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Archive for radical acceptance

gratitude practice
 November 26, 2014

Cultivating Gratitude: Receiving the Goodness of Life

On this Thanksgiving holiday I want to share my favorite gratitude practice for receiving the goodness of life. Did you know that the human brain is programmed to recognize negative experiences far more than positive ones? Neuropsychologist Rick Hanson, PhD writes that a positive experience needs to be held in awareness for 5-20 seconds in order to register in our emotional memory while a negative experience registers instantly. While this is an adaptive function based on physical survival, it can also lead to feeling caught in challenging emotions without being able to access a balance of joy. Luckily we can intentionally choose to notice positive experiences in order to more fully receive the good in our lives.

One of my favorite practices is called “Gratitude Notes.” Connecting with a sense of gratitude is a powerful way of focusing attention on the positive. This practice is so simple yet I have found it to be profoundly supportive in my own life. When I notice that I am feeling down or glum about life, I often resurrect this practice and find that within a few days my outlook on life changes.

All you need to start is a pad of sticky notes and a pen. I find that I enjoy the process more when I have a special pen solely devoted to this purpose.

I write my gratitude notes at the end of day just before bed. It only takes a couple of minutes. I write three gratitudes, one per sticky note. I start each note with the words “I am grateful for…” and then add something specific that I feel good about from that day.

Here are some examples of my recent gratitudes. I keep my gratitude notes on the lamp beside my bed because they stick best there. It is wonderful to wake up and see all of these reminders. I let the notes accumulate for a few days and then take them down and start anew.

So, if you feel you could benefit from a little more awareness of the goodness in your life, I encourage you to give this practice a try. If you do, I’d love to hear how it goes for you!

Lastly, see below for some special Thanksgiving gratitudes about what I feel most grateful for in my life today. How about you? What do you feel most grateful for in your life today?

Thank you for taking the time to read my Thanksgiving thoughts. Thank you for playing a role in the growth and success of my psychotherapy practice. And thank you for all of the large and small ways that your presence brings more goodness into the world.

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Categories : Blog, Depression, Emotions, Gratitude, Mindfulness, Radical Self-Acceptance
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fear, worry, anxiety
 October 28, 2014

The Gifts of Fear: Making Friends with the Enemy

Fear is one of the most primal emotions but it can get a bad rap. Intrinsic to the drive for survival, it propels the fight/ flight/ freeze response of the nervous system. The physical sensations (increased heart rate, muscular tension, shortness of breath) that many people attribute to anxiety are actually the body readying itself to flee from an attack. Similarly, feeling numb or emotionally shut down can be linked with the freeze response that causes predators to overlook potential prey. Unfortunately, these impulses for self-preservation are often seen as problematic symptoms and are not recognized for their biological origins.

While fear is a natural emotion in an uncertain world, people can sometimes view it as a weakness or a lack of emotion. In many ways, we are a culture that is phobic of fear. There are familial, societal, and spiritual messages that advocate controlling it, choosing love over fear, or “the only thing to fear is fear itself.” While there can be value in these messages, they also push this emotion further into the shadows, making it something to be condemned rather than honored for the important role it plays.

Mindfulness and Shadow Work® both offer a different perspective, one in which fear is a valid emotion that deserves to be honored and respected. Fear shows up when there is a lack of safety and as such, it is an important warning sign. Most of us have core parts of ourselves that originated in childhood as patterns of thought and behavior to try to keep ourselves safe in the world. As we mature and seek to grow and expand in our lives and relationships, these patterns of fear can seem like obstacles that keep getting in our way. The wisdom of Shadow Work® offers a way of honoring and dialoguing with these protective parts of ourselves so that they can learn to care for us in new and more effective ways. Mindfulness offers practices for finding more acceptance of the physical experience of fear without getting caught up in fearful thoughts and beliefs.

The next time you feel frustrated with a way that fear is showing up in your life, take time to reflect on where it came from and the protective role that it may have been playing in your life for a long time. Next take time to honor this part of you for the ways it has been caring for you. Finally, update this part of you about how it could adapt its’ strategy to better care for you at this current stage of your life. If the experience of fear feels overwhelming to you, try focusing your attention on your breath and your physical environment as a way to disengage from the fearful thoughts occupying your mind. Set the intention to be open and curious about the sensations you are experiencing while staying connected to your breath. If you’d like to learn more about Shadow Work® or mindfulness I recommend shadowwork.com or the books and teachings of Pema Chodron or Tara Brach.

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Categories : Anxiety, Blog, Emotions, Mindfulness, Radical Self-Acceptance, Shadow Work®
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 September 27, 2014

Inhabiting Healthy Anger

When I was little I would have temper tantrums- tiny fists beating on the floor, arms and legs flailing. My young self was declaring my right to exist in the only way I knew how. I still have a strong sense of self and a strong will and believe me, these have been challenging traits to live with at times. I have hurt people with my words and felt the shame of not being able to control myself better. I didn’t know that there were other ways to be angry, ways that could actually be live-giving rather than destructive.

As I started to work with mindfulness and Shadow Work® as part of my own healing journey, my relationship to anger changed. I learned that my anger was connected to a sense of protecting myself and claiming my right to my own feelings and desires. I also discovered that feeling angry is just a constellation of sensations and energies in the body. Through experiencing these sensations with a sense of presence, I gained a greater connection to my own power and passion. I came to understand how to offer attention to my anger without lashing out at others. I also learned to forgive myself for the times when I didn’t manage it all perfectly.

Since then I have worked with many people, across a spectrum of age and gender, to help them inhabit their anger in a healthy way. So many people are afraid of anger, their own or that of others. Many people have lost some of their own power and sense of self because they have been stuffing their anger down for a long time. Often people equate anger with actions and don’t know how to relate to their anger without doing something destructive. Others feel out of control of anger and find that it destroys relationships and creates shame. Many people have come to realize that even when they do their best to suppress anger, it sneaks out in other ways.

Reclaiming healthy anger connects us to the strength of the warrior archetype. It is so fulfilling for me to see people reinhabit this aspect of themselves. I see people transform as they claim greater groundedness, empowerment, clarity, and confidence. How do you relate to your anger at this point in your life? What gifts and/or power have you discovered in anger? What about anger scares you? What might be the costs in your life of not inhabiting healthy anger? I would love to hear your feedback. If you’re interested in exploring this topic with me further, consider signing up for my Radical Acceptance of Anger class coming up Monday, October 6th. Individual sessions are also a powerful way to explore anger.

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 August 27, 2014

Finding the Gold: How Chronic Pain Has Transformed My Life

“Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they’re supposed to help you discover who you are.” ~Bernice Johnson Reagon

It is a vulnerable thing to talk about pain. There can be such a fear of being seen as weak or defective. New Age philosophies can create a sense of shame for those with pain by proposing that we should be able to manifest perfect health with the right meditations, health practices, and positive affirmations. So here I am, at this precipice of truth-telling, ready to take these risks, ready to face this fear.

I have struggled with frequent headaches for the last 6 years. After devoting a great deal of money and time to trying to understand and heal the underlying cause(s), I have settled on a self-care regimen that works most of the time. I have also, after years of conflicting information, come to recognize that these migraines are linked to some genetic predisposition. I am (at the least) the third generation in my family to have them.

Last week I had a humdinger of a headache, brought on by travel, rich foods, and not enough sleep. As I lay there with an ice pack on my head, I started bargaining with my body, with any force outside of myself that might be able to do something. “Please,” I said, “please!” and I started listing off all the reasons I thought my plea was justified. I felt the energy of striving, of struggling against my experience, of feeling I deserved something different, that I shouldn’t be having the experience I was having. I noticed how this perspective kept me feeling like a victim, and how it took me away from the moment.

As I recognized the contraction this approach was creating, I decided to shift my outlook. I chose to turn towards what was real in that moment. I thought about all the societal expectations that were weighing on me- the fear of disappointing my friend, the idea that special-once-a-year-visits-with-friends are not supposed to look like this. And I surrendered. I felt the weight lift as I consented to receive this experience just as it was. If this was what this visit would be, then so be it. It felt better to meet reality on its own terms. As my mental chatter subsided, my attention came to rest on my experience in that moment. I felt the soothing coolness of the ice, the soft rhythm of my breath, the weight of my body. I breathed into my forehead, touching sensations of pressure and constriction. I allowed them to be there. Slowly a sense of expansion arose that felt a little bit pleasurable, even joyful. Just feeling myself existing in this body was a gift.

The experience started to become more easeful and I reflected on how much these migraines have taught me. I have had to slow way down, to be quiet for long periods of time. I have had to release so many beliefs about how my body is supposed to function, how I am supposed to be in control of my experience. I think that these headaches have been one of my greatest teachers about mindfulness. Over and over again they show me that life is so much more easeful when I meet it with openness and non-judgmental awareness.  Spending so much time being still has greatly enriched my relationship with my body and my capacity to feel tenderly towards myself. I have found this great sense of presence and aliveness that is more and more accessible whether my experience feels desirable or undesirable.

So, what adversity in your life is asking for your attention right now? What do you resist that might be asking for your acceptance? What might it be communicating to you? It seems that the challenging aspects of life often offer these hidden gifts. What gold have you found in the darkest moments? I would love to hear about your experiences including the parts that are still conflicted or confusing.

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Categories : Blog, Mindfulness, Radical Self-Acceptance
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 July 23, 2014

ReWilding Your Life One Choice at a Time

“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.” ~ Helen Keller

There are these choice points in life when we are faced with the option to take what feels like the safer path, or to follow something risky that calls to us from deep inside our hearts. I faced such a choice a couple weeks ago when I decided to take a 3 day solo backpacking trip in the Trinity Alps Wilderness. I wavered back and forth for weeks about whether I could face the risks of loneliness or physical danger that such a trip entailed for me. With time it became clear that my heart’s longing was to go. While I still felt anxious as the departure date neared, it became more and more clear that my soul was asking this of me, calling on me to take the risk in service of my great love for the wilderness. In making this choice, I had to face old belief systems about how women shouldn’t be alone in the world, about how the world is unsafe, especially for women. I had to rewild my ideas of what it means to be a woman in the world who loves the wilderness. I had to move through these limiting beliefs into a more wild truth: that I choose to live my life as a daring adventure, that I am willing to expose myself, body and soul, in order to make the most of this precious existence.

What I found out there in the mountains was such a great validation of this choice. Life answered me with a giant YES! I didn’t feel a moment of fear or loneliness once my feet hit that trail. I felt such a profound sense of contentment and joy from deep within my heart. There was a tremendous freedom for me out there in the wild. I felt a sense of great belonging and wholeness. I was so aware of the exposure of my little body in contrast to the vast landscape, of my small life compared to the scope of the earth’s story. And this recognition felt good. I saw myself as a spring wildflower, here to offer some small gift to the landscape of my life, and then to be plucked or to wither when the time comes.

So I invite you to consider the choices facing you now, and the wildness within you that calls for exposure. What is untamed in you that longs to be set free? What in you refuses to be bound by convention, by social norms and pressures? What does your soul long for? And what is one choice you can make right now to rewild your small and precious life? Perhaps your feet long to touch bare earth. Perhaps you have a song to sing or a dance to dance. Somewhere inside you know what wants to be chosen, and you know how your heart will sing when you take the risk to live this daring adventure.

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Categories : Blog, Mindfulness, Radical Self-Acceptance
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 July 11, 2014

Radical Acceptance: Who, What, When, Where, and especially Why?

WHO? Starting with yourself, and then expanding to loved ones, acquaintances, strangers, and ultimately to those with whom you have difficulty. Please note that this doesn’t mean tolerating abuse or mistreatment.

WHAT? Meditation teacher and psychologist Tara Brach, PhD defines Radical Acceptance as the “willingness to experience ourselves and our lives as it is.” Radical Acceptance is a frame of mind as well as an embodied mindfulness practice. Jon Kabat-Zinn defines mindfulness as “paying attention in a particular way; On purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally.” This means cultivating the willingness and capacity to experience your thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations just as they are, without needing to avoid or distract from them. Instead of getting lost in never-ending trains of thought that perpetuate emotional distress, mindfulness offers a way of recognizing inner experience with more spacious awareness. While it may seem that just giving attention to your inner experience isn’t doing anything, more and more research studies are validating the power of this approach to create greater emotional well-being, resilience, physical health, more fulfilling relationships, and much more.
WHEN? As often as possible! You can practice when feeling sad, numb, anxious, angry, stressed, melancholy, or ashamed, or any time at all. Radical acceptance can be especially powerful when given to the parts of yourself that you most struggle against. It can also be a wonderful practice when feeling joy, peace, and relaxation as it serves to enhance these experiences and helps the brain to integrate them.
WHERE? You can practice radical acceptance anywhere you go. In the body, you will often find sensations and emotional energies in the belly, solar plexus, chest, throat, head, shoulders, arms, and hands. However anywhere in the body will do!

WHY? “What we resist persists.” ~Carl Jung

“The most powerful relationship you will ever have is the relationship with yourself.” ~Steve Maraboli

Why so much focus on bodily sensations?

  • Physical sensations offer a way to focus awareness on our inner experience. They also provide a way to redirect attention from negative mind-loops to our actual felt experience. Emotions and thoughts often occur as reactions to physical sensations (though vice-versa can also be true). By becoming more comfortable with the diverse landscape of bodily experience, we can teach our minds that staying with our present moment experience can create more well-being than trying to think our way out of it.

Resisting inner experience is like adding fuel to the fire.

  • When we react to how we are feeling with thoughts that it is wrong or bad, this sends a signal to the nervous system that there is a threat. This sense of threat can then lead the mind into ruminative cycles that only create more focus on a sense of inner deficiency. Thus, reacting negatively to our own experience can further exacerbate whatever sense of discomfort was there to start with.

Sensations in the body just want to be felt.

  • I like to think of bodily sensations as aspects of ourselves from earlier times in our lives… this sense of fear… that fury in the belly… an ache in the heart. They are like children just wanting to be accepted and cared for. When we respond to them with care, curiosity, and acceptance, they often dissolve. It is important to note that this works best when there is true acceptance for the experience to be there as long as it wants or needs to be.
  • Turning towards your inner experience with openness, awareness, and acceptance helps cultivate a strong and compassionate relationship with yourself.

You are the one that you will be with through your entire life. Given this, wouldn’t you want to have a close and caring relationship with yourself?

  • Attending to how you feel and responding to your body and emotions with compassion and acceptance is what one would often want from a friend. By learning how to give that to yourself, you become one of the closest people in your own life. This can be very healing for people who struggle with a sense of loneliness or isolation.
  • So often we seek validation and acceptance from others while being very hard on ourselves . Dependence on external validation can create codependent relationships. Having those same qualities of care towards yourself can create both a more fulfilling life, and healthier relationships.

I hope you have found this article helpful and inspiring. I always enjoy hearing responses to my writing. If you have something you would like to ask or share, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment.

Warmly,
Asha

“Clearly recognizing what is happening inside us, and regarding what we see with an open, kind and loving heart, is what I call Radical Acceptance. If we are holding back from any part of our experience, if our heart shuts out any part of who we are and what we feel, we are fueling the fears and feelings of separation that sustain the trance of unworthiness. Radical Acceptance directly dismantles the very foundations of this trance.” ― Tara Brach

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Categories : Blog, Mindfulness, Radical Self-Acceptance
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 June 16, 2014

Walking My Talk: Adventures in Shame, Vulnerability, and the Space that Holds it All

I’m not sure where the message came from. It seems to just live in the collective soup of being a therapist. Something about not disclosing too much about oneself. Something about looking like you’ve got it all together. Or maybe the message is far more universal. Maybe I picked it up when I was two, or five, or nine. That one I just mentioned about looking like you’ve got it all together. Maybe you’ve got that message too?

My work, my passion is about radical acceptance. About fully embracing the messiness and rich beauty of being human. And yet I still at times feel like I need to present myself as if I’ve got it all figured out. I learned from Brene Brown, PhD that shame thrives in the dark and secret places of our lives, in our own hidden thoughts and self-doubts. I notice there are days when shame is present for me like a dull weight in my brain and body. Other days I notice how I feel without shame, the sense of lightness and tenderness for myself. Sometimes I feel strong enough to greet the shame, to sit with it and invite it to tea, to welcome the weight to be there as long as it needs to be. Other days the shame is so strong I want it gone. I strategize to figure out what I can do to rid my life of this all-consuming monster.

I can feel the vulnerability of writing these words. I hear the message in my brain that I shouldn’t reveal myself in this way, that it is too much, that it is unprofessional. And yet I want to be a voice of contradiction to the boxes we put ourselves in. I want to bust my own masks of cool, calm, and collected, to reveal the common humanity of struggle and imperfection. And in the midst of that very real place, I also want to say how much these practices of radical acceptance and mindfulness and shadow work have transformed my relationship with myself. Just to write these words is testament to that. As Pema Chodron says, it is like I am still standing in the waves but they appear smaller, and I know a little more than I used to that each one will pass and that change is the only constant. I have a tiny bit of perspective that I didn’t used to have, and I feel a little less urgent about getting anywhere else but here. And more often these days, these little bits are enough.

 

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Categories : Blog, Mindfulness, Radical Self-Acceptance
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 November 12, 2013

Running from the Bogeyman

In every moment our inner world is active with emotions (joy, anger, sadness, and fear), thoughts about past and future, and sensations in our body (pressure, aching, spaciousness, expansion, etcetera).

Modern culture, the media, maybe our families, our jobs, sometimes our peers ask us to be productive and to fit into a box of what kinds of emotions and expressions are acceptable. We learn to avoid our internal experience in order to try to fit in.

But this comes at a cost. We become anxious about our fear, depressed about our sadness, enraged about our anger. We don’t learn how to “be” with ourselves, with our dynamic inner world. It becomes like the boogeyman in our closet and we run from it. We do this through all kinds of addictive behaviors- drugs, alcohol, food, sex, love, TV, movies, internet, Facebook, overwork, perfectionism, etc.

Mindfulness is about pausing the urgency to escape, without making those urges wrong or bad. It is about becoming aware of what drives our own running… learning how to sit in the discomfort of that urgency without needing to run anymore. Mindfulness is about being willing to experience pain in life, because pain is an inevitable part of being human. But it is also about moving away from suffering, because suffering is pain + the belief that our pain is wrong. When we learn to sit with the pain, the suffering eases.

Right now, as you are reading this, can you pause and feel into your body? Maybe close your eyes… Take a few breaths into your belly. And just notice what is there, inside. What emotions are you experiencing? What sensations are present in your body? You could ask yourself, “What is asking for acceptance right now?”  Can you welcome your experience, just as it is? And can you also give permission for the parts of you that want to change your experience, or to run away from it? As you move through your day today, I invite you to continue asking this question, “What is asking for acceptance right now?” This is a process of ever widening circle, allowing one part of yourself, one feeling to be okay and then another, and then another.

This is courageous work, to stop and turn to face ourselves in this way. And I believe that it is an essential part of returning to our own wholeness. I would love to hear about your explorations!

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Categories : Blog, Radical Self-Acceptance
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 October 22, 2013

What in the World is Radical Acceptance?

Radical= relating to or affecting the fundamental nature of something; far-reaching or thorough.

Acceptance= the action of consenting to receive or undertake something offered.

Radical Acceptance means consenting to receive all of ourselves, including those parts of ourselves we have rejected up to now. It is about the willingness to undertake the lives we are living rather than constantly waiting for the lives we think we should have. What is radical about it is to continue widening the circle of what we can accept to include more and more of ourselves. We may feel at first that we can accept this quality, but certainly not that one. Then, as we grow in practice, we come to discover that our acceptance can be more far-reaching, more thorough. The more we bring this quality of acceptance into our lives and ways of thinking, the more it starts to impact the fundamental nature of our relationship with ourselves. We start to move through the world with a sense of deep relaxation into being just exactly who we are. We feel ourselves centered into the core of ourselves rather than leaning out into trying to be some other way. We come home to ourselves, to the bare reality of who we are. When we live from this place, we have greater access to our gifts and our unique place on this earth.

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Categories : Blog, Mindfulness, Radical Self-Acceptance
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 September 30, 2013

Radical Acceptance Musings

Last month I had the joy of sitting with six people and facilitating a journey for them of Radical Self-Acceptance. One of the powerful exercises we did was the “turn-around” from author Byron Katie. Whether I am struggling with self-judgment or judgment of another, I find this exercise incredibly valuable!

I invite you to think of a judgment you have of yourself or another, and write it down. Let yourself be honest with the thoughts that are in your head. It might sound something like: “X shouldn’t be so angry.” or “I should have more control over my emotions.”

The turn-around exercise is to rewrite this sentence in as many ways as you can, simply by using the reverse of the words written. “You” can become “me.” “More” can become “less.” It may seem more like a grammatical exercise at first, but as you do it you may notice feelings of relief or revelation with some of the new sentences you come up with. These are cues that there is some useful direction with this new thought.

Using the example above, one of my favorites is: “I shouldn’t have more control over my emotions.” This invites a perspective of radical acceptance, of deep allowing for me to be just as I am. When I remove the sense of shame from how I see myself, much of the struggle can lessen.

You could try doing the exercise above in a journal or with a friend. I would love to hear how it goes for you! You can learn more about Byron Katie at www.thework.com.

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gratitude practice

Cultivating Gratitude: Receiving the Goodness of Life

Posted: November 26, 2014

Did you know that the human brain is programmed to recognize negative experiences far more than positive ones? Neuropsychologist Rick Hanson, PhD writes that a positive experience needs to be held in awareness for 5-20 seconds in order to register in our emotional memory while a negative experience registers instantly.

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“Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.”

—Pema Chödrön, Author, The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times

“Imperfection is not our personal problem—it is a natural part of existing.”

—Tara Brach, Author, Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha

“We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.”

—Carl Jung

“To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.”

—Pema Chödrön, Author, The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times

“The boundary to what we can accept is the boundary to our freedom.”

—Tara Brach, Author, Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha

“On this sacred path of Radical Acceptance, rather than striving for perfection, we discover how to love ourselves into wholeness.”

—Tara Brach, Author, Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha

“Radical Acceptance is the willingness to experience ourselves and our lives as they are.”

—Tara Brach, Author, Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha