Hey guys, welcome back to Lavendaire, it's Aileen.
So today let's explore this topic of radical acceptance.
So radical acceptance is something that is hard to master,
but once you do master it, it can change your life and set you free.
And when I say set, you free, I mean, set you free from suffering.
From worry, disappointment, stress.
Just anything that holds you back, holds you down. Anything negative.
Radical acceptance will help you release a lot of that unnecessary suffering.
So the root of all of this
and why radical acceptance is so important to learn
is because we have to realize that most of our
unnecessary suffering in life is due to our expectations.
It's due to when our expectations do not meet reality.
So, you know, when you have expectations,
you expect for life to go a certain way,
or maybe you expect for something to happen.
If that doesn't happen,
then you'll feel mad, frustrated, like disappointed.
For example, if you have a boyfriend
and you expect him to be a certain way or do certain things for you,
like celebrate your anniversary and then he doesn't,
then you're obviously going to be mad, disappointed,
or whatever negative emotion it brings out of you.
And the only reason you feel that is because
you have that expectation set in place.
So the exercise we can do that can really help all of us is to
notice when you have expectations in life,
write it down and then ask yourself,
where did this expectation come from?
Why did I believe this in the first place?
Is this true? Is this necessary? If it's not like that's okay.
Rather than having all of these expectations for ourselves,
for other people and for life,
practice radical acceptance for what is.
So I'm going to break down radical acceptance into 3 categories.
Self-acceptance, acceptance of others,
and then acceptance of the world as it is.
So first self-acceptance,
practicing radical self-acceptance is probably
the biggest exercise that you can do.
If you were brought up to perform or achieve, or be a certain way,
this exercise is going to help you so much.
because you have to learn to unravel all of these expectations.
that maybe in the beginning, other people put on you,
but eventually it became your own voice.
So whether it's your expectation on yourself to be productive,
to hit a certain goal, to feel a certain way, to look a certain way,
to be a certain way.
These are unnecessary at the end of the day.
The positives of having expectations is that sometimes,
it is helpful to set a goal because you're more likely to achieve it.
But the people who need to learn radical self-acceptance are the people
who set high expectations for themselves.
And often if they don't achieve it, then they put themselves down.
They feel bad about they're frustrated, mad, disappointed, sad.
Depressed even.
That is why this is so important to recognize and heal.
These expectations that I'm talking about are not just on the surface.
They go like real, real, real deep,
like ingrained in you since you were a toddler.
So for example,
like if you were raised and people told you, good job, gold star,
you get A plus, and that's good.
You might grow up to think that achieving and success means like good.
It means that you're worthy.
It means that you're loved and people approve of you.
And so you can tend to like take that in so hard that
you attach your feeling of worthiness, of love
and approval with being an achiever.
and getting that A and being that you know,
person that has everything on her plate and does everything.
Someone with that level of expectations on herself is not healthy.
It's not going to end well.
So if you notice yourself being hard on yourself for not
being something other than what you are right now,
learn radical acceptance.
Accept everything that you are right now. Accept your bad habits,
accept your flaws, accept that this is all who you are.
You know, you're a complex human being, but it's those complexities,
it's those contradictions that make you beautiful.
You're not meant to be perfect.
You're not meant to always be like the overachiever.
You're not meant to get it right all the time.
It's easy to accept yourself when you're feeling happy and grateful
and everything's going well,
but you also have to learn to accept yourself when you're at your low points.
It is okay to have emotional range.
It is okay to feel all the ups and downs of life.
You're not meant to be like up here all the time.
One of the lowest points of my life was when I was a senior in college.
And the year after I graduated from college, that time period,
I was depressed. I was so unmotivated in life.
I was like, just not able to wake up, not able to be punctual with friends.
I just, I dunno, I was struggling.
I was frustrated with myself and life was hard at that time.
And looking back,
I realize a big part of why I was suffering at the time was because
I had this expectation for myself.
Oh, you're supposed to be a girl who knows what to do.
You're supposed to have your life together.
You're supposed to be doing well in life.
You're supposed to be having a good job.
You're supposed to be like having a plan, having a five-year plan.
And I didn't have any of those things.
I didn't have things, figured out.
I was a mess I was trying,
but it just felt like the whole world was against me at that time.
Although there were external factors like my parents pressuring me
and arguing with me. A lot of that frustration came from within.
It came from my expectation that I was supposed to be in a certain way.
And I wasn't. So thus, I must have been a failure or I don't know.
It was just like that disconnect between expectation and reality
was what caused the suffering.
Going back if I had learned radical self-acceptance at that time
and learn to just accept the uncertainty and embrace it. And know that,
you know, no one knows what they're doing at that time in life.
In hindsight, everything does happen for a reason
so I don't regret going through that.
I'm definitely grateful for that period of my life,
but like objectively, if I had some tools and exercises at that time,
I didn't have to suffer as much as I did.
Moving onto the next section, learning radical acceptance for others.
So this just means that you learn to accept other people for who they are.
And not what you expect them to be. Not anything other than who they are.
It also means that you accept people for what they do.
and what they have done in the past.
Even if it hurt you, especially if it hurt you,
this is something that will help your relationships so much.
because instead of expecting people to be a certain way or do certain things,
you just learned to accept them for who they are and what they are right now,
what they do, what they bring to the table without trying to force them.
And a big part of learning to heal from when others have hurt you is
learning to accept it, learning to accept them, accept that it happened.
And eventually, hopefully be able to forgive.
People can hurt you in so many different ways.
But if you really think about it.
He reason why it hurt you was because
they acted in a way that you did not expect, or you did not want.
You want them to be a certain way here,
but instead they did something else.
So you allowing yourself to stay hurt by the hurtful actions
that people have done to you in the past.
That in a way is you not accepting reality.
because you're still holding on to a certain expectation.
One of the biggest things I've had to heal in my life is my relationship with my dad
So he kind of like left our family, didn't tell us why, didn't give us a reason.
There was no communication from my parents, right?
So he just like disappeared one day
and we stopped talking to him for years.
And it was, I didn't realize it at the time,
but through junior high and high school.
And even afterwards, I kind of developed this hole.
And this like dark place in my heart. And I didn't know it at the time,
but now I see it as it was resentment.
It was the, the fear of the lack of love.
It was abandonment issues. It was a lot of things.
Deep down it, I obviously had resentment
because I expected things to be a certain way and they didn't go that way.
I had the expectation, like he's supposed to communicate with us.
He's supposed to tell us if he's not going to come back.
I had these expectations, but I didn't accept it.
I couldn't accept my reality. And it just made me sad. Right?
If I went through a lot of tough years because of that inner
disconnect with reality, and obviously hurtful things are going to be hurtful.
when you're going through the process.
But I think the radical acceptance will help you.
After the fact it will help you heal after the fact.
So with perspective,
I learned to accept that my parents were not good at communicating.
I learned to accept that he wanted a different life.
He just didn't want the life with us.
I had to accept that maybe he wasn't the best dad.
You know, he wasn't like a role model. He wasn't anything like that.
So acceptance is a big part of healing.
And then after acceptance comes forgiveness,
and then after forgiveness comes gratitude, right?
Gratitude for the pain, gratitude for everything that happened,
because it led you to where you are today.
So if you have someone in your life that you're disappointed in,
ask yourself, where does that disappointment come from?
You're disappointed
because you had a higher expectation for that person
and then they didn't meet it, and if you think about it,
It is insanity to expect something other than reality,
you can't change people.
You can't force people to be the way you want them to be. Right?
So instead of suffering and feeling disappointment for yourself,
practice radical acceptance for other people,
for exactly what they are.
The last part of this is acceptance for the world.
So accepting the world as it is,
I'm pretty sure you all can relate in the past year.
We've seen so many social injustices things that make you mad.
Like I would cry because I'm like, why is the world like this?
Why are people like this? Right?
And I realized that that is because I expected people to be better.
I expected the world to be better, but that's not reality.
To be honest, I'm an idealist, right?
I wished that all people were good hearted with good intentions and everything.
I wish the world was a certain way.
And because I see the world from that hopeful perspective,
I get disappointed.
I get sad when I see the reality that it's not that way.
And so radical acceptance for the world as it is,
is recognizing that you are suffering.
because you want the world to be better than it is
but the truth is it's here, right?
You want it to be here, but it's here.
And that disconnect is what causes that suffering, annoyance,
frustration with the system.
I'm not saying don't try to improve the world,
don't try to change the system because all of that is important, right.
But I'm saying that you will feel less stress and less frustration,
less disappointment. If you simply accept the world as it is.
Um, my boyfriend's really good at doing this.
Like I get mad when I see movies of people scamming people
and this and that, right?
Just, just people being not bad.
I don't wanna say bad. Cause nothing as good or bad,
but just like injustice in general. But Wilson's like,
that doesn't bother me. I already know the world's like that.
So if you're like me and you get frustrated at what you see in the world,
ask yourself, why do you expect it to be here?
Why can't the world just be imperfect?
Why can't you accept the imperfections and the flaws?
Why can't you accept that there are good people and bad people?
Like why can't you accept that?
Because it is something that you can accept.
And when you dig deep down,
I think it has to do with your own sense of control.
Ideally, we want to be able to control the world.
and for the world to be what we want it to be in our heads.
And then when it doesn't like it kind of shatters our reality.
So yeah,
radical acceptance for the world as it is for all the injustices.
For all the chaos and despair, like that's reality. And it's okay.
Don't let that bother you. Don't let that take away your peace.
Because like I said, that expectation is unnecessary. You can still do good.
You can still change the world, but you don't have to feel that frustration.
You don't have to feel disappointed. You can accept it and be like, okay,
I see it for what it is. I accept it. And then I'll do what I choose to do.
This kind of reminds me of how monks are kind of like so Zen
and they're always at peace, regardless of what's going on in the world. Right?
Monks, if you tell them, oh, they're starving children here.
There's this injustice here. They're like, yes, yes it is.
And maybe it's because
they've come to a certain level of acceptance for the world.
At the end of the day, you perceive the world and reality through your mind.
Everything is filtered through here and then you make sense of it.
So if you think about that, everybody perceives the world
and reality in their own way, in a different way.
There's power in that because it means that
you are in control of your own peace.
You are in control of how you filter the world,
that comes in through your mind, recognizing that,
you are the filter of how you perceive the world,
and recognizing that you can filter it in a way that makes you less frustrated.
You can choose to accept the world as it is.
And you'll be like, okay, cool, like it's there.
That is why radical acceptance is a powerful tool to practice.
It's not easy because we always want things to go a different way.
But if the reality is there.
Choose to accept it so that you don't linger on it.
Don't waste your time lingering on these negative and low emotions.
Sure, they're going to happen to you even if you practice acceptance,
there are going to be times
where you're going to be sad or frustrated or disappointed,
but don't let it last very long.
Feel it, let it go. And then accept the reality.
Let me know if this was helpful and let me know your thoughts on this.
I'm still kind of making sense of this in all the different aspects of life.
And I want to make sure that, you know, it's sound,
this concept is sound so comment down below.
Let me know your thoughts and what you learned.
Sending you so much love,
and I'll see you next time.
Bye.