Essay 120: Radical Acceptance

I went to Yoga Sculpt this morning. Before the class started, the teacher shared about her life-long struggle with acceptance: feeling acceptance from others and of course, more importantly, from herself. At the end of class, she invited us to look for opportunities to feel radical acceptance. I liked the ring of that.

Most people who know me would agree that I tend to be radical.
Radical love. Radical fear. Radical anger.
A lot of my life choices have been radical.

Radically deciding to marry a man I had met only eight months before.
Radically moving to a new country to start a new life with him.
Radically choosing to follow my husband’s example and no longer eat meat.
Radically selling a very successful business to go live in Hawaii, even though everyone cautioned us it would be hard to make a living teaching martial arts there. (We got on the plane with one suitcase, an inflatable mattress, and a boom box as our carry on.)
Radically deciding to design a life that didn’t require waking up to an alarm clock. A life abundant in free time. That first year, we body boarded almost every morning. We decided to teach classes only two days a week, something we continue to do twenty-one years later.

We rented for ten years before we radically decided to buy a house in our favorite place in the world (Kailua, Oahu). Four years later, when the house across the street went on the market, we radically decided to buy it and become landlords.

Radically, we waited twelve years before having a child, content to explore the world and be just the two of us together.

Radically once that child entered our life, we chose to keep her close. No daycare. No preschool. No school.

Other radical parenting choices include limited vaccination, cloth diapers, elimination communication: she was put on a potty at one week old and was eight month old when she pooped in a diaper for the last time, breastfeeding for 5 1/2 years and raising her vegetarian.

Our 9 year old daughter already runs her own enterprise. She’s visited eight countries in five continents. She speaks three languages. All of that a direct result of our radical choices.

It’s no surprise then that the teacher’s words this morning jumped at me. What WOULD it look like to embrace radical acceptance?

Let me share a replay of my inner thoughts this morning.

Judgement:
I didn’t wear my rain boots over my yoga pants because the colors clashed. It would have been easier and more comfortable but I chose to put jeans over because I didn’t want to “look weird”.

Acceptance:
During the class, I modified some of the more arduous exercises to fit my current fitness level. I took as many breaks as I needed with no concern about what the others might think.

Judgement:
I closed my bedroom door to ensure that my husband’s guest would not get a glimpse of our unmade bed and scattered clothes.

Acceptance:
As usual, I left home with no make up on, hair brushed but not styled.

Judgement:
I wore skinny jeans, a black tank top, a snake skin belt and black wedges. I almost always dress up to go out. Since turning forty, I stopped waiting for occasions to wear the nice shoes and the pearl necklace. Hawaii is known for a very casual style. Most people wear shorts and flip flops when not in the office. Often the little voice inside me wonders how others perceive my choice of attire and speculates that “they” will dub me snob, stuck up or generally full of myself.

I think you can relate. Most of us go through this little dance every day. Some of us cycle through endless rounds of judgement: their own, their family’s, their friends’, their social circle’s.

Jody Moore, a life coach and host of the Better Than Happy podcast embraces the following mantra:

“What other people think of me is none of my business.”

Sounds harsh? To me it sounds true. Her point is that we can neither control nor truly know what someone else thinks of us. Most of the judgement we imagine others are sentencing us to is often only a reflection of our own self deprecation. Because we don’t like ourselves, we can’t believe that others do, or that they’d continue to like us if they knew about our faults and imperfections.

“How would the world be different if we all embraced radical acceptance?” asked my yoga teacher as we were leaving the room.

I believe it would be a better world.

What if we could feel pride for all that we do well while taking honest stock of our shortcomings? What if we loved ourselves as we are even as we strive to become more and become better? What if our default was to extend grace instead of prejudiced opinions? What if we loved ourselves the way we deserve to be loved, the way we want to be loved?

What if?