Lynne S. Gots, Ph.D.
Licensed Psychologist
Acceptance
By Lynne Gots, posted on December 3rd, 2011.
Read any good self-help books lately? If so, you’re sure to have come across the concept of acceptance. I’ve even talked about it myself in previous posts.
The idea seems self-explanatory. You accept an offer. You accept a gift. You accept a viewpoint. You accept the terms of a contract. If you check the dictionary for definitions of acceptance, the word “favorable” is often associated with it—as in, “a favorable reception,” or “ receiving favorably.” But I don’t think that accurately describes what cognitive-behavioral psychologists mean when we talk about acceptance.
Practicing acceptance doesn’t necessarily imply viewing a situation favorably. Nor does it involve resignation. It’s more a process than a finite state. You can’t make it happen all at once, just by willing it. You can’t force it. Sometimes it takes awhile to get there. And sometimes you’re there, and then you’re not.
Refusing to accept a loss, a breakup, a mistake, a personal trait, an emotional reaction, or a partner’s shortcomings is often what brings people into my office. Because fighting against what is frequently causes depression, anger, and anxiety. Before you can change something that’s making you unhappy, you first have to acknowledge its reality and accept it.
So why is acceptance so hard? I think it’s because people believe accepting something means liking it—receiving it favorably. It doesn’t.
Consider a woman who’s discovered her husband has been unfaithful (Mrs. Cain, say?). She’s hurt and angry. She thinks about how much she’s given to the relationship, the sacrifices she’s made, all she’s put up with over the years. It’s so unfair! She wants to exact revenge, cause suffering to match the pain she’s feeling. These are all understandable reactions. She’s furious over what’s happened to her. But if she refuses to accept it—and many people would—she keeps herself mired in the past and can’t move on. And in the long run, she’s only hurting herself.
So, you have a choice. Rail against the injustice of it all, nurse your anger, and remain stuck. Or say, “I hate this,” decide what you’re going to do next, and take steps to change.
Stay tuned. I’ll be writing more about acceptance in the coming weeks as we lead up to the new year. If you start working now on accepting what you don’t like about yourself or a situation you’re in, you’ll be in a better position to jump start your resolutions and build a solid foundation to support the changes you want to make on January 1.
Tags: acceptance
Posted in Acceptance and Mindfulness |
Holiday Madness
By Lynne Gots, posted on November 17th, 2011.
It’s that time of year again. Thanksgiving is barreling towards us like a runaway train, and the December holidays and New Year celebrations aren’t far behind. If you’re like most people, you have mixed feelings about the seasonal festivities, especially the self-imposed and media fueled pressures surrounding them.
The year after I completed my PhD and was starting to build a practice, several local news stations invited me to share my advice about coping with holiday stress. I’d done my dissertation research on stress and was working in the field of behavioral medicine, focusing on the mind-body connection, so I knew a little about the subject. But my knowledge was more academic than practical. So it was with some trepidation that I agreed to be interviewed on the air as an “expert.”
Thankfully the spots were short, and I managed to come up with some pithy sound bites. “Make time for yourself.” “Don’t overschedule.” “Keep it simple.” Good, common sense, right? Even today, with many more years of clinical practice and life experience under my belt, I’d offer the same tips. But I’d add one more: try to be flexible about your expectations.
Expecting yourself and everyone around you to live up to your idea of the perfect Thanksgiving feast, family gathering, or New Year’s Eve blowout is a surefire recipe for disaster. If you rigidly cling to an idealized vision of a Martha Stuart holiday, you’re setting yourself up to feel disappointed, or worse. So try to let go of your rules and image of how it all “should” turn out. You’ll cope better when your mother-in-law complains that the turkey is undercooked or your newly vegan daughter and gluten-sensitive sister don’t eat a bite of the family favorites you worked so hard to prepare. Who knows? Today’s holiday disasters may even become tomorrow’s memories.
I speak from personal experience. One New Year’s Eve, in preparation for a dinner party we were hosting, I went to great effort to make an elaborate chocolate torte for dessert, hoping to dazzle our guests. I left it to cool on the kitchen counter. When I came back to finish decorating it, I found an incriminating trail of crumbs on the floor leading to a chocolate-covered Golden Retriever. A huge chunk was missing from the cake. It was too late to make another, so I had to improvise. I cut it into slices and arranged them artfully on a plate. Nobody was the wiser, and the dog’s chocolate binge—which should have made him very sick but had no adverse effects whatsoever—became a family legend.
So be prepared to roll with the punches, and with a little luck, you’ll create stories of your own.
Tags: acceptance, expectations, holiday stress
Posted in Acceptance and Mindfulness |
Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way
By Lynne Gots, posted on November 2nd, 2011.
I had to take my dog Freddie to the vet the other day for an infected paw. As I’ve said in previous posts, Freddie has many fears, and if he could rank them, he’d give Dr. Hambright a 9 or 10 on his BUDs (Barking Units of Distress) scale. I’d rate going to the vet with Freddie an 8 on my SUDs scale (Subjective Units of Distress—the measure commonly used to create an anxiety exposure hierarchy in behavior therapy).
Even though I’m very nervous about vet appointments with Freddie and really, really don’t want to go, I’m willing to endure them because the health of my dogs is important to me. When I work with people who struggle with anxiety, I talk a lot about recognizing the difference between wanting and willing. It’s a critical distinction, and it can make or break someone’s progress in treatment.
Why would we want to put ourselves in a situation that causes our hearts to pound, our palms to sweat, and our heads to spin? Because avoiding the things that scare us only makes our fears worse in the long run. Even more important, it keeps us from doing what we truly value.
In case you’re thinking wild horses couldn’t drag you to a behavior therapist under those circumstances, let me clarify. Exposure therapy requires you to confront your fears gradually. It’s not like the classic Far Side cartoon, which depicts a person dealing with a fear of heights and snakes by suspending himself in a glass elevator over a pit of vipers. That’s flooding, and I don’t do it. The rule of thumb for exposure to anxiety-inducing triggers is to work at an anxiety level of around a 5. Challenging, but manageable.
But sometimes life intervenes, and we have to deal with real situations that are higher than the ideal 5. As when I took Freddie to the vet. I dreaded it, but was definitely willing to go; Freddie, not so much. Which is why I made sure to feed him yummy treats and put a muzzle on him for the examination. He doesn’t mind the muzzle, having learned that it magically brings squirts of CheezWhiz. And it helps give me some peace of mind, knowing he can’t bite anyone.
I wish Freddie could model himself after our Cockapoo Baxter, who has developed an excellent strategy for tolerating the dreaded vet visit. Baxter is just as fearful as Freddie, and with good reason. He underwent two surgeries last year to repair a torn ACL. Now every time we put him in the car, even if we’re just going for a hike in the woods, he shakes and pants so hard he fogs up the windows. But when he’s on the vet’s exam table, he rolls onto his back, lifts his rear leg with a sigh of resignation, and endures. He certainly doesn’t want to be there. But he’s willing. And because he isn’t fighting it, the ordeal goes much more smoothly for all concerned.
So the next time you’re tempted to avoid a situation that terrifies you, don’t fight it like Freddie does. Take a page from Baxter’s book instead. Better yet, don’t just submit to it. Meet it head on. If you’re willing, the way will be a lot less bumpy.
Tags: acceptance, anxiety
Posted in Acceptance and Mindfulness |
