Do you want to know how to supercharge your ability to forgive?

The secret to heal from deep wounds is... Radical Acceptance.

"What is radical acceptance," you ask?

Radical acceptance is choosing to accept the people and the past experiences in your life as they are, not as who or what you want them to be.

Is radical acceptance hard?

Yes, but so is living a life being willfully blind to the behaviors and characters of people who hurt you.

Whether you choose to radically accept what's happened to you or not or accept the true character of the person you're in a relationship with, the outcome will not be easy. You are choosing which kind of hard you can live with. But only one is operating from a place of truth and authenticity.

Refusing to accept the truth, whether it be something as simple as the world is not flat, or hard like, the person you're in a relationship with is intentionally choosing to behave in a way that hurts you - doesn't hurt anyone else but you.

Not everyone has the strength to radically accept the truth about those who they are in a relationship with who hurt them. Some have a savior complex. They need to be needed and are willing to enable the poor behavior in order to feel like they have the power to rescue and change the other person.

Some Truth Tea

Some people would rather endure the pain of a lifetime of disappointment, discouragement, and disillusionment rather than face the pain of life without the person causing that pain.

Others, like I did, decided that the only way to heal and forgive is to acknowledge to themselves the truth about the person they are dealing with and remove their rose-colored glasses.

I had to do some radical acceptance with family members. I realized that their chronic emotional abuse, manipulation and controlling tactics were not something that I could prevent or change about them, if I remained in a relationship with them. It was one of the key components to me choosing to go no contact with them. Regardless of the rage I felt at their abuse, betrayal and manipulation, it hit me that no matter what I do I can't get them to love me and treat me with dignity, respect, and kindness. They can't offer those emotions to themselves. They are trapped in their own cycle of negative behavioral patterns. Those patterns delude their minds into believing that their bad behavior is okay because it gets them the results they crave. They blame shift and take on the role of victim anytime their whims are not indulged.

A few years ago I had to take a good, hard look at who they were and either accept who they are or continue to live in this painful delusion. Neither option was going to be pleasant. Both options would have some measure of pain involved. But I knew I had to make a choice at what I was going to believe about them and how that belief was going to influence my actions in our relationship. I chose to believe the nearly 4 decades of negative behavior against me and others, instead of listening to the people who kept saying, " Your mom and dad love you. You can't sever the relationship. You have to make it work. You only get one mother and father." Choosing no contact was my last resort measure to allow myself to detangle from their chronic abuse and manipulation. I made the decision not out of anger, but out of the realization that nothing was going to change on their end. The only thing I could control is me and their access to me.

Radical acceptance is not a justification or excuse of bad behavior, broken trust, or abuse you've experienced. It is a decision to see the truth in front of you so you can determine what your options are in the relationship. If you choose to stay in the relationship, you know it's not from a place of a lack of awareness of the bad behavior you are experiencing, but for your own reasons. I won't pretend that making the choice to radically accept my parents behavior was an easy choice, it wasn't. But I do believe it is the right one for me. Radical acceptance allows you to determine what your next steps are, what boundaries you need to create or enforce so that you can operate from a place of wholeness. It opens the door to helping you forgive the one who hurt you because you are seeing them for who they are, not who you want or expect them to be.

If you choose to leave the relationship, that's okay as well. It may be because you realize you can't change the other person. It may be you can't justify the way that you are being treated. It may be you are willing to choose the pain of letting go and starting over versus remaining in a relationship that is unhealthy or even toxic.

So I invite you to consider practicing radical acceptance in your relationships. It may not be easy, but it can help you on your journey to heal from the wounds that have been inflicted upon you if you let it.

If you need help practicing radical acceptance or forgiveness, book a free 15-minute session with me now.

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