Radical Acceptance And Strength In Difficult Emotions

Today,

I want to move towards a bit more of an advanced skill of radical acceptance.

Now,

We got to make sure that kids are aware of the emotional versus the wise mind.

So there's,

You know,

Different ways you could think about it.

The Hulk brain,

Very obvious.

That's when the emotions take over,

Right?

The emotional reactions to everything versus,

You know,

The logical rational mind might be Dr.

Banner,

For example.

Or if we took Captain Kirk,

Who reacts emotionally,

And then Spock,

Who is very rational.

But the wise mind is the balance between,

You know,

Considering the emotions and considering the rationality.

So we would have in the Hulk example,

The smart Hulk,

Where the two sort of merge,

Dr.

Banner and Hulk merge.

Or Dr.

McCoy from Star Trek,

Right?

Who kind of balanced those types of things are.

So when those emotions are taking over,

How do we keep that prefrontal cortex online?

That's our self-regulating brain.

And when we can keep that online,

We can shift to that wise mind.

So we can balance the feelings with reason.

And we're bringing in some acceptance.

Because otherwise,

Without being able to tap into that,

Acceptance really risks becoming either avoidance or suppression,

Right?

It's not about giving up.

It's not about agreeing with the situation.

We're not necessarily approving of the situation.

It's not a sign of weakness or failure.

I often think of Dr.

Victor Frankl,

For example.

You know,

He just came to this place of acceptance of his environment when he was in a concentration camp during the Holocaust.

He wasn't approving it.

He wasn't accepting it,

Right?

But it was accepting,

But just not approving and saying that it's okay,

Right?

It's just this is my situation.

And what am I going to do?

I don't have any control.

If there are things that kids can control,

Absolutely.

You know,

I'm always teaching them what's in your control,

What's out of your control,

The things in our control.

Well,

Then we're going to problem solve and we're going to do things.

If it's out of our control,

Those are the things that we have to accept and do what we can within the constrictions that we might have.

So it's really about acknowledging our reality and letting go of the urge to change or control things that can't be changed.

Like if there's a thunderstorm going on during your outside birthday party,

Right?

We have zero control over that,

But there's things that we can do.

There's things within our control.

So we have to accept that there's a thunderstorm and then what is it that we're going to do?

When we're resisting or avoiding reality,

That's never going to change the situation.

And usually it's just going to make things worse because now we're perpetually thinking about,

Ah,

It sucks,

Why did it have to happen today?

It's been beautiful all week.

Like we're just perpetuating those negative emotions.

With radical acceptance,

We're getting rid of those unhelpful attempts at trying to over-regulate our emotions and we really just want to be able to respond more flexibly.

So radical acceptance,

It's this extension of distress tolerance really,

Or learning to live with and tolerating that distress or whatever big feelings are coming up.

Or,

You know,

It could be uncertainty or fear or anger.

We're not trying to eliminate those feelings.

We're being able to accept them.

Okay,

It's here.

The anxiety is here,

But I'm still gonna go to the sleepover.

Because we know when we're actively fighting things like fear,

We might actually be reinforcing it.

It's just like if you've tried to go to sleep,

You just go to sleep,

Go to sleep.

It's really important.

I've got an important meeting.

I need to get a full night's sleep.

I mean,

The more you're trying to force it,

The worse it's going to be.

So radical acceptance is a wise mind.

That's a prefrontal cortex strategy when we can't change the situation because we don't have control over things like outcomes in most situations.

We can study for a test,

But we can't guarantee a specific outcome,

Right?

We can practice hard and do all the right things,

Mentally prepare,

Physically prepare for a hockey game,

But we really don't have any control over outcomes.

This is true in pretty much every situation.

So when we're going to tolerate distress,

We need to be able to accept what can be changed.

And that's,

What's going to help promote emotion regulation.

And it's going to help us feel more in control when we can focus more on what we can do,

Right?

What we can change or what we can do to maybe try to influence outcomes.

I mean,

That just helps us turn down the emotional dial a little bit.

We're not focusing on that though,

Although that does give us a more productive sort of focus.

So this is really,

You know,

Everything,

When I talk about emotion regulation,

This goes hand in hand with it,

Because people who are constantly affected by whatever is happening in their environment,

And they're always,

You know,

The victim,

They're always blaming external situations.

You made me mad,

Or they made me sad,

Or they did this.

I mean,

They're emotionally volatile,

Right?

They're not in control of their emotions.

Their internal emotional state is completely taken over and disrupted by those external events.

And so being able to regulate our emotions,

It really involves maintaining control over our reaction.

We don't have control over the thoughts,

Those automatic thoughts and feelings that come up,

But we definitely have control over our reaction,

No matter what's going on in the environment.

It's kind of like being able to,

No matter how good things go,

Or how terrible things are,

We've got to be able to maintain sort of that balance.

So this is why radical acceptance is really important.

It involves fully acknowledging reality as it is,

Without denial,

Without minimization,

Without any avoidance.

It's completely and totally embracing the reality of the situation,

Even if you disagree with it,

Even if you don't like it,

Even if it's really uncomfortable,

Right?

We've got to stop fighting what can't be changed.

We've got to stop fighting the storm or whatever else is going on.

It's not about giving up.

It's not becoming helpless.

It's not approving the situation,

Right?

Or it could be like a fork in the road.

There's two paths in front of you here.

One is resistance.

This is the road where you're fighting reality.

It's not fair.

It shouldn't be this way,

Right?

On this road,

You're spending your energy wishing things were different.

But because reality is still reality,

You get stuck and you're in more pain and more anger or more sad.

And so the outcome,

That pain just grows.

The emotions get bigger because you're carrying both the situation and the struggle against it.

But road two,

The other path is acceptance.

You know,

If you take that road,

This is where you say,

Well,

This is really hard.

I don't like it.

You can acknowledge that,

Right?

That it's hard.

I don't like it.

So what do I need to do?

We stop fighting reality.

Instead,

We can focus on what's in my control.

How do I want to respond?

How do I want to be right now?

How do I want others to think of me right now?

What helps me keep moving forward?

The outcome,

Well,

The pain is still there,

But it's not growing.

We're really freeing up energy to be able to cope and heal and problem solve and move forward.

And that's really important.

So the key teaching point here is that both roads involve pain.

We can't get rid of pain,

Because life always is going to bring up pain at some point in life,

Right?

But the road of acceptance,

It really helps you move forward without adding on all that extra suffering.

Pain plus resistance equals suffering.

Pain plus acceptance,

Well,

You get to have some control.

You get to choose your next step.

There's freedom there.

So I like actually drawing this out,

You know,

With the fork in the road,

With the two paths labeled resistance and acceptance.

On the resistance road,

Put a big storm cloud.

On the acceptance road,

Maybe you can draw a sunrise and we can talk about the choices.

We can fight reality,

Yelling,

Wishing it to go away,

Feeling stuck,

Or you can go down the road of saying,

I don't like this,

But it's real.

That road is hard too,

Yes,

But it lets you keep walking.

You're not stuck.

For teens,

I say,

I really stress,

It's not a racing.

I think that's where we keep going back to.

We keep trying to,

You know,

We're instilling these messages that we should always be happy.

We should never feel pain and that's not it.

But,

You know,

We're not going to erase that pain,

But now you've got your power back to choose what's next,

To finish out the rest of your day,

However you want to end your day.

And I do love Viktor Frankl.

I share so much about him.

I know I talk about him a lot,

But,

You know,

This is kind of his wheelhouse.

Now,

He wouldn't say he was practicing radical acceptance.

That's more of a modern term,

But his approach to surviving and to transcending,

You know,

The experience in the Nazi concentration camps does align with this.

Frankl did never deny the horror.

He never denied the suffering and the brutality of his circumstances.

He acknowledged that.

He describes all of it in very stark detail,

I would say.

I actually remember reading somewhere once too,

Where he commented that the optimists of the group were the ones who died because they were so focused on some outcome that they had zero control over.

For sure,

Christmas,

The war will be over and we will be saved and Christmas will come and go.

And then for sure,

You know,

The springtime,

It'll come and go.

And that's when they lost hope,

Right?

Because they were trying to control that outcome.

Frankl didn't waste his energy fighting against the fact that this was his reality.

Instead of focusing on why me,

This shouldn't be happening.

This is atrocious.

How can the world be doing this,

Right?

Those people just were building up and building up and building up all of this negative energy until they gave up.

There was no more hope.

And they just simply,

Literally gave up and died.

He turned to how can I live meaningful within this reality?

And obviously he was very limited in what he could do,

But what could he do meaningfully?

Well,

He was a doctor.

So he could go and see and take care and,

You know,

Check in on people and make some connections as best as he could.

So it's about choosing the attitude in uncontrollable circumstances.

I mean,

When we look at,

You know,

Frankl's famous insight,

There's a lot,

But he really said,

When we're no longer able to change a situation,

We are challenged to change ourselves.

Radical acceptance doesn't mean approval of the suffering or injustice.

I just,

I can't stress that enough,

But it's recognizing what can't be changed.

And then we're reclaiming our agency in how to respond.

And Frankl consistently emphasized the last human freedom is our ability to choose our attitude,

Even in the most dehumanizing conditions.

That's really the essence of radical acceptance,

Isn't it?

It's stopping the struggle against what is.

And we're focusing instead on where our influence still exists,

No matter how big or small that realm of influence,

You know,

That we have.

So when we're looking at radical acceptance,

It's allowing suffering to be tolerated without that escalation into additional pain,

Right?

Pain about the pain.

Now,

Frankl took this further.

He found meaning in the suffering.

So he's accepting it,

But he's finding meaning.

Reframe that suffering as an opportunity to live,

You know,

With courage,

With faith,

With love,

With dignity,

With whatever it was,

You know,

Whatever important values we have.

So for example,

He would describe how prisoners survived by holding on to inner images of loved ones.

So radical acceptance is,

It's about releasing the futile struggle to control the uncontrollable and focusing on what we can control.

And the other thing I talk a lot about is we're shifting from nouns and shifting from those outcomes to verbs and actions.

So even in a situation that seems completely unchangeable,

Frankl recognized that he couldn't determine whether he lived or die.

He didn't know if today was the day he would survive another day,

Or if he would die,

Or if his neighbor would,

You know,

Survive another day or die.

So he placed his emphasis on how he could live today.

And this is true.

We're only promised this moment in time.

We don't know what's going to happen in five minutes from now.

We don't know what's going to happen tomorrow.

We only have today in this moment and maybe not even the whole day.

So how can I live today?

Or how can I live this moment in alignment with my values?

So he avoided the despair and found strength in moments of purpose.

And this is really all about letting go of the outcomes.

We got to let go of the outcomes.

I've learned over the years and all my work and all my workshops and all my presentations,

All the podcasts that I do,

People want an outcome.

They want certainty that everyone is going to be happy.

My kids are going to be happy.

That's a trap.

We can't focus on the outcome.

And even when we do let go,

Actually my daughter just played,

She's U16.

So she's right now 14,

Almost to be 15.

And she got called up to the U19.

So now she's playing with the 16 to 19 year olds.

And her goalie also came along.

Now her goalie,

You know,

In league games,

She fumbles a little bit.

You know,

She definitely makes her mistakes,

But she was also called up with my daughter last night to this game.

She played phenomenally because her team,

So yes,

There was a team relying on her,

But she wasn't focused on the outcome of winning.

She knew she was itty bitty compared to these bigger girls.

She knew she was just there to help and have fun.

She was proud of being there,

Right?

And so we sort of let go of the outcome.

We're giving ourselves a break.

It's the same thing,

You know,

I've talked about choking,

For example,

In sports.

We see people,

Grad masters,

You know,

They choke at that very last hole.

They're about to win the masters.

I think that's what it's called in golf.

I'm not exactly sure,

But they're about to win.

They've done phenomenally all,

You know,

The whole golf tour,

And now it comes down to this hole and then they choke.

It's because they want it so desperately,

But when they can come to it,

It's just another hole.

It's just another game.

It's just another golf round,

Right?

Then it's a little bit easier.

It's not about the outcome.

It's not about being happy.

A lot of times parents will say,

My kids are so negative.

Help them see the lemonade,

Right?

Help them see the silver lining.

And I know I've talked a lot of,

You know,

In my earlier episodes about the fact that we've seen time and time again,

The research in everyday life.

The more we try to have that outcome to be happy,

For example,

The worse off we are.

The more we try to make ourselves happy,

The worse off we are.

Frankel saw this too.

The optimists were the first to die because a lot of those optimists in the camps who were holding tightly to the hope that they were going to be freed by God or whatever it was,

They died from despair.

They gave up because that despair just grew,

Right?

When that date passed and nothing changed,

The hopeful became hopeless.

Those optimists weren't practicing radical acceptance because their hope depended on some fixed external outcome.

No one has any control over any outcome.

You can only guarantee what two things,

Right?

Taxes and death are the only guarantees in life.

When the optimist expected outcome and that outcome failed,

Their psychological resources completely collapsed and their despair grew so big,

So profound,

It weakened their immune systems.

The human body and mind,

It can endure a lot of suffering if there's meaning,

If there's a reason.

But when hope's tied to a deadline and that deadline passes,

That resulting hopelessness can be worse than having no expectation at all.

Frankel literally saw men who just stopped eating.

They stopped moving.

They stopped caring for survival immediately after their date came up and went,

Right?

As soon as Christmas came and went and they were still not free,

They were literally giving up and any will to live was just completely gone.

They just gave it up.

So Frankel,

He did survive and it's because he didn't base his survival on those external circumstances.

He didn't have control over them.

So he couldn't base everything on there and we do this all the time.

Oh,

She makes me so mad.

You make me so frustrated.

Frankel didn't focus on release or liberation or some sort of political change.

He rooted meaning in his internal choices,

The freedom to choose his attitude towards the suffering.

He did have a future-oriented purpose beyond the camp,

Certainly,

Right?

He did look forward to reuniting with loved one.

He wanted to complete the book that he had.

He wanted to teach his ideas,

But it wasn't based on a specific outcome.

He did have a purpose.

And so what are things that I can do right now today that can help me towards that purpose?

And this is really radical acceptance.

It's acknowledging reality as it is unbearably harsh.

There's no denying that,

But he's still finding purpose within it.

And when we look at resilience,

Optimism without acceptance,

That oftentimes really becomes denial.

It's very fragile.

It's very breakable when reality isn't complying.

Acceptance with meaning,

That's what provides enduring resilience.

I may not control how this ends,

When this ends,

But I can control how I live through it.

And Frankel,

He talks about those who have a why can bear almost any how.

Those who have a why,

In this case,

A why to live,

They can bear with any how.

And that's really what we want to focus on.

And if we do see really traumatic events and we see people with this post-traumatic growth,

They're not just surviving.

Frankel certainly didn't just survive.

If he just survived,

We likely wouldn't even know him,

Right?

We wouldn't know him globally around the world.

He thrived beyond that survival.

And so when we can fully embody that radical acceptance,

It helps us with whatever enduring suffering we're actually undergoing.

And most of us these days,

I mean,

There are a lot of horrors in the world,

But if you're listening to this podcast,

There's probably a good chance you're not living or have ever experienced anything like a concentration camp,

Right?

But nonetheless,

We can still endure whatever suffering we're going through and we can transcend.

After liberation,

Frankel transformed that suffering into logotherapy.

He wanted to help people find meaning in life,

Even in unavoidable suffering.

He used that suffering as raw material for purpose,

For connection,

For wisdom.

And so when we look at Frankel,

I mean,

He's really the epitome of acceptance.

This is acceptance in action,

Fully acknowledging the suffering,

Surrendering against the struggle,

Surrendering against what can't be changed and shifting his focus to meaning,

To values,

To connection,

To a chosen attitude.

He didn't collapse under really terrible circumstances.

He accepted reality,

Infused it with some personal meaning,

And then he could transcend those circumstances.

So a lot to think about,

A lot to think about for our own lives.

And then we can teach it to,

You know,

This radical acceptance to kids,

But we need to really embrace this ourselves.

And so how can we start living meaningfully and modeling this in front of our kids?

We can start by talking about dialectical thinking for acceptance.

So,

You know,

We're teaching them that dialectics means finding balance between seeming opposites.

So in the context of distress tolerance,

This means finding balance between accepting what is a thunderstorm during my birthday party and focusing on what can be,

You know,

In terms of our control,

What can be changed.

So we're looking,

You know,

Both sides of the thinking here,

Which involves using and instead of but.

We're avoiding using absolute words like always and never.

We're using I statements.

So these are the things we can already be teaching and really modeling and embodying,

Right?

And the kids are seeing us do this,

You know,

They'll start believing it and doing it too.

So you could also have them practice identifying dialectical statements by changing but to and.

This is hard and I can handle it.

I'm feeling upset and it's okay,

This is normal.

Or,

You know,

I can be uncomfortable and still be brave.

Or this is hard,

I can't change it and I can still move forward.

There's still something I can do.

It's really helpful to write these down,

Really make things visual.

So having a poster with sort of self-coaching phrases that kids can use,

You know,

Ones that they like and that they're picking up.

Coping cards,

Somewhere to remind themselves.

We can introduce yet I sort of mindset.

So that's allowing them to accept who they are while recognizing that they can still make changes.

So for example,

You know,

I can't have my outdoor birthday party because of the thunderstorm.

And I still get to have pancakes for breakfast,

Right?

Or I can't go to the parade because of the rain.

Yet I can go swimming with a friend.

So those types of things can be really helpful.

And even,

You know,

I'm really trying to write,

I do a lot of psychoeducational reports and assessments.

And,

You know,

I don't talk about they have weaknesses in,

You know,

I talk about they haven't yet learned this.

They're still developing these things,

Right?

So yes,

It's hard.

And these are things that they're working on.

I really like having a three circle Venn diagram where we're writing things that they're successful with on the far right circle,

Things that they have mastered that they really enjoy.

You can write that in pen.

And then in the far left circle,

The things that they're practicing or working on or the things that are really hard in the left and then in the middle,

The things that they're practicing or working on.

We wanna have a success tracker or skills to log so that they can actually see their progress because anxiety and big emotions likes them to forget their past successes.

And so it's a great way to remind themselves of this balanced view,

Right?

I'm not there yet.

There's still more to come and I'm working on it and I'm tracking my progress.

That way they get to start seeing,

To start believing the yet part of this.

And they can see,

We can even start with,

You know,

Can you walk?

Well,

Yeah.

Were you born knowing how to not walk?

Well,

No.

Okay,

So that would have been in the far left.

You did not know,

You did not have this skill and then you worked on it,

Which is in the middle and now you do.

So you didn't have it yet,

But now you do.

What do you wanna work on now that you don't have yet,

But you do want it?

We wanna solidify their learning and build self-efficacy.

So this is really a good way to do it,

Right?

And maybe you can create a board with all the hows.

How did you do that?

What did you do?

How did you get through this upsetting situation?

Or even like learning,

I think I've used this example before.

You know,

You probably got frustrated the first time you learned a video game,

But now you're on level 22.

How did you get there?

And they're gonna list off all the things that they did and probably great strategies that we can use elsewhere,

Right?

How did you manage your frustration?

Well,

I just went,

Oh,

I,

You know,

I made some fists and I went,

Ah,

And I said,

It's okay.

I'm gonna go back to the YouTube dude who knows this game and I'm gonna see what tips he has.

And then I'm gonna bring it back to the game and I'm gonna practice it.

Hey,

So there was a self-coaching thing and there was a action that they could take when they were frustrated.

So we can turn specifically to teach radical acceptance so kids can understand that some of the things are out of their control and fighting them only makes us feel worse.

And depending on any,

You know,

Their age,

You could talk about radical acceptance in different ways,

Right?

So it really means saying,

This is it.

This is how it is right now,

Even if I don't like it.

So we can think about,

You know,

How we shift the language.

We can think about metaphors,

Different kid-friendly metaphors.

I often talk about quicksand a lot in a lot of my workshops.

So the more you struggle in that quicksand,

The more you sink.

Whereas if you starfish out,

Right?

You completely laid back.

Now you release yourself.

So that's radical acceptance.

I'm here and I'm gonna fully embrace it and then I can get myself out.

Or the Chinese finger trap,

The more you struggle to get out of it,

The more you get trapped,

Right?

Or standing in the rain.

You can fight the rain.

You can yell at the sky,

But you're still gonna get wet.

Or you can accept the rain,

Acknowledge that it sucks and put on a raincoat and then you can go dance in the puddles with one kid,

Young kids,

You can use different examples and then show them pictures,

Right?

So maybe a kid frowning in the rain,

Who's all upset,

But then a kid who's playing in the rain and making mud puddles or whatever.

And then we can ask,

Who's practicing radical acceptance?

So we're teaching them that concept.

Having really strong,

Memorable images are helpful.

You know,

So maybe you push against a huge rock,

But it's not moving.

Fighting it just makes you tired.

Sitting on it,

Resting on it,

That's radical acceptance.

Or you can tell stories.

Maybe you're in a traffic jam and you can honk and you can yell,

But the cars aren't gonna move any faster.

We gotta accept it.

And what can you do when you accept it?

Maybe we choose to listen to music.

That's a big one for me.

I hate a traffic.

I would go out like at three o'clock in the morning just to avoid anybody else on the road.

But,

You know,

That wasn't always feasible.

And so if I was stuck in traffic,

Then I would have a really great podcast.

So now I'm gonna listen to that whole podcast and even just changing the energy.

Yes,

I'm so happy that there was a trap.

I was hoping this traffic jam would happen today,

Even if I didn't really,

Right?

But we can change that energy.

And now I have,

You know,

I'm looking forward to listening to the rest of this great podcast episode.

I remember living in Australia for a while and staying in the outback and there were some indigenous folks there.

And one of the stories that they told that always stuck with me about how this group of young men,

They were driving in this hot desert,

Like way out in the outback and their car broke down and they're in the middle of nowhere.

There's no cell service or anything.

And so they went and found a tree to sit under.

And then these white people drove by and yelled at them.

And some,

Like there was a few cars of white people in one car.

They actually threw garbage out them and told them,

You know,

Like how lazy they were.

And they talked about how so many foreigners would talk about them like that,

You know,

That they were lazy or whatever terrible things.

But in their mind,

They were,

We're going to exhaust ourselves.

We're going to dehydrate ourselves.

We're going to become delirious if we start walking.

It's not safe to start walking.

We need to preserve our energy.

They had hoped one of the passerbyers would actually help them,

But they can't guarantee that.

And so they're not going to go out of their way and start yelling at them and wasting their energy.

They're preserving their energy because they don't know how long they have to be up out there,

Right?

And they have to come up with a plan or two.

And so like plan A,

Plan B,

Plan C.

And so,

You know,

What's a reasonable time?

What is it like?

It's the heat of the day,

The middle of the heat of the day.

Now is not the time to get up and try to figure things out.

We're going to wait until it gets a little bit cooler.

We're going to wait.

We know people know that we're here.

And if we're not checking in within a couple of hours,

We know that people will start coming to look for us,

Right?

Or whatever that is.

And if we're all moving around,

We're not going to find each other.

Even in everyday life,

In the high heat of the day,

Right?

With everyone going about their busyness,

They're going to get sunburned,

They're going to get heatstroke,

And,

And,

And,

And,

And.

So anyways,

I just think about that,

You know,

That's a good reminder because I think I would,

You know,

If I broke down,

I'd be like,

Oh my gosh,

I'm going to start walking to the closest village,

Right?

And then I probably would have been hooped,

Completely sunburned,

Completely dehydrated.

So I take a bit of a sidetrack.

I apologize for that.

But I just think about that.

So we want to talk about stories and we always want to bring it back to why did I share this story?

What is your takeaway from this?

What connections can you see in your own life?

I don't share stories and then follow up with you need to do this or that.

They have to come to their own learning,

Their own sort of wisdom.

And then they can turn the mind,

You know,

We can look at an inactive choice to shift our thoughts to acceptance.

It's all a matter of perspective,

Really at the end of the day.

That's what it is.

So you can use an object that looks different from various angles,

Like a teddy bear or a dog or just a chair and have kids describe it from their unique perspective.

I just think of the three blind men,

Right?

Who are at different parts of the elephant and they all think that they're touching very different things.

But we can see we're focusing on the facts to show them how many different ways we can look at the exact same thing.

And it can be very different perspective.

Right?

And so one perspective,

We can just lead to acceptance.

Even if you see something completely different,

Can lead to acceptance.

Actually,

This morning,

There were,

I could see the Northern Lights very clearly,

Very beautifully.

It was really interesting for myself.

All I saw was white,

Just look like rays of white,

Like through the pitch black,

These rays of white.

My husband was like,

Oh my gosh,

It's green and it's red.

It was red and green and purple and all of these different colors.

And I'm like,

I can't see that.

But I can get upset and I could be annoyed and I could say he's lying,

Right?

Or sad,

Like,

Why can't I see these colors?

Right?

But it was,

I wanted to still,

It was still beautiful.

It was still amazing.

It took up the entire sky.

It was only for like five minutes.

It was just absolutely incredible.

And so I sat there with the,

Ah,

Sure I'm disappointed that I didn't see the colors.

But what's actually interesting is he took some pictures and videos and I can see the colors in the video.

So I did get to,

But in the moment,

Sure there's disappointment,

But I'm not gonna struggle with the pain of that.

I'm going to accept it.

So willingness is really important here too,

Isn't it?

Doing the best with what we have,

Even in really difficult or unfair situations.

And you could also have different scenarios where kids read through them,

You know,

And they're writing or talking about how they would radically accept the situation by focusing on what they can control or what they can accept.

I personally would start with something broad and then sort of narrow in and more and more specifically to situations that are directly within their experiences.

So broadly,

The rain is a good one because everybody can,

You know,

Kind of relate to that example.

You know,

So a rainstorm during their big birthday party or during a big city parade,

People are excited about it.

And we can ask,

Can you stop the rain?

Well,

No,

You know,

So radical acceptance would really be about what can we say?

What can we do?

The rain is outside of our control.

I can accept that.

Maybe the parade or my birthday party is canceled.

But how am I going to spend the rest of my day instead?

The control,

You know,

We're focusing on what we could be doing.

What's a fun activity that I can do at home instead?

And now I get two fun days of activities.

Something a little bit more relevant to something that could be potentially upsetting with them.

Well,

I mean,

The rain and a parade or somebody's birthday,

That's a broad example.

You don't want to use their specific,

But now we're going to bring it into something more specific for them.

So maybe their teacher changes the classroom seating,

Right?

And the question,

You know,

Can you force your teacher to put you back to your next,

Next to your best friend?

Well,

Maybe you could try,

But we can't actually guarantee that outcome.

So the radical acceptance practice would be,

You know,

The teacher chose the seats.

I can accept this and still find ways to connect with my friend.

So the control focus piece is how am I going to react?

I can be polite about the change.

I can use recess or after school to talk with my friend,

Or I can put up a fight and get sent to the principal's office,

Right?

Or maybe your soccer game is canceled because the field's too muddy.

So the question,

Can you make the field dry?

Radical acceptance is saying,

Nope,

The game is canceled.

I don't have control over that.

So I have to accept it and choose another way to enjoy my time.

So the control focus,

Right?

Maybe you're practicing kicks at home.

You're playing a board game as a family or just doing something fun as a family.

And then we get more and more direct to really more emotional experiences with things that could upset them.

So maybe they're studying really hard for a test,

But they don't get the grade they wanted.

So the question,

Can you go back in time and change the answers or change your grade?

Radical acceptance,

No,

I can accept the grade I got.

I can't change it for now,

But I can learn from what I missed.

And now I'm going to use that as a study guide to help me study for my next test.

The control focus,

We're asking questions,

Right?

Maybe they're practicing more for next time.

Maybe they're focusing on progress,

Right?

Whatever it is that they're going to do.

Maybe a friend doesn't invite them to a birthday party.

So the question we ask,

Can you make them invite you?

Radical acceptance,

I can't control their choices.

I can accept the fact that I wasn't invited,

But I can still take care of myself.

I'm going to go find another friend to spend time with,

Or I'm going to go see that movie I finally wanted to see,

Or I'm going to hang out with you,

Right?

The control focus,

How are you going to respond,

Right?

You've got all of these feelings of sadness,

Certainly,

Right?

Are you going to share those feelings?

Are you going to spend time with other friends or do something kind for yourself?

So there's lots of different things.

We can bring this back to help them teach,

You know,

Have them learn how they can identify what they can control,

What they can't control.

And with those things that they can't control,

Not add more pain and disappointment and suffering with it,

Right?

Teens and adults,

I mean,

If you do your Venn diagram,

But usually in a tricky situation,

I might have just two circles.

So one inside the other,

Just with that control,

Everything that's going on in my life,

What is in my control,

What's out of my control,

Right?

And being able to problem solve those types of things.

If it's raining with younger kids,

What can I do?

I can share my toys.

If your teacher gave you homework,

What can I do?

I have no idea what to do.

I could ask for help,

Right?

Just lots of meaningful types of situations.

I feel like I'm rambling here,

But we can look at what can we do in this situation versus what can't we control where we might get stuck.

And just asking those open-ended questions are really important.

We can practice just saying yes to reality.

So,

You know,

I don't like it,

But I know I can handle it.

That's really radical acceptance.

Everything that I've already been talking about.

We want kids practicing this out loud.

Maybe they're doing something physical,

Like having a hand over their heart.

I don't know.

But the more they like visualize and feel and do something and say something,

They're really teaching their brain.

And you can even role play different frustrations,

Right?

I wanted the blue marker,

But now,

You know,

It's gone.

I don't have it.

I don't like it,

But I can handle it,

Right?

So we can start moving towards more and more different types of things.

So lots of different ideas.

I'll put some ideas in the show notes.

At the end of the day,

We just really want to make sure we're practicing this so we can build a habit.

We can't wait for big emotions to show up for them to practice their skills.

We absolutely want to make sure that they're using them,

But we got to teach it first and then have lots of daily practice and reflection.

Put them in the situations.

There's probably lots of times that they are able to manage.

Well,

Really focus in.

How are you managing this uncontrollable situation,

Right?

Where are you already accepting things?

Because I bet there's lots of little moments,

Right?

So maybe at the end of the day,

You're asking,

What's one thing today that you didn't like how it went?

You had to accept it.

How did you handle it?

Maybe you can have a radical acceptance chart where kids are writing down,

You know,

Situation they might not have liked,

But they just accepted it.

And now we're going to celebrate our weekly progress.

And of course,

We're going to be modeling it throughout the day,

Throughout the week as well.

There's lots of things that we have to accept at the end of the day,

Right?

Maybe we had important pictures that we had to do.

My hair was all nice and it rained and I didn't like it,

But this is how I handled it,

Right?

Or there was a traffic jam,

Didn't like it,

But this is how I handled it.

So we want to make sure we're modeling lots of practice for them and applying that radical acceptance to those naturally occurring events that they can't control.

That's going to be really important.

Is this a rain problem or an umbrella problem,

Right?

So the rain problem out of our control,

Umbrella problem,

It's something that we can do and always make sure we reinforce their attempts.

You didn't like losing that game,

But you said,

You know,

Okay,

It's not a big deal.

We still get to go out for our team breakfast.

That's radical acceptance.

So we're always starting with the cognitive understanding of what's going on,

But then we're going into the practice of radical acceptance,

Especially when those big emotions come up.

But I will leave it there for today.

I feel like I've been doing lots of rambling,

Lots of repetitiveness,

But there's lots here and I really wanted to make sure we're solidifying that message.

So help those kiddos be bold and courageous and I will see you next time.