(Repost) What It Means To Accept And How To Do It With ACT Expert Dr. Diana Hill
Oct 9, 2023
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Dr. Diana Hill, an ACT Expert, explores the meaning and practice of acceptance. She emphasizes its importance in maintaining healthy relationships, pursuing meaningful goals, and finding inner peace. The podcast discusses the misconceptions around acceptance and introduces practices to cultivate greater acceptance. It also explores the benefits of acceptance in various situations, such as acknowledging negative feelings and apologizing for harm caused. The concept of acceptance is further explored through practices like Wim Hof breathing and accepting difficult situations and emotions.
Acceptance is crucial for maintaining healthy relationships, behavior change, pursuing meaningful goals, and finding peace within oneself.
Micro-practices of acceptance involve noticing and releasing experiential avoidance strategies, allowing us to move towards what truly matters to us.
Deep dives
The Power of Acceptance
Acceptance is a skill that offers freedom and is crucial for maintaining healthy relationships, behavior change, pursuing meaningful goals, and finding peace within oneself. Acceptance involves receiving and making space for what is offered, instead of approval, passivity, or resignation. It requires seeing clearly and holding our experiences with compassion. Acceptance is practiced with the mind, body, and behavior. It involves cultivating a yes brain, accepting discomfort with the body, and taking actions aligned with our values. Acceptance changes our relationship with pain and discomfort, allowing us to live more fully and freely.
Micro-Practices of Acceptance
Micro-practices of acceptance involve noticing and releasing experiential avoidance strategies that keep us on the sidelines of life, such as striving, numbing out, bracing with our bodies, distracting, rushing through, overthinking, and blaming. These strategies protect us in the short term, but prevent us from fully experiencing life and hinder personal growth. By acknowledging these avoidance patterns, we can cultivate acceptance and open ourselves to feeling discomfort, allowing us to move towards what truly matters to us.
Acceptance with the Mind, Body, and Behavior
Acceptance with the mind means cultivating a yes brain and choosing to accept what is, even if it's uncomfortable. It involves recognizing the impermanence of the present moment and opening up to experience. Acceptance with the body entails being present with discomfort, letting go of tension, and making space for both pain and goodness. Acceptance with behavior means aligning our actions with our values, even when our emotions or thoughts tell us otherwise. By accepting with the mind, body, and behavior, we can navigate discomfort and live in alignment with our values.
The Power of Acceptance in Life
Acceptance is a fundamental aspect of psychological flexibility and well-being. Through acceptance, we can change our relationship with pain and discomfort, activating areas in our brain associated with pain, both emotional and physical. Acceptance is a bottom-up practice that allows us to feel differently without trying to think our way out of it. It helps us let go of experiential avoidance and embrace the impermanence of life. By accepting what is, we can live more freely and consciously, making space for growth, connection, and meaningful experiences.
If there’s one skill we all need to be practicing right now, it is acceptance. Acceptance is central to maintaining healthy relationships, making a behavior change, pursuing meaningful goals, and being at peace with yourself. But how do you do it? What does it look like? In this solo episode, Diana sits down with you to explore what acceptance means and what gets in the way of accepting. Diana shares practices you can do with your mind, body, and behavior to cultivate a greater willingness to experience uncertainty and discomfort.