How To....Radical Acceptance

So the last post was about Radical Acceptance - what it is and what it is not.
But how do we do it? That is the million dollar question.

There are 4 skills to help you with radically accepting the situation, as it is, in the current moment.

OBSERVING YOUR BREATH
This is a practice intended to help you tolerate the current moment. It is a way of taking hold of your mind and centreing yourself and gaining access to solving the problem or improving the moment.

Observing you breath serves 2 important purposes.

1. Focusing on your breathing assists with physiological relaxing. When nervous, many people hold their breath or breathe shallowly, which creates additional tension and increases carbon dioxide in the blood (triggering adrenalin bursts). By observing your breath, you release the effort to control it. When you stop controlling your breath, your body takes over and your breathing naturally becomes deeper and fuller and more relaxed.
2. The breath is used as a point of focus because it is always available and provides a basic connection to the present moment. This activity occupies your mind and there is less room for worrisome thoughts.

HALF-SMILING

This is the practice of accepting and tolerating reality with your body. It is the adoption of acceptance with one area of the body: our facial muscles (lips).

Facial expressions communicate with the brain which in turn, influences our emotions. Since emotions influence our facial muscles unconsciously, by consciously controlling our facial muscles, we acn affect our emotions or how we feel. (Research Based!!)

To do it, you relax your face, neck and shoulder muscles and then slightly up-turn your lips. Half-smile is best achieved with a relaxed face.

NOTE: Many people struggle with this skill as they feel it invalidates their feelings. Many will say they wore a "happy face" for years and that half smiling triggers them to feel like they are FAKING IT...As if everything is OK when it is NOT.

However, the reason individuals practice half smiling exercises is to help them tolerate and accept reality and reduce their suffering. It is about self-care and control, not to prove their 'happiness' to other people.

Half-Smiling is done for oneself.

TURNING THE MIND

Turning the mind from the topic causing it distress is to 'turn toward acceptance'; and is a choice because you have to CHOOSE to turn your mind. However, acceptance any only last a moment or 2 so people have to continuously turn their mind, over and over and over again. When we 'turn the mind' in a certain direction or away from a specific situation, change occurs. The goal is to decrease the intensity of an emotion and increase the feeling of power in make the choice.

Example: Quitting Smoking - When a person who smokes decides to stops smoking, they DO NOT make this decision once. The individual needs to make the decision over and over again. This is due to the fact that although the individual decided to quit smoking, they will inevitably experience the urge to smoke again, which makes sense. In order to avoid giving in to these urges, the individual needs to 'turn their mind' to their choice to not smoke and needs to do this over and over again. It will becomes easier. The person must also accept that they will have these thought and urges AND know that they have a choice as to whether to act on them or not.

WILLINGNESS VS WILLFULNESS

In order to 'turn the mind', individual need to be WILLING.

WILLINGNESS is accepting 'what is' and then responding in an effective way. It is doing what works in the current moment or situation.

WILLFULNESS is imposing one's will on reality - trying to fix everything or refusing to do what is needed. Willfulness is asking 'why?' vs accepting 'it happened and it is what it is'. Willfulness is the opposite of doing what works to move forward.

Willingness and willfulness do not apply to specific things or situation. they reflect instead the underlying attitude one has toward life.

Example: Life is like hitting baseballs from a pitching machine. A person's job is just to do their best to hit each ball as it comes. Refusing to accept that a ball is coming does not make it stop coming. Willpower  defiance, crying or whimpering does not make the machine stop pitching the balls; they keep coming over and over again. So...a person can CHOOSE to stand in the way of the ball and get hit, stand there doing nothing and let the ball go by as a strike, OR swing at the ball.

DBT Skills - Distress Tolerance - Radical Acceptance

Distress tolerance skills constitute a natural progression from mindfulness skills. The skills increase your ability to accept, in a non-judgmental way both oneself and the current situation.
Essentially, distress tolerance is the ability to:

• "perceive the environment without putting demands on it to be different"
• "experience the emotional state without attempting to change it"
• "observe thoughts and actions without attempting to stop or control the outcomes".

The stance here is a non-judgmental (acceptance); which does NOT mean that it one of approval.

ACCEPTANCE OF REALITY DOES NOT EQUAL APPROVING OF REALITY

Believing that something is wrong with us generates a deep and persistent suffering. This suffering emerges in crippling self-judgments, conflict in our relationships, addictions, perfectionism, loneliness, isolation and overwork (to name a few). These patterns keep our lives constricted and unfulfilled.

Accepting reality helps individuals accept and tolerate themselves, others, the world and 'reality' as it is, 'just in this moment'.

Applying RADICAL ACCEPTANCE / accepting reality involves developing the capacity to tolerate pain skillfully in order to adopt and attitude of acceptance.

Radical is meant to imply that the acceptance has to come from deep within (when you are actually fighting it).

Radical Acceptance empowers genuine change: healing fear, shame and helping to build loving, authentic relationships.

Radical Acceptance is letting go of fighting reality.

Acceptance is a way to turn suffering into pain that can be tolerated. Pain is a part of living, whether it is physical or emotional. Refusing to accept pain creates suffering. Suffering comes when people resist reality as it is (at that moment, not forever). Refusal to 'accept reality' and the pain that goes along with it interferes with reducing pain. Through the practice of radical acceptance, we can shift suffering to 'just pain'. 

DBT Skills - Distress Tolerance Pros and Cons

Crisis Survival Skill #4

Pros and Cons

This is where we learn to identify the beneficial and harmful effects of choosing to tolerate the distress.

How To Use The PROS AND CONS Skill

When using the pros and cons skill, individuals are making 2 separate lists. One list is about the pros and cons of tolerating distress; the other list is about the pros and cons of NOT tolerating distress.
By not tolerating the distress means choosing avoiding, using alcohol or drugs, binge eating or engaging in some other impulsive self-defeating or self-destructive behaviour.

People use pros an cons all the time to help make decisions. For example, each day, you do a pros and cons list to get out of bed. We do not necessarily thing "the pros of getting up today are..." and the cons of getting up today are..." but we do this on a subconscious level.
The key is to strengthen this skill and practice it before a crisis happens so that we can consciously use pros and cons when we are feeling distressed.
The goal of practicing pros and cons is to help make decisions from a wise mind perspective.
This skill help us to look at a situation from every perspective and identify all possible outcomes. The eventual goal is to see that accepting reality and tolerating distress leads to a better future than fighting reality and refusing to tolerate distress.

WHEN COMPLETING PROS AND CONS LISTS...

• focus on both the short-term and long-term pros and cons
• thing of the positive consequences of tolerating the distress. Imagine how good you will feel when you can tolerate distress without 'making the situation worse' i.e. acting impulsively (which is an example of a pro)
• think of the negative consequences of not tolerating the distress. Remember past times when you may have acted impulsively to escape the moment and the situation is now the same or worse and you have no better coping methods.
• Fill our the chart completely and make it easily accessible
• in the midst of a crisis, focus on the pros of not giving into the urges. This will help get through the moment and make you feel stronger in the long run.

Note: if doing it once is not enough then re-do or reuse the list if the need arises even if it is 2 minutes later.

Note: Remember to practice self-soothing when not in distress to make it easier to use when in distress. If you start feeling and thinking you do not deserve to self-soothe, then observe those thoughts, put them aside and practice the skill again.

Venting

I know I'm scheduled to update my DBT distress tolerance skills but I had a meeting today with Child Protective Services and I feel the need to vent. I honestly don't get their purpose - or at least not in my particular situation.

It would take me forever to detail everything so I won't. A lot of things happened to get to this point but let's just say that my 15 year old daughter is living at her dad's house ever since she was released from a mental health unit in the hospital. Ever since she was released from hospital, she has gone downhill. My ex is an extremely bitter man and isn't happy unless he is miserable. He blames all his miserableness on me. Everything that has ever gone wrong in his life is my fault. And he has never been able to keep his mouth shut, even around the kids - especially around the kids. And now my daughter is with this cesspool of shit 24/7.  He even openly admits that mental illness is an excuse and doesn't really exist. He has no knowledge of her self-soothing skills and therefore can't help her with them.

So on to this meeting I had today. CPS keeps insisting that they are not considering removing the girl from her dad's house. So I delved into my DBT skills and used the radical acceptance one. I told the caseworker that even though I don't like the situation, I accept it as it is. I continue to ask my questions that I prepared. The answers weren't really what I wanted to hear but they were what I expected, more or less. What really has me confused or pissed or a combination of the 2, is that my ex can say anything that he wants to our daughter without repercussions but I'm not allowed to have any communication with her.  tells her out-right lies about me and there are ZERO consequences. When I clarify the "lies" to her, I get blamed for harassing her. And of course, he shares that with CPS. Caseworker suggests I write her a letter. I said that I had contemplated that but dismissed it for fear of getting shit on for it in one way or another. She says that the letter should be OK depending on what it says. So to get a letter to her, I have to bring it to the CPS office and get them to read it first to approve it. They said then that they will forward it to her.

I saw my daughter last week at another CPS meeting. She looked horrible - she was so pasty pale, almost gray. Her face was broke out the worst I've ever seen it. She has packed on about 50 pounds. She isn't singing anymore, she isn't playing guitar anymore, she didn't register for her music exam, she isn't performing, auditioning, acting, nothing. She isn't even going to school if she doesn't feel like it. And she never comes out of her room.

AND CPS thinks that she is doing just fine.

So enough venting for now. I feel better now. Thanks for listening.
Oh and if you have any suggestions on how to deal with this situation, please let me know. I'm thinking of writing regularly to my MLA and the minister of human services until something actually happens. I also have a lawyer working on this for me too. And I have a reporter waiting to receive my situation summary.

That's all for now...........

DBT Skills - Distress Tolerance

So week 3 in the DBT Skills Group dealt with distress tolerance. This couldn't come at a better time for me as I am going through some pretty distressing times. But all that will be the content of a separate post. For now, I will let you all in on what I learned - because, well, it also helps me remember it.

Distress tolerance skills teach us to:

• tolerate & survive painful situations when the situation cannot be changed at the moment
• how to survive intense emotions when we feel "triggered"
• decrease the suffering of the moment

PAIN + NON-ACCEPTANCE OF PAIN = SUFFERING

OVERVIEW OF THE DISTRESS TOLERANCE SKILLS

Crisis Survival Skills:

• distracting skills
• self-soothing skills
• improving the moment skills
• thinking of pros & cons of tolerating the moment

Radical Acceptance (accepting reality) Skills:

• learning how to "let go of fighting reality"
• teaches us to turn "intolerable suffering" into "tolerable pain"

CRISIS SURVIVAL SKILL #1: DISTRACTING SKILLS

"ACCEPT" is an acronym to help remember the distracting skills:

Activities: involving yourself in activities that change your focus. Any activity can by used as long as it does not further contribute to your distress or cause other problems. This activity should work to get your mind off the present situation rather than emphasize the current emotion.
Contributing: change your focus away from your emotions toward thinking about what you can do for others.
Comparisons/Count Your Blessings: think about how you successfully solved a problem in the past and utilize those strategies in this moment. Focus on the struggle of other & what they are doing to solve their problems. Focus on what you have or what you are grateful for.
Emotions: (generate opposite emotions) - observe the emotion and then "one-mindedly" involve yourself in an activity that will help you generate the opposite emotion. The opposite emotion produced should be at least the same intensity as the emotion causing the distress.
Pushing away: only used short term - walk away/leave the situation physically or block thoughts triggering the current distress from your mind. This skill allows you to block thoughts that create emotions of distress. You can store the problem away until you are ready to address it. this skill is not a permanent solution: the secret is not to overuse this skill and try using other skills before using trying pushing away.
Thoughts: Fill your head with other thoughts unrelated to the current situation and current distress. Distracting yourself with other thoughts can especially help if you can't get out of the situation.
other Sensations: create an intense physical sensation to focus on rather than a painful emotion or distress. Sensations can interfere with the physiological component of current negative emotion. Remember what you use is not to be harmful to the body or your person. (eg: holding an ice cube or intense exercise).

CRISIS SURVIVAL SKILL #2: SELF-SOOTHING SKILLS

Vision - light a candle & watch the flame; look at nature around you; watch your favourite movie; look at objects that remind us of beauty or that someone loves us

Hearing - listen to beautiful or soothing music; pay attention to sounds of nature; hum a soothing tune; be mindful of any sounds that come your way; letting sounds go in one ear and out the other.

Smell - light a scented candle; smell your favorite perfume or lotion; bake some cookies; carry some potpourri

Taste - have a good meal/ snack; have hot chocolate; have some ice cream; eat something you enjoy (using mindfulness)

Touch - take a bubble bath; pet your dog or cat; have a massage; put a cold compress on your forehead; hug someone; wrap up in a cozy blanket

CRISIS SURVIVAL SKILL #3: IMPROVE THE MOMENT

IMPROVE is an acronym to help remember skills for in the moment

Imagery (visualization) - you can create an experience different from the one you are currently experiencing. You can distract. soothe, bolster courage & confidence, make future rewards seem closer at hand.

Meaning - finding or cresting meaning has been researched and proven to have help people survive crises situations. Often people find it helpful to believe that their suffering has meaning even if they cannot find it in the moment.

Prayer - opening oneself up to the moment. A key point to remember is that praying is not saying "why me, why me?" or bargaining "if you take away this pain, I will do this." This is not accepting the moment. You can pray to God, Buddha, the universe, or whatever works for you. Ask for strength to bear the pain in this moment.

Relaxation - change how your physical body responds to stress and crises. It is your body responding to your mind. Example - a stressed out person often renses their body without consciously knowing they are doing it. it is as if our body is trained to respond to a situation. the goal is to accept reality with your body.

One Thing At A Time - focusing on one thing in the moment can be very helpful in the middle of a crises, it helps the overwhelming mind settle down. The secret of this skill is to remember that we only have to survive "just each moment".

Vacation - A DBT 'vacation' is to stop actively managing your life and either retreat into yourself or allow yourself to be taken care of for the moment. DBT vacations need to be brief, easy to come out of and will not harm yourself, others or make the problem worse.

Encouragement - Cheerleading statements. Speak to yourself as if you are talking to a good friend. Tell yourself what you would like someone else to say to you.

This is all we covered in week 3 of DBT skill group. The remainder of the Distress Tolerance Skills will be the subject of my next post.