Hi, Amy here. Are you feeling stuck or overwhelmed by things that pop up in your daily life. And perhaps these are because of past traumas or toxic stress? Have you tried traditional therapy and found that it wasn't enough? I know that was the case for me. That's why we developed the whole health lab. Mini trauma has put together a program that combines the latest research with proven methods to help you recover from trauma and move forward from these daily stressors and triggers. We use somatic therapy EMDR, cognitive behavioral therapy and internal family systems therapy. We use nervous system regulation, and many other tools so that we can combine the best methods that are identified in the research to help you recover without being completely overwhelmed. So you can work on trauma on your own pace, your own time. And still with the mentorship and support of a highly trained certified staff. That's us. No more waiting for appointments or sitting in traffic driving to see a therapist with our online program, the whole help lab. You can access it from anywhere, anytime, even on an app, visit mending trauma.com backslash whole health lab and learn more. Get your questions answered. We've got a Frequently Asked Questions section and sign up so that you can have this life changing program in your world today. Don't let your past hold you back any longer take control of your future and we can't wait to see you in the whole health lab. Welcome to the universe is your therapist. We are your hosts, Dr. Amy Hoyt and Lena Hoyt, we are sisters. Take a seat and let's dive into this week's episode. Hi, everyone, welcome back to another episode. Today we're speaking about radical acceptance and how it can help us be free from emotional pain. So first of all, where does the term radical acceptance come from?
My first exposure to it was in a workbook that was created by Dr. Marsha Leina. Han out of the University of Seattle, and she is the founder of dialectical behavior therapy. And well acceptance is practiced all over the world. radical acceptance is the implication that despite what's happening and what we think or feel about it, we recognize what we can and cannot control. And then we come to a conscious decision to accept the fact that we cannot control things. And even though we don't like it, even though we know it should be a different way, if we can't control it, then what we're seeking to do is not say screw it or give up what we're seeking to do is to engage in a conscious process where we acknowledge that we cannot control it and accept that is the way it is. Anyway.
So today's episode, we want to help you figure out how to know when you can change something and how you know when you can't change something. Because sometimes that gets a little fuzzy, and we have some pretty clear ideas on what we can change and what we can it's a very short list. Yes, the only thing we can change is ourselves
100%. And sometimes we can't even do that very well. But we keep trying,
we do keep trying. So this is a lesson I learned early in the 12 steps. And of course, those of you who are in recovery, or have family members in recovery will recognize this from Alan on the program for family members of addicts, it is so important that we understand and accept that we literally have zero control over other people, we can attempt to control them, but those will be through very maladaptive means and the relationship will suffer. And not only the relationship, but our own physical, emotional and spiritual health will suffer. The
serenity prayer is one of my favorite things to talk about in terms of anxiety with people it says God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things that I can and the wisdom to know the difference. And that last piece is really difficult to do.
One of the things that's tricky is our brain wants to protect us and that is a very important feature and it kept us very protected in earlier times in history. So the limbic brain sees so much of our modern threats as a tiger or a bear.
The most productive way that I have found to use radical acceptance in my own life is both with events that have happened in the past and with my fears and worries about The future when we are anticipating bad things in the future, we are not in radical acceptance, we're actually fighting something that hasn't even occurred yet. And in the old days, this used to be called borrowing trouble. When you assume that something's going to go wrong or bad, or turn out really poorly, it's a way of borrowing trouble from something that hasn't occurred yet. And what it does is it activates our nervous system and gets us prepared to fight or flee. And so we have this big adrenaline dump, yet, the event hasn't even happened yet, we're just projecting onto the future, our fears, one book that I worked with, when I was working with younger kids about anxiety, use the concept of growing tomatoes, and how when you have a tomato plant, you plant it, and you feed it, you give it water and sunlight and attention. And worry or anxiety is similar to that, the more attention the more energy, the more you feed your worries or anxiety, the faster they will grow. And they will multiply understanding that this is a natural occurrence in the human brain, and then figuring out how to be aware of it and find ways to mitigate it becomes really important, especially in these days, when there are so many things that are potentially worrisome. And I think
that the brain has a mechanism to keep us safe. And we know the negativity bias is part of that where we might be in a moment of joy, and instantly think, oh my gosh, what if this all goes away, and there is a part of us neurologically that doesn't want to hurt. And so when we put ourselves in the future, and we start projecting or borrowing trouble, a lot of times, it's out of this really benevolent reason, which is to protect oneself. But it still is maladaptive, because we're stealing the present moment from ourselves.
Well said the other way that I've really been able to use radical acceptance to reduce some my own emotional pain is in the concept of past events. And I am someone who, for years spent time ruminating going over and over and over in my head, how something should have been or shouldn't have been, and what I could have or should have done differently. And the fact is that because we don't have a time machine, after we do an initial assessment, or analysis, or gather awareness, putting any energy into the idea that a past event should not have happened is a trap for us emotionally. And it doesn't allow us to move forward. And this is very common, the brain is trying to prevent errors or mistakes, or the uncomfortable or bad thing happening again. But it's not very effective, because it keeps us focused on the past. And it keeps us in a state of autonomic arousal, because we're going over and over and over again, the circumstances that cannot be changed, because it is done. And so
just one grapple with grief. And I'm aware of that grieving the loss of a relationship or the loss of expectations, or really the loss of anything, how does one seek closure when they're grieving? Some sort of loss and not stay stuck in the past?
That's a tricky question. Because grief tends to be an entirely different animal in and of itself. But it's a pertinent question, because when we are grieving something, and I like that you included the concept of grieving expectations, or an idea of what was going to happen when we are in grief, if we can stay in the present moment and experience the emotions that are present with grief, without telling ourselves a really negative story without telling ourselves some narrative about how it shouldn't be.
So what I'm hearing is acknowledging our feelings in the moment of grief, and allowing for those feelings instead of judging how we're grieving. Yes, or instead of fighting those feelings, and then we can move through that process quicker. Yes, the Buddhists
have a saying that that which we resist persists, and it's really wise. And even though it's only a few words, it has a lot of meaning to it. And so if I'm in a place of grieving, and I keep trying to fight it or stuff it down or ignore it, then my my body and my nervous system doesn't have a chance to let it process through me. And so it remains it can remain for years and years and years.
So what makes it so hard to acknowledge that we don't have control over something or someone why is that so difficult because I'm aware, it's extremely difficult for me,
I think it's extremely difficult for a lot of us. And it's the trick that our brain plays on us that states somewhere in our brain that we can make sure it never happens again, or we can make sure that our kids don't experience the same difficulties we did. Or we can make sure that we don't date the same kind of person again. And because the brain is lying to us, basically, we spend an inordinate amount of energy stuck in either the past or our worries about the future. One thing that's important to talk about when we're talking about radical acceptance is the difficulty that humans have and not trying to control situations or other people that is exceptionally difficult for most humans. The challenge is, is that our attempts to control often happen through manipulation, or fear, or a power differential, and all of those things can work. But the cost is very, very high. One class that I've noticed is that when you experience yourself being controlled, it's not unusual to pull back from that interaction or relationship. Or we may actually do the opposite thing that behavior, fractures relationships, and without the ability to understand that I cannot control another person, and that my fears for that person, our mind to own and mine to resolve, I'm going to have a really hard time being in radical acceptance,
what are the benefits of radical acceptance?
Oh, my gosh, it is so relieving, because you can quit fighting things that your energy has not changed, and your energy will not change. So it frees up a lot of extra energy. Absolutely. And it really diminishes emotional pain, you may have pain from the idea that somebody's doing something that you think will be harmful from for them, but you don't have the additional pain of thinking that you should control that person. So they don't do that behavior, you don't have the additional pain of engaging in maladaptive communication styles that get in the way of relationships, and you are freeing yourself up from the erroneous or distorted thinking that our brain has about what we can control.
So let's take an example of a relationship where one of the partners is not being faithful. And it is not an open relationship, it is a closed relationship, they're not being faithful to their partner. So as the other partner, you can radically accept that you cannot change them. But what I want to make sure that our listeners understand is you do not have to accept that you stay in that relationship or that you are okay with that behavior.
Thank you so much for clarifying that.
So radical acceptance, for me is about accepting other people's behavior. And there's always a second step for me. And that is how will my choices differ or remain the same, knowing that I cannot change them,
it is the opportunity to use free will as its intended, which is to have information to acknowledge what we can and can't change, I cannot make my spouse stop being unfaithful, when I acknowledged this, what's happening, then I have the opportunity to decide for myself whether or not I'm okay living with that. And radical acceptance is not approval of or endorsement of bad behavior by others. It has nothing to do with that it really is focused on our understanding that we cannot control another person. And so if it's important to me to have a spouse who is keeping their vows, then I'm I may consider other alternatives if they are unable or unwilling to keep those vows. And that's my right and responsibility because I'm in charge of taking care of myself both emotionally and physically.
What are some skills that we can teach our listeners when you're in the thick of it and you really are understanding that you don't have control but you're it's very painful.
It is extremely painful. One of the most painful things is to acknowledge how out of our hands this world and other people are. One thing we can do is we can remember that if it is a circumstance where a person outside of ourself we absolutely cannot control them. We can we can try to control them, but it will fracture the relationship and it will cause harm to the way you engage with that other person. The other thing we can remember is that once an experience is done or over, and it's happened in the past, we want to be able to experience whatever regrets or emotions are around that without staying stuck in those, and without revisiting that all the time. And so how do you do that we work on putting a time limit on how long or often we think about it. One intervention that I love is setting a timer, an actual timer, and having a set time every day, maybe to set times for five or 10 minutes of time, not at night before you go to bed because that doesn't work. Why doesn't that work? Because if we're thinking about the upsetting thing, right before bed, it's very hard to get regulated enough to fall asleep. When we set the timer. We say to ourselves, that's my worry time. That's the time I'm going to let myself think about this. And every time it pops into our head, we say it's not our time, my time to think about this worry or fret over it is this afternoon at 4pm. And I will worry as much as I can at 4pm. How
long would you suggest people set their timer for worry?
I think anywhere between five and 15 minutes, there is some thinking in the field that if you set it for a little bit longer, you may find your brain getting bored with the topic, I found it more helpful to set shorter amounts of time so that we can have a sense that we are in charge of our thoughts and that our thoughts are not in charge of us,
one of the things I find really helpful is replacing certain thoughts with more productive thoughts. So when I start to ruminate about something that's happened, whether it's something I did, or something someone else did, where I can't change it, and I really can't change them, of course, it can be really painful. And instead of going down that long, you know, several minute painful reiteration of what they said and how I felt one of the tools I like to use is to tell my mind that I'm going to think about something else. And so I have kind of some canned topics that I can switch to so one of them might be an upcoming trip, I love to travel, one of them could be a favorite song. One thing that's really helping me with some of my family relationships that have been more tense is to think of what I'm grateful for that person. And so as I think about some of the things they've said to me that had been hurtful instead replacing that with and I'm very grateful, because they've also said these other things to me throughout my life that had been really kind because of the negativity bias, I know that I'm remembering the negative more than the positive. And so it's my way of kind of trying to retrain my brain to be more balanced in its thinking,
that's an outstanding exercise. Did mom ever talk to you in your little about changing the channel in your brain? Not that I remember, I can remember talking to her, I had a lot of anxiety and fears when I was younger. And I can remember her explaining to me that we can in essence, change the channel of our thinking so that we're thinking about something else. And it's what you brought up just a moment ago. The key is it has to be something enjoyable or distracting in order for it to override the rumination and the obsessive thinking about the past. The other thing that I think is really important is that we can find acceptance phrases that will help calm our autonomic nervous system down. And for each person, they may be different. I remember reading in one book that one such phrase is everything is happening exactly the way it's supposed to, I absolutely cannot do that. To me, my brain for me, my brain is very rejecting of that. But I can use other thoughts, such as I can count on the universe to use all things for my higher good. Or when my friends introduced me to this concept several years ago, I have 100% survival rate so far, which is important to note, or I can count on my higher source to get me through this matter, excellent intervention for that. One other idea is to find a distraction that allows you to come back to neutral if not, if not back to Joy or peace. Sometimes moving our body can really help us change the channel. There's a lot of research on this and it doesn't matter what you do to move your body. So if you're sitting in the living room on the couch, thinking over and over again about how something that's happened shouldn't have happened, then moving your body and doing something different can help jolt your brain into focusing on something else. My favorite is when I was working with teenagers a lot, I would say to them Go pick up dog poop in the yard. And they, they would say to me, oh my gosh, why would I do that? I said, because it'll distract you from what you're, you're focusing on right now. Another thing that you and I have learned recently that comes out of so that comes out of the work that Andrew Huberman is doing, who's a professor at Stanford is a, an immediate way to calm down your nervous system. And he calls it the double breath, sigh. And what that consists of is you think about how you would normally sigh which is a big inhale and a big exhale. And you tweak it, so that you do a short, shallow breath initially, and then you do a second deeper breath, and then you expel it as you would OSI. And it really helps to reset the nervous system and to bring us back into emotional regulation. And I've used it quite a bit in the last couple of weeks since we learned about that. And I've also suggested it to a lot of the people that I work with.
So can you give us a demonstration of the double breath? sigh Yes, so
it would sound like this.
What I love about that is there's evidence that it much like animals in their sleep and humans in their sleep as well at double breath, sigh it is resetting our brain. And typically it's when we're asleep, but we can activate that reset consciously while we're awake.
The other thing that we've talked about before is using bilateral tapping to help calm the nervous system down. So anything that you can do physically to engage your brain body connection can be very helpful. You can tap alternate toes, you can tap alternate knees, cross your arms and tap alternately on each arm.
Okay, so thank you so much. Is there anything else you want to wrap up with with radical acceptance?
Just know that it's really hard to do, but it's worth doing because it frees you from spending a lot of energy on things that you cannot change, and it really helps to lower distress.
Thank you for listening to the universe's your therapist this week. If you have any questions or looking for more information, you can find us at mending trauma on Instagram, as well as mending trauma.com Our website and if you're enjoying our content, we'd love it if you could rate review and subscribe to the show. We'll see you all next week.
