Marsha Linehan, the person who developed DBT, has handouts about the different skills learned in therapy. Here are the bullet points from the Radical Acceptance handout:
- 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.
It sounds kind of hokey, and takes a little while to "get it" (or at least it did for me), but it really can be helpful. I don't want to bore the whole board with my-therapy-loves-carrots. But, anyone who's interested in reading my chapter on Radical Acceptance, let me know, and I can e-mail it to you later today.
It sounds kind of hokey
Mostly, it sounds very Buddhist. I'm not sure why I wasn't making that connection when you've talked about it before.
Mostly, it sounds very Buddhist.
Yeah. A lot of her ideas come from Buddhism. Mindfulness is another big one.
I killed it! Come back! Come back! I won't talk therapy anymore!
Interesting. I've been trying to work along those lines myself, but not in such a concrete way. It's not always easy, but it really does make a difference.
Tiny example: We have (everyone has) someone at work who is consistently a pain in the ass about things that are basically a waste of time to begin with. And we always get all worked up when this person comes in being totally unreasonable and shit, and one day it occurred to me "you know, I don't have to get upset about this. There's no changing it - this is a very much more important person than me and has been behaving like this forever. So getting upset just gets me frustrated. And it happens every time." So I just kind of made a concious decision to not get upset about it. I know it's coming, I know it'll be a PITA, and I just go with it. And it makes my life so much easier to not go through all the gnashing of teeth and rending of clothes.
If it was a situation that I had any power to change by getting upset about it, it would be different. But this isn't giving up so much as it's damage control. And it really is about control - by acepting it as what it is, this person no longer has the power to ruin my day. At least not without some special effort.
I'm very good about dealing with things that way, I think in large part due to growing up in a 12-step household. I guess hearing the Serenity Prayer all the time as a child wasn't such a bad thing. :)
Let go of fighting reality.
Huh. Good idea.
After all, reality is bigger than me.
Ugh. I have no work work to do. It feels like a waste to be here. Yet, I'm supposed to be here for another three hours.
Yeah. A lot of her ideas come from Buddhism. Mindfulness is another big one.
I've got Tara Brach's book Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With The Heart Of The Buddha. It was helping when everything was so uncertain. After Z asked for the divorce, though, I haven't had the strength to go back and continue reading, because while it's very good and helping, it also brings up things that I haven't the strength to confront right now.
I do repeat a non-god version of the Serenity Prayer almost every day, though. That was put up all over our house after my sister died, so I know it well.
