Radical Acceptance: Attend, Allow, and Acknowledge the Possibilities

In this episode of the Simple & Deep podcast, host Wysteria Edwards explores the profound practice of radical acceptance. Together, we’ll unpack the complexities of acknowledging what has already gone, releasing control, and allowing ourselves to grieve and grow. Wysteria dives into the challenges of change, betrayal, and unfulfilled dreams, sharing insights on how radical acceptance can transform how we experience life’s pivots.

Topics Covered:

• The emotional journey of accepting loss and change
• Embracing radical acceptance by focusing on the present
• Real-life stories of grief, resilience, and finding hope
• Techniques for becoming aware of emotions through the body
• The significance of secure attachment, hope, and love in healing
• How to move forward without getting trapped in the past

Referenced Resources:

• The Pivot Year – A 365-day journey through daily reflections that encourage growth and transformation. Link to The Pivot Year
• Simple & Deep Emotions Wheel – Download this visual guide to help you recognize and name your emotions as you navigate radical acceptance.
• 10 Steps to Radical Acceptance – Follow these steps to learn how to attend, allow, and acknowledge your experiences. DOWNLOAD HERE

Additional Resources:
For more information, or to explore attachment-based coaching, visit Simple & Deep Coaching & Consulting.

Takeaway Message:
By acknowledging the reality of what we can’t control, and choosing to experience life as it is, we can release suffering, deepen our resilience, and rediscover hope. Radical acceptance invites us to honor our emotions and find peace in life’s ever-evolving journey.

Chapters

• 0:03 Radical Acceptance and Moving Forward
• 15:09 Journey to Radical Acceptance

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Welcome to the Simple and Deep podcast where we delve into attachment stories and intentional living. I'm your host, wisteria Edwards, and I'm thrilled to have you here with me today. We'll be exploring the depths of all of these topics together, sharing insights and unlocking the power hidden within your story. Let's get started. I don't know about you. I have a really hard time accepting the death of a dream or the death of a friendship or change, because change is lost, regardless if it's something we've been looking forward to or not, something that we were expecting or something that caught us off guard. It's still difficult to feel as if we are losing something, but one of the greatest components of radical acceptance is coming to a place within ourselves where we can just acknowledge what factually happened, not how we are reading it or how we are interpreting it based upon our story, but really just an acknowledgement that it happened and that we have to decide what we're going to do next. I've been really encouraged in the season that I'm in, which I would call the pivot. I don't know if many of you have gone through that. If you live as long as I have, which is 47 years now, you have had many pivots in your life transitions from one stage to the next. Oftentimes, when we have a tremendous amount of growth, we're gonna need a period that feels like we're getting stale, but it's really a resting place where we can actually catch our breath and rejuvenate.

Speaker 1: 1:56

One of my favorite books in this season that I'm in is the Pivot Year, and I will also link that in the show notes, and what's wonderful about this book is that it doesn't go by page number, it goes by days, so it's 365 days for one year, and one of the ones that really stuck out to me was on day 102. It says this you are meant to change. You are meant to change your mind. You are meant to change your perception. You are meant to change what you think you want within this world. You are meant to evolve and you are meant to adapt. You are meant to grow. You are meant to shed old layers. You are meant to let go. The body is designed to digest and metabolize and renew itself, cell by cell and thought by thought. Trust the process. Realize that we don't ever really have to let go. We just have to accept what's already gone. We don't have to grieve what we think that the world took, but to remember that whatever beauty we grow within our lives is still within us and wherever we go, whatever we do next, we will grow it. There too, everything that's truly meant for you will be waiting for you on the other side, because everything that's truly meant for you is still within you. It always has been. That is so good.

Speaker 1: 3:18

The thing that really hit me square between the eyes was this phrase we just have to accept what's already gone. Back in March, I had kind of an awakening on the edge of betrayals and just disappointment, if you've ever stood in the middle of a crossroads where someone was not who you believe that they were to be or many people in my case and you're like well, what next? What next, god? Where am I going from this moment on? Because now I'm never going to be the same. But when I came across that phrase that we have to acknowledge what is already gone, I was able to backtrack in my mind over the last four years, ways that parts of my love for what I was doing in the classroom was starting to die because of many different components. And it's not that I have lost my love for teaching, but I have lost the desire to jump through countless hoops just to be able to do what I know I do well with children, which is attune and attach with them and bond with them. So, luckily for me, I had some enemies, I had people that wanted to betray me, and so what's interesting about that and I say it's sarcastically right? But I do believe that there are times in our lives where we have to be real with ourselves. Is something already gone and are we doing something to add to our suffering because of that?

Speaker 1: 4:54

We play roles, we have names. I'm a teacher, I'm a doctor, I'm a mother, I'm a friend. All of those things are labels and names that we live into, whether they were given to us or not. I'm a friend. All of those things are labels and names that we live into, whether they were given to us or not. I'm an only child. Perhaps you're the oldest sister or the little brother or whatever it might be. That is your name, and I bet if you were to list all the different names that you have, including nicknames, you're going to realize that you have many different roles that you play.

Speaker 1: 5:22

We define ourselves by these roles, that you have many different roles that you play, we define ourselves by these roles, and I would go on a limb by saying that we possibly have enmeshed or entangled into these roles so acutely that to sever ourselves from these roles whether it's a job or a location, a church, whatever it might be literally feels like a death, because it is my work at the Allender Center recently is just profound. And one of the things that's really sticking out to me was they said that when we actually enter into grief and lament, it breaks us open and with that we become very honest with who we are and what we are losing. And that's why they would bring professional whalers in for grief in other cultures, because grief and lament is meant, felt and when we lose something or when something or someone dies, we need to acknowledge it, mourn it, grieve it, scream about it, cry about it and stop just acting like it didn't happen. And also we put so much of our big kid judgment on it as a small child, if something hurt you, you reacted it was honest. That's what's so cool about kids is that they just are so honest about the fact that they're angry or that they're sad, until they realize that that's not going to work for them, but if they're in a place where they really do feel authentically safe in their bodies and their hearts. They're going to show you exactly what they think, and that's been a tremendous gift to me, because now I'm able to say I'm sad, or today was hard, or I'm scared. I don't know what's next being able to be honest with those things.

Speaker 1: 7:18

So Tara Brock says that radical acceptance is the willingness to experience ourselves and our lives as is. How are you experiencing your life? Radical acceptance rests on letting go of the illusion that we are at all in control of our lives and a willingness to just notice and accept that things are right now just what they are, without judging them. So how do you get around the betrayal of a friend or a spouse? How do you get around abuse that you suffered as a child and that person is still around? How do you get around the disappointment that you feel over your own choices? We walk ourselves through radical acceptance, and that is really the key. If there is something that is already gone, it might be your ideal of what the situation was going to be, your expectations for that friend, that marriage, that job.

Speaker 1: 8:17

I had to tell myself the truth, not what I wanted to think, but what I wanted to do, it just was. Then we have a choice to make. So I'm observing that there's going to be some cognitive dissonance. It's what you collides with what you wanted to true or you thought was true. It is us. It's just like a mind blow, right. Then there's the reality of it, like what happens now and then why did this happen? And we can get stuck in the weeds.

Speaker 1: 8:49

I don't know if any of you have ever watched a documentary about a true crime and that the person's loved one is murdered and then it's senseless. It makes no sense and they're constantly trying to ask why, why did you do this? To the perpetrator and, of course, to keep a little bit of the control. Most of the time, traitor. One won't tell them why, sometimes won't even tell them where the body is located. And then at the end of their life, if they actually go through the process and they are put to death, like many of them are oftentimes, they go to their grave never telling the truth about what happened. I think it's probably about 90 to 98% of the time.

Speaker 1: 9:28

You'll hear one of the people that's being interviewed say and it didn't make me feel any better when they were gone, because what's the truth? What's the fact? The person you loved that was taken so violently from you is still gone. The choices that they made are now affecting me here. Now I can go over and over again what I could have done differently, which I think is important we talked about that listing out the roots of what it would be like for us to go through this process of radically accepting it, and also the reality of did I contribute to that or could I have made it better? And most of the time we could say yes, but what is the reality now? It's not like you're probably going to retrace your steps and make that better, because a lot of times we cannot go back, so the only place we can move is forward. So how are you contributing to your own suffering?

Speaker 1: 10:29

In one of my recent coaching experiences and consulting, I met a woman who has gone through the grief of losing her life. They did not actually marry, but they'd been together for over 30 years. When he died, his family, including his sisters, turned on her and said well, you were never part of the family, we don't really like you and it was devastating to her. She's sharing this story with me and her best friend was sitting there talking about how difficult it has been for her to watch her friend grieving the way she is, as well as she's grieving the grandchildren that his children have. That have been a part of her life, their entire lives, and now she can only see them on Facebook. Have you ever watched someone on Facebook? Have you ever gone into someone's social media to convince yourself that maybe you can see through their smiles or you can see through the background what's really going on?

Speaker 1: 11:29

The reason we do that is because we have experienced some type of relational trauma and our trauma is going to seek out understanding, especially if we have been blindsided by it, because that's what trauma does is. It kind of takes us by surprise, knocks us on our butts and oftentimes we don't know how to make sense of it. One of the things I've learned is we just acknowledge you are in trauma. So when something traumatic occurs, it's missing one of three elements, if not all three faith, hope or love. That's a classic scripture in the Bible. Or love. That's a classic scripture in the Bible, especially in 1 Corinthians 13, when they're talking about love. But taking it further into our understanding of trauma really helps me understand not only story but how to radically accept what we lost.

Speaker 1: 12:22

Faith is secure attachment. It's the ability to know that we are seen, we are heard, we are known, that we are safe in another person's presence, that they get us and understand us and that we are safe with them, not just physically but emotionally safe. We can bring all that we are and they love us. That is security and that is faith. Believing that when we come to that person, that they are really there for us, that is security and that is faith. Believing that when we come to that person no-transcript.

Speaker 1: 12:57

Now, hope is the defiant belief, desire and understanding that, even though this moment is hard, something good is coming, something good is chasing us, something wants to catch us, that life is not all bad, but sometimes it is hard. But if we have people with us that love us, we can get through anything. But what if that person was the person who betrayed us? Have we lost hope? Are they able to contain pain? No, they've caused it. Or perhaps our reactions to things that have happened are repelling other people who are trying to love us and help us accept what's already gone, what's over, but we are so angry it's pushing the people who love us away. Can you bring all that you are to the people who are your people. And if you don't have someone like that, it's imperative that you find someone. Start with a therapist, start with a coach. We do coaching here at Simple and Deep. You need to have some people who will love into your life and see you for who you are, and the first person that you start with is yourself. And the last component faith, hope and then love.

Speaker 1: 14:19

One of the key components to loving someone is being willing to repair when you have broken something in the relationship. Do you have people who will come alongside you and repair things? And are you willing to repair when things go wrong? Sometimes our radical acceptance is our willingness to repair. But also, if we've been in chaotic, traumatizing or abusive situations, one of the ways that we repair it is possibly to go no contact, as wild as that seems to our brain, it's literally to stop waging war, to stop playing into abusive and antagonistic situations, because it's not going to go anywhere and I think we know who those people are. No matter how much we love them, it's not going to make it better, and so we are suffering.

Speaker 1: 15:09

So this particular person. When I talked to her and she shared her story with me. I asked her that same question Is it possible, as hard as it is, to see the pictures and you want to know what's going on? Could that be adding to your suffering? She paused and thought about it and I'm learning to not always fix it, which I'm an automatic fixer because of children. So that is my own journey of trying to figure out how to just contain it, which is hope. Hope that she can come to her own conclusion, not mine, but the one that's right for her, the one that's hidden within her, that will help her heal.

Speaker 1: 15:56

Because it's not about, oftentimes, saying the story, it's about the person just telling the story and allowing it to be exactly what it is. Even now, it's just kind of blowing my mind that there were times where I would try to jump in, and I have wonderful people in my life that are willing to say, hey, I really don't need your help with this, I just need you to listen. But not just listen to receive it like a precious gift, because that's what our stories are, even the things we're still trying to make sense of right. So as we go through this process of radically accepting, we tend to how we feel in our body. So, for instance, if I'm scrolling through Instagram and I find somebody in there that's really upsetting me, or I'm reminded of something that hurt what's going on in my body? Where am I feeling it in my body?

Speaker 1: 16:52

Now, if you were to see you're a child and you were to come out as avoidant, this is going to be a lot more difficult for you, because you've tried to shut that part of your brain off as a young child. You are not allowed to bring your feelings versus your actions. So you're going to be able to be clearly defining the actions that happen in a sequence, but it's going to be more difficult for you to attend to the feeling body, whether it's that you become warm or you start to get tense in your jaw or your tummy clenches. All of those things are going to make it more difficult. We have a feelings wheel that you can definitely download off of the podcast as well, and that will help you key in on the basic feelings that you could have and then go deeper. So recognizing that our body is holding the memory of things that happened to us way before we had the words to identify what it was, and we have to welcome ourselves home to our bodies in a way that we are able to say I don't know what I feel there, but I'm going to remain curious about it and notice it. You might not be able to label it right away, and that's okay.

Speaker 1: 18:13

Again, the pivot year says when our desires are not directly expressed, they tend to manifest into subconscious, maladaptive, insidious ways. What's within needs a way out. And when those desires arrive into willing hands, our minds are given a chance to find the healthiest way to fulfill those deepest needs, because it takes courage to identify our shortcomings and to name our failures and attempt to rise beyond them, and that's going to define the edges of our heart and the depths of our soul. It is not whether or not that we have ever made a wrong turn, but whether or not we are willing to find our way back to the past, because life is not easy. It's messy. So, as you are defining what it is going on in your body and attending to that, you need to allow it to be what it is.

Speaker 1: 19:07

Oftentimes I hear people try to discredit their pain or minimize it. Or it's not that big of a deal, but my mom did the best job that she knew how to do or things were hard. Then we give excuses because the narrative is so freaking hard for us to accept that someone that loves us could hurt us, someone that we trusted could betray us, someone that we believed in let us own. So we come up with our own ideas of why that was okay to happen. Right then, and the younger we were, we really had to come up with an idea about it because that was the only way we were going to survive.

Speaker 1: 19:44

We have to allow the grief, the sadness, the rage, the disappointment to actually be felt. Don't suppress it. Address it. So if you're finding that you're having enormous feelings about something that seems like you believe that it would be minor, just notice why, or you don't know how to name it then go ahead and just start journaling about it, writing to it. Is it a younger part of you? I recognized in recent story work that I really have not spent a lot of time with who I was as a 12, 13-year-old girl because I've spent so much time with my preschool to about first, second, third grade self, because that's where I live, that was my wheelhouse. So now I need to go back to that awkward middle school girl and spend some time with that rage because it needs to be addressed. As we address it, we're acknowledging that hope, that life really is worth living, that there is something on the other side of grief.

Speaker 1: 20:50

But we cannot cut corners. To fully grieve is to enter in. To enter in and allow God to comfort us, to let grief not overtake us. The Irish have a saying that grief is upon me. I am not grief, but it's upon me like a thick coat or a heavy rain. But what do we know about rain? It eventually goes away. And what do we know about sadness? It might always be there, but it's not as tender.

Speaker 1: 21:33

If we dig the wound out and clean it, we make sure it doesn't get infected. We make sure that we don't put a bunch of junk in there to try to make it better. If it's an open wound, I'm not going to do certain things to it because it's actually going to make it worse. And that's what we have to do to not pack our wound with cheap substitutes. The last part is really to look at the pros and cons, when we find ourselves ruminating, when we find ourselves unwilling to budge, unwilling to accept Because really the only person we can control is ourselves, not the other person.

Speaker 1: 22:07

This process of radical acceptance is a beautiful gift because it also chisels us into becoming more resilient, and not just resilient because we have to be resilient, because we want to be that. We don't want to carry around things that were never ours to carry. We didn't carry baggage that is not ours, and part of that sometimes is to radically accept our story, that there are parts of our story that we want to put to the side, that we do not want to engage. We do not want to talk about what happened on our eighth birthday, because we know that if we start talking about that, it's going to be so freaking hard and then everything is going to come out and I might not be able to pack it up again into a nice tidy box. But that is why we exist as Simple and Deep, because simple things can set us free, as simple and deep because simple things can set us free. But also when we're set free, it goes very deep, it goes to the core of who we are, and by no means standing here saying that I have all of it figured out. But this is what set me free, the more I think about the possibilities of why it keeps me spinning wheels and I never move forward.

Speaker 1: 23:25

I heard this incredible story recently about an eagle. Eagles usually only live between 13 and 15 years, but about year 13, their entire body has worn out. If you get nothing else from this podcast, just remember this, because it's just the coolest thing. If the eagle chooses not to go through this rebirthing process, they will die because they're not able to catch food. Their beak is completely dull. They're a bird of prey, so they need that really sharp beak. They need the really sharp talons, which are also dull, and their feathers are no longer insulating them. They have a choice to make. The eagle usually will fly as high as it can up into the mountains and for 150 days it will break off its own beak on the rocks, it will pull out its own talons and it will pluck its own feathers. Can you imagine a bald eagle doing that to their bodies? But to me it's such a picture of grief as well as a pivot. Not just where are we going to eat tonight, but a pivot that is so excruciating, so defining A pivot that is so excruciating, so defining, so mind-blowing that you literally are going to remember where you were and where you step into. It is that big of a deal.

Speaker 1: 24:53

As I left my classroom, I took a picture of my feet While I was writing my book, waiting for Mr Rogers. Anytime I would step into rooms that Mr Rogers had been in, or near his puppets and his sweaters. I would take pictures of my feet, reminding myself that I was walking into my purpose, walking into something new. I stood in the middle of my empty classroom and I took a picture of my feet because I was taking a step in faith, believing that people like you and children need to know how to handle big emotions. They need me to come alongside to hold space, to give hope, that containment. It's frightening, it's like breaking off everything that I ever knew and it's been one of the scariest things I've ever done in my life.

Speaker 1: 25:48

But I heard this beautiful story of the bald eagle and I thought about the very last day. I saw my students. I looked at my phone for the date, because you forget what day it is when you're not teaching or looking at the date all day and it had been 142 days and that day alone, just seeing that number reminded me. I'm not always going to be sad, but we get to that point of recognizing where it is that we can basically stop and die where we're at or we can move forward. So that is my hope for you that you would know that it is possible. Thank you for tuning into this episode of Simple and Deep Podcast. I hope that you enjoyed our conversation and found it enlightening and empowering. Remember by understanding, attachment, engaging your story and living intentionally, we can transform our lives. Feel free to reach out with any questions you might have and remember until next time, take care of yourself because you are important.