As I was sobbing to my therapist over Zoom last week, she looked at me with compassionate eyes and said many things that culminated in something like, “What would it look like to practice radical acceptance of yourself, your work, and the world?”
And my honest answer was, “I have no idea, and frankly that sounds ridiculous.” I only said the first part out loud.
What I do know is that I struggle with the word acceptance. Hailing from the French accepter and the Latin acceptare, it essentially means to take or receive willingly what is offered, to agree. Straight up, there is so much I do not receive willingly about the world, so much I absolutely do not agree with, that it seems laughable, arrogant, and downright dangerous to think that acceptance, and especially acceptance of the radical sort is something I both can and should practice in my life.
But I also know, as evidenced by my last post, that I am tired beyond tired of being tired and of being in so much pain – of grieving what could be – of suffering day in and day out the relentless affronts I both witness and experience over and over again.
After thinking about and researching it further, I realize that I am missing some sort of crucial point. According to people much older and wiser than me, practicing radical acceptance does not mean that one excuses behavior, circumstances, or the situation at hand, rather, it is about accepting reality for what it currently is and “observing it rather than absorbing it” (another therapist gem from last week). When you can do that, it creates space between you and whatever’s going on, which then leads to you feeling less attached to it, or something. Which in turn, means you can then tackle whatever’s going on rationally and with a clear head…?
Clearly I am still a skeptic.
However, if I take a stab at this and apply it to one aspect of my life, I guess it’s supposed to look something like this:
The Reality: My job as a teacher is taxing and I can never be enough or do enough for my students, they need more than I can possibly give them.
Old Thought Patterns: I despair and have despaired, in some sense, over this Every. Single. Day. – from the moment I stepped into my classroom ten years ago, up until this moment right now. I have shed countless and bitter tears time and time again over this reality – I can even feel them coming as I write about this now. I want it to be different so badly that I am willing, more often than not, to sacrifice my time, energy, money, and sanity to make my students’ lives better. And the slap in the face, the rancid cherry on top of the sunday, is that it doesn’t work. So what do I do? I blame myself for not being good enough, for not trying hard enough, for not being disciplined enough, and I give more and more and more until there is nothing left of me.
Totally sustainable.
Not.
Radical Acceptance – What I think it’s supposed to look like: I know that no matter what I do, or how hard I try I will never be enough for my students. They will always need more than I can possibly give them. I accept this. I cannot change this.
Pause – I hated writing that.
I cannot change this… AKA I have no control. How can we have no control. How? We must? But we don’t… This whole life thing is one big effin charade, if you ask me…
Breathe in ~ Breathe out ~
Unpause: I cannot change this. And so, I accept that I will show up everyday, to the best of my ability for that day and that I will try. I accept that I will not always see or know the difference that I am making. I accept that I am good enough as I am, right now in this moment. I accept that I have tried and that I will try again tomorrow.
Sigh… seems suspect.
Clearly there’s work to do.
I hope you’ll hang in there with me while I try to figure this out.
That’s all I have in me for today.