Acceptance & Willingness #1925

In our last several +1s, we’ve been mining some wisdom from Steven Hayes’ lifetime of crafting Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.

We’ve chatted about how to get out of your mind (and into your life!), then we chatted about human suffering (remember: it’s UNIVERSAL!), then we chatted about one of THE worst things we can do (experiential avoidance!😲).

Today we’re going to talk about acceptance and willingness along with some of the practical tips Steven shares on how to STOP avoiding things and START living in deeper integrity with our Heroic value-virtues.

Let’s get to work.

Steven tells us: “‘Accept’ comes from the Latin word ‘caper’ meaning ‘take.’ Acceptance is the act of receiving or ‘taking what is offered.’ Sometimes, in English, ‘accept’ means to ‘tolerate or resign yourself’ (as in, ‘Aw, gee, I guess I have to accept that’), and that is precisely not what is meant here. By ‘accept,’ we mean something more like ‘taking completely, in the moment, without defense.’”

He continues by saying: “We use the word ‘willing’ as a synonym for ‘accepting’ to stay true to that meaning of accept. ‘Willing’ is one of the older words in the English language. It comes from an ancient root meaning ‘to choose.’ Thus ‘acceptance’ and ‘willingness’ can be understood as the answer to this question: ‘Will you take me as I am?’ Acceptance and willingness are the opposite of effortful control. Remember the dial at the back of the radio in Chapter 3? Now you know its name: the Willingness dial.”

As you know if you’ve been following along, I’m a bit of an etymology nerd.

Steven is as well.

Now...

After establishing the meaning of “acceptance” and its synonym “willingness,” Steven asks: “Why Willingness?”

He answers that question by telling us: “One reason willingness is worth trying is that it is remarkable how consistently the scientific literature reveals its value and the danger of its flip side—experiential avoidance.”

Yikes!

There’s that danger again: “Experiential avoidance.”

Its antidote?

Be WILLING to ACCEPT the pain in your life then, rather than do everything in your power to AVOID it at all costs, use the pain as a signal that it’s time to APPROACH the challenge instead.

Steven says: “To be willing and accepting means to be able to walk through the swamps of your difficult history when the swamps are directly on the path going in a direction you care about.”

In Building a Life Worth Living, Marsha Linehan talks about “willingness” as a key DBT “skill” we need to develop as well.

She tells us: “Radical acceptance is akin to willingness... Willingness is when you allow the world to be what it is. And, no matter what it is, you agree to participate in the world.”

When she explains willingness, she likes to say that life is a lot like playing cards.

You are dealt a certain set of cards. You may or may not LIKE them, but they are your cards to play. If you are UNWILLING to play them, the game ends. As such... We MUST be willing to play whatever hand we have been dealt.

AND...

She uses the metaphor of a fire rather than a swamp.

Your house is on fire. The only way out is the front door—where the flames are greatest. You feel tempted to find a “safe” place somewhere in the back of the house but you MUST be WILLING (!) to go through the flames.

And…

That’s Today’s +1.

Acceptance.

And…

Willingness.

Let’s see how we can put that wisdom into action just a little more as we navigate the inevitable swamps and fires…

TODAY.

P.S. For more practical tips on how to practice ACT, check out our Notes on The Happiness Trap and The Confidence Gap!