How non-acceptance fuels
emotional dysregulation.
If you live with borderline personality
disorder, complex PTSD, or emotional
sensitivity, you already know how
overwhelming emotions can be. And
resisting reality, saying this shouldn't
be happening, makes them worse. Here's
what happens. You feel something
painful. You resist it. That resistance
intensifies the pain. That pain leads to
shame. The shame leads to more
avoidance. And you spiral. This loop can
feel inescapable. And at its worst, it
can become lifethreatening. Many people
in this state consider suicide not
because they want to die, but because
they want the pain to stop. Radical
acceptance gives you a way to stop the
pain without ending your life.
Non-acceptance keeps you trapped in the
past. When you don't accept what's
happened, you stay stuck in it. You
relive the betrayal. You reargue the
fight. You replay the mistake. It
becomes the center of your mental world.
Acceptance doesn't erase the past, but
it does allow you to say that was then.
This is now. It frees up emotional
energy that was locked in memory so you
can use it for healing, growing,
connecting, living. Resistance builds a
wall, but you're the one trapped behind
it. People think resistance is
protective, that it's a shield, but it's
not. It's a prison. You might block out
the pain, and but you also block out
joy, connection, curiosity, love,
meaning. You become emotionally numb,
relationally distant, and spiritually
lost. You can't selectively suppress
pain. When you shut down one emotion,
you often shut them all down. Radical
acceptance tears down that wall brick by
brick. The longer you resist, the deeper
you sink. Have you ever tried to escape
quicksand? The more you struggle, the
faster you sink. This is what
non-acceptance feels like. You fight
harder. You think more. You analyze. You
try to outlic reality. You push people
away. You punish yourself. And yet
nothing changes except your exhaustion.
Radical acceptance is like lying still
in the quicksand and then reaching out
for help. It's counterintuitive, but it
works. The disguises of non-acceptance.
Sometimes we don't even realize we're
resisting because non-acceptance wears
masks. It looks like toxic positivity.
Everything happens for a reason. Avoidance.
Avoidance.
I just stay busy and don't think about
it. Blame. It's all their fault. I'm
fine. Perfectionism. If I just do
better, this won't hurt anymore.
Numbing. I need another drink, another
scroll, another distraction.
These behaviors may look normal, even
productive, but underneath them is a
refusal to sit with what is real.
Radical acceptance removes the mask and
meets reality face to face. The lies we
tell ourselves when we refuse to accept.
Here are the lies that non-acceptance
whispers. If I accept this, it means I'm
weak. If I accept this, I'm letting them
win. If I accept this, I'll never change
it. If I accept this, I'll fall apart.
Here's the truth. Acceptance isn't
weakness. It's strength. You're not
letting anyone win. You're reclaiming
your peace. You can't change what you
won't acknowledge. And falling apart is
sometimes what healing begins with. You
are not fragile. You are not broken. You
are human. And acceptance is your
lifeline. Radical acceptance as
psychological survival. I didn't create
radical acceptance because it sounded
nice. I created it because I needed it
to survive. There was a time in my life
where my pain felt unbearable. I wanted
out. I begged God to take it away. I
screamed at the unfairness. And it was
only when I said, "This is real. this is
mine and I'm not running anymore. That I
finally felt peace. Not comfort, not
joy, but peace. And peace is the
foundation of healing. The hope you need
to hear. If you are suffering, if your
mind is screaming, "This shouldn't be
happening." If you feel like you're
drowning in a life you didn't choose, I
want you to know this. You don't have to
like what's happened. You don't have to
be okay with it. You don't have to
forgive, forget, or move on overnight.
But you do have the power right now to
stop fighting reality. And that one
choice can begin to save your life.
The moment you stop resisting, you start
healing. There's a saying in DBT, "Pain
is inevitable. Suffering is optional."
At first, that might sound like a cruel
joke. As if I'm saying, "You're choosing
your suffering." But let me explain.
Suffering happens when we fight reality.
When we scream, "This shouldn't be
happening." When we say, "It wasn't
supposed to turn out like this." When we
replay old betrayals, resentments, and
injustices like a loop we can't shut
off. That resistance, the mental war
with reality, that's where suffering
lives. Let's be clear, radical
acceptance is not approval. It's not
saying this is okay. It's saying this is
what is. You can radically accept the
death of someone you love and still
grieve with your entire soul. You can
radically accept that your childhood was
full of pain and still believe it was
wrong and unfair. You can radically
accept that your partner left and still
feel heartbreak, rage, and confusion.
But when you stop denying the truth of
what happened, when you stop telling
yourself it should have been different,
that's when the weight starts to lift.
Here's what I've seen time and time
again. People who spend their lives
waiting for apologies that may never
come. people who can't heal because they
keep demanding that life give them
closure, fairness, or justice. And I
tell them gently but firmly, radical
acceptance is your path forward. Not
because it makes the pain disappear, but
because it ends the war. There's a story
I share with my patients sometimes, a
Buddhist parable. A woman's only child
dies. She carries the body to the Buddha
and begs him to bring the child back.
The Buddha tells her, "Bring me a
mustard seed from a house that has never
known sorrow." So she goes from house to
house. But every home has known loss,
heartbreak, or death. And in her search,
she realizes suffering is universal. We
are not alone in our pain. We are not
singled out. And once we truly accept
that, deep in our bones, something
shifts, not into numbness, but into
truth. Radical acceptance is a spiritual
surrender. Not giving up, but giving in
to what is. It's stopping the endless
argument with reality. It's turning
toward life, even when it has broken
your heart. I know that turning toward
reality can feel unbearable. But I
promise it's the only way through. You
can't grieve what you refuse to
acknowledge. You can't heal what you
pretend didn't happen. You can't grow if
you're stuck in it shouldn't be this
way. The moment you stop resisting, you
start healing.
You can't heal until you face what hurts.
hurts.
Let me tell you a hard truth. There's no
bypass around pain. You can't logic your
way out of it. You can't meditate it
away. You can't distract or achieve or
numb it out of existence. Eventually,
you must walk through the fire. And the
first step into that fire is radical
acceptance. You can't heal from a trauma
you deny ever happened. You can't make
peace with a past you keep rewriting to
sound better than it was. You can't grow
out of an emotional pattern if you keep
pretending it's not there. Healing
begins when you stop running from your
sadness, from your shame, from your
guilt, from the parts of you that you
were taught to hate or fear. And radical
acceptance says, "I will turn around
now. I will stop fleeing. I will face
what hurts." This doesn't mean you have
to confront everything all at once. In
DBT, we talk about distress tolerance,
the ability to stay present even when
it's hard. That means honoring your
limits while still telling yourself the
truth. Maybe today you can only look at
a corner of your grief. Maybe you can
only whisper the words, "Yes, it
happened." Maybe you need to hold your
own hand and say, "I see you. You're
allowed to feel this." That too is
radical acceptance. I often tell my
patients, "Feelings won't kill you. What
will destroy you is your fight against
those feelings. The shame, the
repression, the self-hate, the lies you
tell yourself to keep from falling
apart. But here's the paradox. When you
let yourself fall apart, you realize you
don't shatter. You soften. You grieve.
And you come out the other side whole in
a new way. Let me be personal for a
moment. There were days in my life where
I truly didn't want to live. Days where
I believed I was irredeemable. And part
of my healing came from this one
painful, powerful decision to stop
trying to erase my past and instead
begin to understand it. I stopped asking
why did this happen to me and started
asking now that it has happened how do I
live? That's what radical acceptance
gives you. Your life back. And if you're
watching this right now, still
listening, still breathing, still
holding on, you're stronger than you
think. You're ready to stop running.
You're ready to heal.
This is where your healing begins.
If no one has told you this today, you
are not broken. You are a human being
who has suffered and yet here you are
breathing, listening, learning how to
live again. That is strength. That is
courage. And that is where healing
begins. Radical acceptance isn't a
finish line. It's a practice, a way of
walking through life moment by moment
without turning away from the truth of
what is. You will forget. You will fall.
You will judge yourself again. You will
wish things were different again. And
then you'll remember you can accept what
is and still choose how to respond. You
can grieve and still grow. You can hurt
and still heal. That is the paradox.
That is the power. That is the path. So
today, start small. Breathe. Say to
yourself, "This is what's happening.
This is what I feel and I can stand it."
You're not alone on this journey and you
never were. Thank you for walking this
far with me. I'm proud of you. Keep
going. You're doing the hardest work
there is. Learning how to live without
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