Radical Acceptance Isn’t Giving Up. It’s How We Survive What’s Unacceptable

When the path ahead is unclear, standing still is a response
Photo by Katie Moum Unsplash

ICE raids are ramping up.
Detention camps are expanding—yes, in the actual Everglades.

Detainees are shackled for hours, denied food, and forced to eat bent over their plates, still in chains. People are packed onto buses for over 24 hours with one clogged toilet, breathing in the smell of feces, unable to leave. They're kept for days in concrete cells so cold they’ve been nicknamed la hielera—the ice box. No beds. No showers. No medical care.

Meanwhile, 500 tons of emergency food aid—meant for starving children in Afghanistan and Pakistan—is sitting in a warehouse in Dubai, waiting to be burned.

Not because it’s spoiled.
Because no one in power moved fast enough to deliver it.
Maybe because they didn’t want to.

Anti-LGBTQ legislation is being passed quietly, while queer families lose rights in real time.
We’re watching history be erased, rights rolled back, and basic needs discarded like they mean nothing.

This is the backdrop of modern life.
This is what people are carrying into therapy—not just personal pain, but daily exposure to moral injury, cruelty, and silence.

But Accept This? Are You Kidding Me?

Exactly. That’s why I’m writing about radical acceptance right now.

Because in a world this overwhelming, we need something that helps us stay present—without shutting down, denying reality, or gaslighting ourselves into numbness.

Radical acceptance isn’t surrender.
It’s how we stay human when everything around us is designed to make us disappear inside.

Why Would Anyone Accept Something So F*cked Up?

Because refusing to accept it doesn’t make it go away.
It just keeps you stuck.

Let’s say you’re watching the news and see that a new detention facility is being built in the Everglades—a prison in the middle of a swamp, with no real oversight and barely humane conditions.

Or a family’s being deported even though they followed every “legal” step they were told to.
Or benefits are being quietly slashed while officials stand at a podium and insist no one’s losing anything at all.

You think:

What in the actual hell? Is this real? How is everyone acting like this is normal?

And your body responds: anxiety, dread, rage, shutdown.
Because it’s trying to protect you—and doesn’t know what else to do.

Radical acceptance doesn’t mean agreeing.
It means stopping the internal war with reality, so you can start choosing how to live in it.

So What Is Radical Acceptance, Then?

In therapy, radical acceptance is part of a larger toolkit for surviving emotional overwhelm, trauma, and moral injury.
It lives under the umbrella of distress tolerance—skills that help you make it through the moments you can’t fix.

But it doesn’t exist in isolation. It works in tandem with tools like:

• Mindfulness

• Emotional regulation

• Building a relationship with your nervous system based on curiosity—not panic

Let’s break those down.

Tools That Make Radical Acceptance Possible

(Especially when you’re anxious, burned out, or living with CPTSD)

You can’t just “decide” to accept something and expect it to land.
Your nervous system needs support. Your brain needs language.
Your emotions need a place to go.

Mindfulness: Stay with What’s Real

Mindfulness helps you notice what’s happening in your body and mind without getting swept away.
And no—you don’t have to light a candle or do yoga on a mountain.
It can be as simple as tasting your tea.
Or putting your foot on the ground.
Or realizing your jaw is clenched and your thoughts are spiraling.

It’s not about forcing calm.
It’s about noticing: My jaw is clenched. My thoughts are spiraling. My stomach feels tight.
And then saying: Okay. This is here.

Without mindfulness, you’re reacting.
With it, you can choose how to respond.

Distress Tolerance: When You Can’t Fix It, But Need to Survive It

These are the skills that get you through a crisis—without self-destructing, collapsing, or hurting the people around you.

If you live with anxiety, chronic stress, or CPTSD, you know what survival mode feels like.
Distress tolerance helps you stay intact during a panic spiral, a flashback, or a hard conversation.

Try: cold water on your hands, stepping outside, naming five things you see or hear.
You’re not numbing out—you’re creating enough space to stay in the moment.

Emotion Regulation: Name the Feeling So It Doesn’t Run the Show

If you’ve spent years suppressing your emotions—or reacting to them without understanding—you end up exhausted and confused.

Emotion regulation isn’t about being less emotional.
It’s about being fluent.

So you know the difference between:

• Fear and anger

• Shutdown and calm

• Disconnection and regulation

Practice tip: Track your emotional patterns.
Not just when you’re spiraling—but when you’re okay, too.
Learn what “regulated” even feels like.

Relational Skills: Boundaries, Communication, and Staying You

When relationships are part of the overwhelm, you need tools to stay connected without self-abandoning.

That might mean learning how to:

• Set limits

• Ask for what you need

• Walk away from a dynamic that drains you

Even though this post is focused on your relationship with yourself, it’s worth saying:

Radical acceptance doesn’t mean tolerating mistreatment.
It means being honest about what’s happening—so you can respond with clarity, not collapse.

What Radical Acceptance Actually Does

Here’s what happens when you practice radical acceptance—even when the world feels like it’s on fire:

— It stops the spiral.
When you say “this shouldn’t be happening,” your brain keeps trying to rewrite the past.
Radical acceptance interrupts that loop and says:
Yes, it happened. Now what?

— It grounds you.
Even when everything feels out of control, radical acceptance anchors you in:
This is real. This is now. I can choose how I meet it.

When the World Feels Unbearable: A Personal Note

I’m not writing this from some emotionally detached place.

I started this piece after reading that 500 tons of emergency food aid—meant for starving children—was left to rot in a warehouse in Dubai. And is now slated to be incinerated.

Not because it was unwanted. Not because it was unsafe.
But because no one in power gave enough of a damn to get it delivered.
Or maybe—they just didn’t want to.

Then another story surfaced—people in U.S. detention being made to eat like dogs. No tables. No dignity.

This isn’t one isolated horror.
It’s a pattern.

And for people who are wired to care—deeply, somatically, relentlessly—it lands hard.
I work with folks who live in that space every day:

• Highly sensitive people

• Queer folks

• Trauma survivors

• Anyone who feels the weight of the world—and still carries groceries for their neighbor

And what I see over and over isn’t just the pain of the thing itself.
It’s the gaslighting that follows.

The way cruelty is framed as “just logistics.”
The way people are told they’re overreacting.
The way compassion is treated like a weakness.

That kind of moral injury is real.

It happens when your core values—justice, care, decency—are violated in ways that leave you feeling powerless, ashamed, or poisoned by the system you live in.

And still… you feel.
Even when it’s exhausting.
Even when it hurts like hell.

What It Looks Like in Therapy

In therapy, radical acceptance might look like this:

• Naming what happened (abuse, betrayal, systemic injustice)

• Acknowledging the pain without minimizing it

• Noticing the emotional cost of staying stuck in “this shouldn’t have happened” loops

• Practicing self-talk like:
  “This is what happened. I hate it. But it’s real. And I don’t have to like it to survive it.”

From there, we work with your nervous system—not against it.
That might mean slowing down enough to notice what’s happening in your body.
Using breath, movement, or sensation to come back into the moment.
Making space to sit with what’s hard, in doses you can actually tolerate.

We also explore the inner voices that show up:
The one that says you should be over it by now.
The one that wants to disappear.
The one that’s angry and doesn’t know what to do with it.

Radical acceptance doesn’t mean giving those voices the wheel.
It means hearing them out—and choosing what comes next with clarity.

Sometimes it’s about naming what was never okay.
Sometimes it’s about letting go of the fantasy that it could’ve gone differently.
Not because it’s fair—but because it frees up your energy to move forward.

Because acceptance isn’t the end of the story.
It’s the thing that lets you shift from reacting to responding.

This Is Grief That Hasn’t Found a Landing Place

If you’ve been feeling brittle, reactive, or tired down to your bones—
That’s not weakness.
That’s your nervous system trying to make sense of the senseless.

You don’t need to be tougher.
You need space.
Support.
A way to feel what’s happening—without collapsing under it.

And that’s the whole point of radical acceptance:
It lets you feel what’s true—and still keep going.

When the World Is on Fire, Acceptance Is Not Surrender

Radical acceptance isn’t giving up.
It’s giving up the illusion of control—so you can focus on what is in your hands.

It’s survival.
It’s resistance.
It’s saying:
This is the truth. And I still get to choose what I do next.

Even if all you can do today is breathe and not scream at the news.
Even if all you can do is feel what’s real—and not let it hollow you out.

That’s not weakness.
That’s strength.

The kind that keeps showing up.
Even when meals are eaten from the floor.
Even when aid is left to burn.

Disclaimer: Reading this blog isn’t the same as working with a therapist. If you’re struggling, I encourage you to reach out to a licensed mental health professional — you don’t have to do this alone.