Episode 7
What It Means To Accept And How To Do It With ACT Expert Dr. Diana Hill
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.
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Transcript
I believe that if there's one skill in life that will offer you
Dr. Diana Hill:Acceptance is central to maintaining healthy relationships, to making a
Dr. Diana Hill:But how do you do it?
Dr. Diana Hill:What does it look like?
Dr. Diana Hill:And feel like to radically accept.
Dr. Diana Hill:That's what we're going to explore in this episode of Your Life in Process.
Dr. Diana Hill:I want to remind you that if you are interested in Acceptance and Commitment
Dr. Diana Hill:And you can find that course on my website, drdianahill.com.
Dr. Diana Hill:As a therapist, sometimes I need to refer clients to a higher level of care.
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Dr. Diana Hill:One of the reasons why I wanted to start this podcast, Your Life
Dr. Diana Hill:I wanted to share with you ideas from psychology and contemplative
Dr. Diana Hill:And probably one of the most important practices that we can
Dr. Diana Hill:If you haven't gotten a crash course in acceptance yet in your life, I'm
Dr. Diana Hill:It's given all of us one and in a lot of ways, this virus is a messenger
Dr. Diana Hill:And imagine if you clicked on this episode in particular, there's
Dr. Diana Hill:Or you've had a profound experience of acceptance that
Dr. Diana Hill:We're going to be talking about micro practices of acceptance, little tiny
Dr. Diana Hill:interactions with people and interactions with ourselves, so that we can also be
Dr. Diana Hill:And I'll share examples for you of each.
Dr. Diana Hill:So let's take a moment to look at what is, and what is not acceptance.
Dr. Diana Hill:One of the biggest mistakes that I make as a therapist and as a parent and as a
Dr. Diana Hill:When I'm talking about acceptance, I don't mean approval being passive,
Dr. Diana Hill:But rather when you look at the Latin word for, except it comes from the root
Dr. Diana Hill:So if the word acceptance makes you cringe, here are some alternative words
Dr. Diana Hill:allowing, making space for, breathing into, letting go, being brave, letting it
Dr. Diana Hill:I think that those words encapsulate a little bit better what we're talking
Dr. Diana Hill:When I think about acceptance, I think about my eight year
Dr. Diana Hill:And one of the first things that you need to be able to do to learn how
Dr. Diana Hill:And unfortunately, for my eight year old, that was sort of the
Dr. Diana Hill:He didn't like the idea of a wetness.
Dr. Diana Hill:And with acceptance, a lot of times there's just something that
Dr. Diana Hill:And that is fine if you don't care about learning how to swim, or maybe there is
Dr. Diana Hill:But when there is something that you care about that your nonacceptance is
Dr. Diana Hill:we have to learn some practices to be able to tolerate and open up to getting
Dr. Diana Hill:We spend a lot of our life on the side of the pool, looking in and
Dr. Diana Hill:There's maybe intimacy within a relationship that you want to
Dr. Diana Hill:Maybe there's a job change that you want to make, but it would be scary.
Dr. Diana Hill:You'd have to put yourself on the line.
Dr. Diana Hill:You'd have to risk your ego.
Dr. Diana Hill:You'd have to risk the feeling of rejection.
Dr. Diana Hill:Or maybe there's a deep end of grief that you're terrified to move towards
Dr. Diana Hill:When we learn the practice of acceptance, we first just learn to float.
Dr. Diana Hill:And once you can learn to float, once you can learn to open up and allow and
Dr. Diana Hill:It doesn't overtake you so that you can eventually flip yourself over and start
Dr. Diana Hill:So what does that mean tangibly today?
Dr. Diana Hill:We're going to talk about how to spot what acceptance is and what it isn't.
Dr. Diana Hill:We're going to explore sort of your cycles of avoidance, the
Dr. Diana Hill:And then I'm going to give you three practices that you can apply in your life
Dr. Diana Hill:So acceptance is one of the core processes involved in psychological flexibility.
Dr. Diana Hill:It's one of those sides of the six sided Rubik's cube that I talked
Dr. Diana Hill:acceptance is different than maybe what a lot of, sort of in our vernacular,
Dr. Diana Hill:When I'm talking about acceptance, I don't necessarily mean acceptance of the outer
Dr. Diana Hill:What I'm talking about is acceptance of what is showing up under
Dr. Diana Hill:Kirk Strosahl, who's one of the co-founders of ACT, talks about
Dr. Diana Hill:So T acceptance of our thoughts.
Dr. Diana Hill:E, acceptance of our emotions.
Dr. Diana Hill:A acceptance of our action urges, those sorts of cravings that can show up.
Dr. Diana Hill:M, acceptance of our memories and S acceptance of our sensations.
Dr. Diana Hill:In ACT, we're talking about making room for, and space for whatever shows up
Dr. Diana Hill:When I asked my mom, who's been married almost 50 years to my dad,
Dr. Diana Hill:She said two things.
Dr. Diana Hill:She said first that when she gets into a fight with my dad, they
Dr. Diana Hill:And then if you pick it up again and say, I won because I dropped it first,
Dr. Diana Hill:You have to be willing to drop it in order to win.
Dr. Diana Hill:The second thing she said is acceptance that you cannot change another person.
Dr. Diana Hill:When you find dental floss on the couch, you let it go.
Dr. Diana Hill:Whether you are stock and an unhealthy behavior, or you hold back from playing
Dr. Diana Hill:able to get into that wetness, that discomfort so that you can move more
Dr. Diana Hill:In the book Radical Acceptance, Tara Brach describes acceptances having sort of these
Dr. Diana Hill:And the other is to hold our experience with compassion.
Dr. Diana Hill:We take a look at what we're grasping or what we're running
Dr. Diana Hill:And we open up with care and with kindness.
Dr. Diana Hill:I was recently in a workshop with Jack Kornfield and he talked about
Dr. Diana Hill:And he said that in meditation, it's inevitable that there's going to be
Dr. Diana Hill:And when that restlessness shows up, what we can do is we
Dr. Diana Hill:Restlessness.
Dr. Diana Hill:It'll continue to show up and you just name it gently, whisper, restlessness.
Dr. Diana Hill:And come back to your breath.
Dr. Diana Hill:But sometimes the restlessness is so loud and screaming and feels impossible
Dr. Diana Hill:And when that happens, what he recommended was you say, okay, take me now.
Dr. Diana Hill:Kill me.
Dr. Diana Hill:Take me restlessness, take me.
Dr. Diana Hill:And you completely surrender to the restlessness.
Dr. Diana Hill:You say I will be the first person to die of restlessness in my meditation.
Dr. Diana Hill:And in doing that, in that complete surrender and that complete letting
Dr. Diana Hill:This maps on to those sort of micro discomforts in life, like
Dr. Diana Hill:But it also maps on to the bigger things in life, like facing
Dr. Diana Hill:That when we can be with ourselves in those moments and surrender
Dr. Diana Hill:Acceptance is actually doing what Tara Brach says of being able to see
Dr. Diana Hill:Neuroscience research shows us that when we are practicing acceptance and
Dr. Diana Hill:of acceptance, it can attenuate the areas of our brain that are activated
Dr. Diana Hill:Whether that's physical pain due to a temperature test or emotional pain,
Dr. Diana Hill:And in particular, those areas that are receptive to pain.
Dr. Diana Hill:Another interesting thing is that when we practice acceptance, it's more of
Dr. Diana Hill:of trying to think our way out of, into feeling differently, we feel
Dr. Diana Hill:That's different with our discomfort and neuroscience research has
Dr. Diana Hill:practice mindful awareness and response to an aversive stimuli,
Dr. Diana Hill:We don't see as much activation in the prefrontal cortex as we do with
Dr. Diana Hill:Mindfulness-based stress reduction, dialectical behavior therapy act are
Dr. Diana Hill:But this is something that you already know for yourself.
Dr. Diana Hill:This is something that preschool teachers know when a parent leaves a child at
Dr. Diana Hill:The preschool teacher doesn't give the child straight back to the mother,
Dr. Diana Hill:with the child long enough so that they can develop the skillset of
Dr. Diana Hill:So I mentioned that we need to practice micro acceptance before
Dr. Diana Hill:And one of the places where.
Dr. Diana Hill:Learn to practice.
Dr. Diana Hill:Micro acceptance is in my work.
Dr. Diana Hill:I have a tendency to get anxious before new clients, and this has
Dr. Diana Hill:And new client contacts me.
Dr. Diana Hill:I'm anxious.
Dr. Diana Hill:I call them back.
Dr. Diana Hill:I'm anxious on the phone call.
Dr. Diana Hill:They come to my office and I'm still anxious.
Dr. Diana Hill:What I've learned to do with that anxiety is to expect it, to know that it's
Dr. Diana Hill:that actually prevents me from being the type of therapist that I want to be the
Dr. Diana Hill:With my clients, right?
Dr. Diana Hill:So recently I had a client come to my office.
Dr. Diana Hill:I've been seeing some, some folks outside on the porch at a distance.
Dr. Diana Hill:And this client comes to my office and I'm having my normal bout of anxiety
Dr. Diana Hill:And so I walk out to go and meet her and I can feel I can feel the
Dr. Diana Hill:And we walked back to my office and I lead the way and as we get to my
Dr. Diana Hill:Says, I think that you should fix your skirt.
Dr. Diana Hill:And I look around and my skirt is completely tucked into my underpants, like
Dr. Diana Hill:I have that moment of take me now as Jack cornfield would say, take me now.
Dr. Diana Hill:And in some ways that's it right?
Dr. Diana Hill:We all have our skirts tucked into our underpants to some degree or another,
Dr. Diana Hill:We go around the world covering up
Dr. Diana Hill:the things that make us vulnerable and the things that make us human.
Dr. Diana Hill:Take me now.
Dr. Diana Hill:And it's in that radical acceptance actually of just like surrender.
Dr. Diana Hill:That allows us to be able to move more freely in our lives.
Dr. Diana Hill:Rick Hanson, who's been a mentor of mine for the past few years, gave me
Dr. Diana Hill:The term renunciation sounds sort of not so great, uh, who would
Dr. Diana Hill:Buddhism, renunciation, the term pronunciation is really about
Dr. Diana Hill:Renunciation is realizing that you already have exactly what you need
Dr. Diana Hill:So what keeps us from acceptance or the opposite of acceptance is emotional
Dr. Diana Hill:And everybody has their flavor of experiential avoidance.
Dr. Diana Hill:Recognizing your experiential avoidance is that first wing of
Dr. Diana Hill:So take a look at the ways in which you are experientially, avoiding the
Dr. Diana Hill:I'm going to list for you.
Dr. Diana Hill:Some of the experiential avoidance strategies that I see that are
Dr. Diana Hill:And maybe you can just on the Palm of your hand, put a finger up
Dr. Diana Hill:And if you need to do two hands, go ahead and use two hands.
Dr. Diana Hill:So just take a listen, put your hands out and use your fingers to
Dr. Diana Hill:Do you tend to strive?
Dr. Diana Hill:Do you tend to overwork overachieve compete?
Dr. Diana Hill:If so, put a finger up.
Dr. Diana Hill:When faced with discomfort, do you tend to numb out?
Dr. Diana Hill:Do you use food over exercising, not eating self-harm substances
Dr. Diana Hill:Do you brace with your body?
Dr. Diana Hill:Do you hold your breath?
Dr. Diana Hill:Clench your jaw tense up, suck in your stomach.
Dr. Diana Hill:Put a finger up.
Dr. Diana Hill:When faced with discomfort, whether it's irritability or grief or anxiety
Dr. Diana Hill:Do you check out with technology?
Dr. Diana Hill:Do you multitask or do you give up, do you opt out?
Dr. Diana Hill:Do you.
Dr. Diana Hill:Get back in bed.
Dr. Diana Hill:Don't go.
Dr. Diana Hill:Don't sign up, put a finger up.
Dr. Diana Hill:I've got five fingers so far.
Dr. Diana Hill:I don't know about you.
Dr. Diana Hill:And moving on to my next hand, what about rushing through my personal
Dr. Diana Hill:Do you try and just speed up to get through it all so that you don't have to
Dr. Diana Hill:Do you stay busy?
Dr. Diana Hill:Do you talk really quickly put a finger up or maybe you overthink
Dr. Diana Hill:You problem solve you and intellectualize and then a fan favorite.
Dr. Diana Hill:I think of all of us right now is blaming.
Dr. Diana Hill:Do you point fingers?
Dr. Diana Hill:Do you judge, do you blame others?
Dr. Diana Hill:Because it's too uncomfortable to experience the uncertainty in your life.
Dr. Diana Hill:So these fingers that stand up in your hands right now are your
Dr. Diana Hill:And we all have them.
Dr. Diana Hill:We all have them.
Dr. Diana Hill:And I want you to put your hands with all those fingers up over your heart
Dr. Diana Hill:This is what it means to be human humans, avoid pain at all.
Dr. Diana Hill:Costs is what our brains are designed to do.
Dr. Diana Hill:We're designed to avoid pain and move towards pleasure, but when we
Dr. Diana Hill:Steve Hayes talks about the longings that underlie each one of these processes
Dr. Diana Hill:And when you start to see clearly that first wing of the bird of acceptance,
Dr. Diana Hill:yes, they protect you in the short term, but in the longterm, they
Dr. Diana Hill:And it also prevents you from getting in the water and taking that swim,
Dr. Diana Hill:Maybe you want deeper connections with people.
Dr. Diana Hill:Maybe you want a deeper connection, an understanding of yourself.
Dr. Diana Hill:And when you're caught up in experiential and emotional avoidance,
Dr. Diana Hill:So the first practice of acceptance is seeing clearly getting clear on
Dr. Diana Hill:And you can see that at the micro level, the little tiny things you're doing to
Dr. Diana Hill:A lot of times with non-acceptance, what we do is we, we go straight
Dr. Diana Hill:I didn't attack intend to harm you.
Dr. Diana Hill:I'm a good person.
Dr. Diana Hill:I wouldn't make a racist comment.
Dr. Diana Hill:I'm a good person.
Dr. Diana Hill:I wouldn't make a sexist or an able-bodied comment.
Dr. Diana Hill:I'm a good person.
Dr. Diana Hill:I wouldn't make a comment to my partner that is harmful to them, but in our
Dr. Diana Hill:doing is experientially avoiding and we're experience really avoiding that discomfort
Dr. Diana Hill:And one of the practices that I'm really learning to do, whether it's with my
Dr. Diana Hill:avoidance, but actually go into the feeling state and apologize for the
Dr. Diana Hill:So that's a, that's a practice of acceptance, right?
Dr. Diana Hill:An example of how seeing clearly and see our subtle emotional avoidance
Dr. Diana Hill:So I talked to you about sort of the micro and macro experiences of acceptance and
Dr. Diana Hill:clearly the first wing of the bird and the second wing, the other wing of the bird
Dr. Diana Hill:And I believe that we practice acceptance with our mind.
Dr. Diana Hill:We've practiced the substance with our body and we practice
Dr. Diana Hill:So I want to try on those three practices of acceptance with the
Dr. Diana Hill:And Debbie Sorenson and I, when we wrote the Act Daily Journal, that's
Dr. Diana Hill:So if you're interested in learning more about sort of some daily practices you
Dr. Diana Hill:It's a great resource.
Dr. Diana Hill:I love some of research.
Dr. Diana Hill:That's looking at, um, pain in our brain and really seeing how, whether it's
Dr. Diana Hill:And so sometimes it's helpful to use physical pain as an example for how
Dr. Diana Hill:One of the, one of the practices that I took up during the pandemic that a lot
Dr. Diana Hill:and Wim Hof breathing, because it's supposed to activate some of the, um, sort
Dr. Diana Hill:Hormesis being sort of a little bit of stress on your body can
Dr. Diana Hill:What you do in Wim Hof Breathing is you breathe in rapidly for about 30 breaths,
Dr. Diana Hill:you hold your breath out at the bottom for as long as possible to the point where you
Dr. Diana Hill:And then you take a deep breath in and hold that retention for about 15 seconds.
Dr. Diana Hill:And then you repeat and over time you become better and stronger at
Dr. Diana Hill:Elissa Epel and others are starting to look at some of the benefits of this type
Dr. Diana Hill:But for me, what was really helpful in the practice of Wim Hof breathing was
Dr. Diana Hill:And it's interesting because under other circumstances, if someone were
Dr. Diana Hill:But here I am, I am choosing to do this.
Dr. Diana Hill:So acceptance has a lot to do with choice, right?
Dr. Diana Hill:And when we think about acceptance with our mind, this first
Dr. Diana Hill:Choosing to accept by cultivating a yes brain as Dan Siegel would call it.
Dr. Diana Hill:There's actually a book called The Yes Brain by Dan Siegel and Tina
Dr. Diana Hill:And the yes, brain is, is a brain that is flexible and curious, and
Dr. Diana Hill:It's open to the world and relationships.
Dr. Diana Hill:And when we practice a yes brain, we're actually practicing acceptance.
Dr. Diana Hill:We're doing a yes.
Dr. Diana Hill:So if you can imagine, and you could even practice this, do a little Wim
Dr. Diana Hill:Elissa Epel, who I have spoken with, um, a bit says she recommends
Dr. Diana Hill:We'd be doing this Wim Hof breathing to have its benefits.
Dr. Diana Hill:But see if, when you're on that extended exhale, when it gets really
Dr. Diana Hill:How it feels differently when you say in your mind, yes.
Dr. Diana Hill:Think about something for yourself right now that's uncomfortable to
Dr. Diana Hill:And imagine it right in front of you and say no, no, no, no.
Dr. Diana Hill:What happens?
Dr. Diana Hill:Imagine that same thing in front of you in your mind, you can
Dr. Diana Hill:That's difficult to accept.
Dr. Diana Hill:And this time, what I want you to say is yes, yes, yes, yes.
Dr. Diana Hill:Notice how it's a little different.
Dr. Diana Hill:So when I start to bring yes to my holding out of my breath, I actually can hold my
Dr. Diana Hill:And I resist.
Dr. Diana Hill:And as I mentioned before, these areas of your brain that are activated with
Dr. Diana Hill:The same is true when I say yes to things like my anxiety, or I say
Dr. Diana Hill:I can stay with it a little bit longer and it really changes my relationship with it.
Dr. Diana Hill:So with acceptance in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, we are not
Dr. Diana Hill:We're actually not talking about changing the discomfort, but we're talking
Dr. Diana Hill:You can't swim.
Dr. Diana Hill:If you don't get wet rule number one, So you got to say
Dr. Diana Hill:That's the first step.
Dr. Diana Hill:But then the second part, the second step that I want to teach you is
Dr. Diana Hill:As I mentioned before, the first thing they teach you when you learn
Dr. Diana Hill:And part of the reason why they teach that to kids is because if the kid falls
Dr. Diana Hill:them to be able to not exert all of their energy, if they don't know how to swim
Dr. Diana Hill:Actually floating on your back so that you don't exert your energy and nonacceptance.
Dr. Diana Hill:We know it's exhausting to not accept will allow the child to be in the pool
Dr. Diana Hill:But when you become an adult, it's you, that's going to rescue you.
Dr. Diana Hill:It's no one else out there that's going to rescue you.
Dr. Diana Hill:So you float on your back.
Dr. Diana Hill:You learn how to accept and open up with your body so that you can be in a space
Dr. Diana Hill:You can relate to your pain and discomfort differently and find what's
Dr. Diana Hill:So the second step is sort of the starfish pose of it all.
Dr. Diana Hill:And accepting with our body can mean bringing in a curious stance,
Dr. Diana Hill:The thing that's uncomfortable for you.
Dr. Diana Hill:The, the skirt that's tucked into your underwear.
Dr. Diana Hill:What does it feel like inside your body?
Dr. Diana Hill:Where is it located?
Dr. Diana Hill:Noticing if it had a shape or a color, if it's on one side, more than
Dr. Diana Hill:Bringing your awareness to just that.
Dr. Diana Hill:A loving, open awareness to just hold that.
Dr. Diana Hill:Accepting with your body.
Dr. Diana Hill:It's letting go of your face.
Dr. Diana Hill:As my favorite yoga teacher, Eddie says, let go of your face.
Dr. Diana Hill:Let go of your face.
Dr. Diana Hill:It's letting go of your shoulders.
Dr. Diana Hill:Is letting go of your belly.
Dr. Diana Hill:It's opening your hands, palms up, to receive.
Dr. Diana Hill:Many practices of meditation, we do palms up on our lap when we want to receive.
Dr. Diana Hill:So with acceptance of our body, it's a very bottom up practice.
Dr. Diana Hill:It's an embodied practice of climbing inside, breathing into and around
Dr. Diana Hill:And remembering with that sort of idea of renunciation that you
Dr. Diana Hill:What you have is already good.
Dr. Diana Hill:So making space for that goodness as well, alongside the pain.
Dr. Diana Hill:So that's your second practice.
Dr. Diana Hill:First we say yes, with our, with our mind.
Dr. Diana Hill:We get wet.
Dr. Diana Hill:And then we exp we say yes to what is.
Dr. Diana Hill:And then second we accept with our bodies.
Dr. Diana Hill:And then the third practice is accepting with our behavior.
Dr. Diana Hill:And oftentimes accepting with our behavior is doing the opposite of
Dr. Diana Hill:There's a term in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy called Opposite to Emotion Action.
Dr. Diana Hill:Sometimes accepting with our behavior is moving towards what's making
Dr. Diana Hill:Acceptance with our behavior is flipping our bodies over in the water and
Dr. Diana Hill:There's a beautiful song by Lyla June Johnson who's an indigenous public
Dr. Diana Hill:And in the song she sings about water.
Dr. Diana Hill:And one of her lines is that we are people of the water.
Dr. Diana Hill:She says, you can say water is life, but can you live it?
Dr. Diana Hill:When you accept with your behavior, you start to become the water itself.
Dr. Diana Hill:You can start to move and flow freely in your life.
Dr. Diana Hill:And you start to see that your actions can be decoupled from your emotions.
Dr. Diana Hill:Sometimes your actions are the opposite of your emotions.
Dr. Diana Hill:You can wake up in the morning and accept the feeling of discomfort of
Dr. Diana Hill:practice or your exercise program, or get ready for work, even though
Dr. Diana Hill:You can practice acceptance with a yes brain.
Dr. Diana Hill:Or sometimes your emotions and your inner world are calling for you to listen.
Dr. Diana Hill:And asking for you to pause and be so that you can actually use
Dr. Diana Hill:Maybe you have a longing for a job change or a longing for a
Dr. Diana Hill:So what that looks like with your behavior, acceptance with
Dr. Diana Hill:Opening up and allowing for whatever shows up along the way, not drowning
Dr. Diana Hill:getting clear on your values as we did in the first podcast and moving
Dr. Diana Hill:I mentioned that there's micro and macro practices of this.
Dr. Diana Hill:And as I close, I want to share a macro practice that I have been
Dr. Diana Hill:My husband, who is a lover of hawks, I think it's his, it's his spirit animal.
Dr. Diana Hill:We live in a canyon and these hawks often circle around our property and he calls
Dr. Diana Hill:And one day, he called me up to the house and I sort of rolled my eyes thinking
Dr. Diana Hill:And I was, I was busy and had some notes to write and I went up to the
Dr. Diana Hill:I can't see part of your face.
Dr. Diana Hill:Fast forward, a number of doctor's appointments and, um, diagnostics
Dr. Diana Hill:We came to learn that he has a progressive vision loss.
Dr. Diana Hill:And that he will never get that vision back.
Dr. Diana Hill:And then it's likely that vision loss will continue.
Dr. Diana Hill:So radical acceptance is seeing clearly and then opening up with our mind,
Dr. Diana Hill:Seeing clearly as seeing the impermanence of the present moment and the second
Dr. Diana Hill:Allowing and being willing and being curious about what is
Dr. Diana Hill:What is the gift inside of the pain?
Dr. Diana Hill:And I will say for myself, the gift inside of the pain of my husband's
Dr. Diana Hill:One of the teachings that I learned from Thich Nhat Hanh over 20 years ago is
Dr. Diana Hill:And what Thay teaches is to wake up every morning and to, to practice saying
Dr. Diana Hill:The first is remembering that you are aging and you are going to grow old.
Dr. Diana Hill:The second is remembering that you are going to get sick.
Dr. Diana Hill:The third is remembering that you will die.
Dr. Diana Hill:The fourth is a remembering that everything you love and
Dr. Diana Hill:It is all changing and that we will lose all of it at some point.
Dr. Diana Hill:And then the fifth remembrance is that really your only
Dr. Diana Hill:So this comes from Buddhist teachings that are translated by Thich Nhat
Dr. Diana Hill:Four of those five remembrances are about acceptance.
Dr. Diana Hill:And I would say four of those five remembrances have showed up intimately
Dr. Diana Hill:You've had to make close contact with your impermanence, your vulnerability,
Dr. Diana Hill:being close to losing your life, most likely the vulnerability of
Dr. Diana Hill:And when we can make contact and open up and accept the impermanence of,
Dr. Diana Hill:And that's what act is sort of all about it's Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.
Dr. Diana Hill:It's with the acceptance that then we can commit.
Dr. Diana Hill:So I hope that this practice of acceptance that you will do it on the micro level
Dr. Diana Hill:There's a ground to stand on when we practice acceptance,
Dr. Diana Hill:To summarize today's talk, we talked about acceptance.
Dr. Diana Hill:We talked about what acceptance is and what it is not.
Dr. Diana Hill:We talked about the different types of traditions that all point to acceptance
Dr. Diana Hill:And we talked about the two wings of the bird of acceptance that come
Dr. Diana Hill:can practice the second wing, which is to be with, to be present with an
Dr. Diana Hill:And throughout I used a metaphor of, of swimming in the water.
Dr. Diana Hill:For your practice this week, here's what I would like to you to do.
Dr. Diana Hill:I would like you to do a micro acceptance practice.
Dr. Diana Hill:I'd like for you to be aware when you notice yourself resisting what is.
Dr. Diana Hill:And when you get caught in one of those experiential avoidance strategies.
Dr. Diana Hill:Catch yourself, catch yourself.
Dr. Diana Hill:And then practice one of those three practices.
Dr. Diana Hill:Either just say silently to yourself yes, yes to what is.
Dr. Diana Hill:Or practice letting go with your body.
Dr. Diana Hill:Accepting and opening up with open palms, open heart, open belly, open face.
Dr. Diana Hill:Or practicing acceptance with your behavior.
Dr. Diana Hill:Choosing that towards values lifestyle even in the presence
Dr. Diana Hill:Let me know how it works for you.
Dr. Diana Hill:I'll see you over on Instagram.
Dr. Diana Hill:Let me know there in the comment section and many blessings and
Dr. Diana Hill:Thank you so much for listening to this episode of your life in process.
Dr. Diana Hill:when you enter your life in process, when you become psychologically
Dr. Diana Hill:If you like this episode or think it would be helpful to somebody, please leave
Dr. Diana Hill:for me by phone at (805) 457-2776 or by email at podcast@yourlifeinprocess.com
Dr. Diana Hill:And it's not meant to be a substitute for mental health treatment.
