Congratulations. It’s You, Not Them.
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If I’ve learned one thing in my career as a Professional Coach, it’s this: all change begins with Radical Acceptance. Think back on your life and identify one meaningful change you made that stayed with you. I promise you—it started with fully (and often painfully) accepting your current reality.
Radical Acceptance is necessary, but not sufficient, to create the changes so many of us long for in our everyday lives. And importantly, it’s the required precursor to Radical Responsibility—the practice of taking full ownership of any situation we find ourselves in.
Trust me, this is one of the most challenging practices to learn, but it is also the beginning of seeing ourselves as part of the solution instead of part of the problem. It’s recognizing that while we may or may not be to blame for the situation, we are 100% in control of how we respond to it.
Literally, response-able.
If you’ve been wondering whether a better life is possible for you—and if you have a nagging feeling that you might be the one standing in your own way—congratulations. You’re already pretty far along in the school of life.
But if you want more for yourself—more ease, joy, productivity, money, success, achievement, or satisfying relationships—and deep down you believe it’s other people who are getting in your way, then mastering the art of Radical Acceptance and Radical Responsibility will be a true game-changer for you.
You see, practicing Radical Acceptance teaches us to first and foremost allow others to be themselves. Only from that space of complete acceptance of the other can we consider what choices are available to us under the circumstances.
When we refuse to whole-heartedly accept others as they are, all our energy gets sucked into trying to “correct” them. All our focus is on what’s “wrong” with them, and how they’re ruining things for us! Over time, we forget our sovereignty and ownership over our lives.
This is the classic path towards settling into the “victim mindset.” Here, I’m not talking about actual victims—children or people facing abuse or oppression. I’m talking about most of us—folks who’ve become so comfortable with the phrase, “I have no choice,” that we’ve come to believe it’s true when it’s simply not the case. 99% of the time, we do have choices. We’re just not willing to pay the price that comes with making them.
Radical Acceptance is the pathway to Radical Responsibility, and the latter is the way out of our self-created mental and emotional prisons. I have not read Mel Robbins's new book, “The Let Them Theory,” but I’m told the central concept is to train our mind to say, “Let them,” when faced with a person or circumstances we find unacceptable, and then draw out our own sense of choice and agency by saying, “Let me…”
Mel seems to offer a brilliant tool for practicing both Radical Acceptance, “Let them…” and Radical Responsibility, “Let me….”
But why is it so hard to fully, completely, and radically accept the reality of what is?
Why do we have such a hard time accepting the behaviors of those closest to us, even though they’re often the ones we love the most?
It’s tough for several reasons.
In my own case and that of many of my clients, we tend to equate acceptance with blame for the condition. There are rare and enlightened human beings who are not deeply wounded by being blamed. But most of us will do anything to avoid being seen as perpetrators of a negative situation.
I started this work over a decade ago with my own Coach, and slowly but fundamentally, I learned that acceptance and blame are not necessarily connected. I can accept a situation fully and totally and not be to blame for it. I can also accept people, behaviors, and conditions and not approve of them. For many of my high-achieving clients, acceptance feels like defeat, surrender, and giving up on what matters.
Uncoupling blame, approval, and defeat from acceptance is the first crucial step toward mastering the life-changing practice of Radical Acceptance.
It may be helpful to understand all the things Radical Acceptance is NOT:
- Acceptance is not approval.
- Acceptance doesn’t mean I like the thing.
- Acceptance doesn’t mean I’m to blame for it.
- Acceptance doesn’t mean I lose to whatever I am refusing to accept.
- Acceptance doesn’t mean I’m giving up on finding a better solution.
- Acceptance doesn’t mean I support your choice.
Now that you know you can accept something, someone, and some circumstance without giving up a piece of your soul, here’s a helpful practice. Start by permitting yourself to say the following whenever you feel the urge to fight what is the reality of the moment.
“ I accept ___________, but I do not approve or support it.”
A version of this could be, “I accept your point of view on this matter, but I don’t approve or support it.” This practice is meant to be done in real life, out loud, and not in your head.
Once you make your Radical Acceptance clear, you can decide your (not the other person’s) next steps.
Do you want to express your point of view on the matter?
Do you want to move forward and let the matter go?
Do you want to pick it up at a later date?
What will your Response-ability be?
Give yourself this week to practice Radical Acceptance. Next week, we’ll delve into Radical Responsibility and how to cultivate it.
