Radical Acceptance

•Over the years we each develop a particular blend of strategies designed to hide our flaws and compensate for what we believe is wrong with us.

•Self-improvement. We strive to meet the media standards for the perfect body and looks by coloring out the gray, lifting our face, being on a perpetual diet. We push ourselves to get a better position at work. We exercise, take enriching courses of study, meditate, make lists, volunteer, take workshops. It is driven by anxious undercurrents of “not good enough.”

•Fear of failure. We avoid risky situations—which covers pretty much all of life. We might not take on leadership or responsibility at work, we might hold back from expressing our thoughts.

•We withdraw from the experience

•Playing busy. Staying occupied we remain distant from our pain. As soon as we have a gap, we go on-line to check our e-mail, we turn on music, we get a snack, watch television.

•We focus on other people’s faults. Blaming others temporarily relieves us from feeling inadequate.

•We should not climb up a ladder seeking perfection, but wholeness. We must embrace this life in all its realness —broken, messy, mysterious and vibrantly alive.

•The boundary to what we can accept is the boundary to our freedom

•Some are anxiously striving to be “good enough” and to reap the rewards. Their love for what they do is clouded over when working becomes a strategy to prove their worth.

•Fear is the anticipation of future pain.

•The first step in finding a basic sense of safety is to discover our connectedness with others 

•Facing fear is a lifelong training in letting go of all we cling to—it is a training in how to die.