Most of us struggle with change. This makes sense – stability is comfortable. And, the reality is that change is constant. Most of us also know this. The challenge is translating that knowledge into action.
So the problem isn’t that we’re against change. It’s that we struggle to accept change that feels intolerable, ambiguous, or unpleasant – especially when we didn’t choose it. Denying reality feels easier in the moment. And, it doesn’t change the events that already occurred. Our difficulty with acceptance is what interferes with effective action.
One change I’ve struggled to accept occurred a few years ago, while vacationing in Raja Ampat, Indonesia. I was with my then-husband, and it was our “last hurrah” before starting a family and settling down. On the second night of our weeklong stay on a liveaboard scuba diving boat, without WiFi or any connection to the outside world, he said he didn’t love me anymore and wanted a divorce. This happened without any warning or indication of discontent.
I had another five nights on the boat with him and without access to my support system. We had to share a bed and bathroom, and remain dive buddies. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to reject reality more than I did that week.
And, I knew that rejecting the facts would only intensify my distress. My ex-husband firmly stated that nothing would change his mind. Arguing with him, begging for a different outcome, or denying his position would only increase my distress and decrease my self-respect.
Responding to change with reactivity or avoidance doesn’t change the facts. The gap between reality as it is and reality as we wish it were is where problems thrive.
Our preference for denying reality often comes down to fear of the emotions that come with acceptance. Fully accepting painful change can be extremely distressing. What’s important is recognizing that this pain will linger longer if we resist it.
Accepting reality starts with validating the emotion and the undesirable nature of change. Without this, shame often interferes with acceptance, as it urges us to hide. And hiding doesn’t generate change; it prevents it.
The thing about shame is that it’s typically not the primary emotion at play. Change often elicits sadness, which communicates that we lost something we care about, or anger, which communicates that an important goal of ours is blocked. Shame is then secondary, emerging when we start judging ourselves for feeling those primary emotions longer than desired or recognizing our role in why those emotions, or the change, happened in the first place.
In each case, the shame makes sense. It’s unpleasant to experience prolonged periods of sadness or anger, and it’s agonizing to know that your actions contributed to undesirable change. And, allowing shame to linger just makes things worse.
While scuba diving in Indonesia, what kept replaying in my mind was that I was the one being dumped, not the other way around. Which meant, in the story shame was telling me, that something about me was the problem; that it was my fault my marriage failed. I was about to be a mid-thirties divorcee. What was I going to tell people?
I felt sadness about my marriage ending, and anger toward my partner for how he ended it. Yet, the emotion I felt most strongly in those moments on the boat was shame. I felt flawed; repulsive, even. It was hard to imagine seeing people and telling them what happened. And, I knew that the more I hid from reality, the harder reality would be to face.
I observed the never-ending self-judgments flowing through my mind. I fell into the trap of believing some of them and letting them linger. But I didn’t let the thoughts take control. I knew acceptance was the only way forward, as annoying as it was for me to admit. So I intentionally reoriented myself to the only thing I could control: my response.
That required validation of my distress; telling myself that my devastation made sense given how quickly the future I’d planned vanished. Validation helped stabilize my emotional arousal, reducing judgment and creating space to view the situation accurately. Nonjudgmentally describing the facts made it possible to identify intentional action. The first thing I did when we returned to port was call my family and closest friends; they were my lifeline.
Acceptance doesn't take away the emotion; it helps us move forward with clarity.
Acceptance without effective action becomes passive resignation, which also intensifies discomfort. Full acceptance – or what Marsha Linehan calls radical acceptance – acknowledges the facts while maintaining hope for what’s next. It’s not approving of, agreeing with, or liking them. It’s working with reality as it is without wishing for it to change.
Dialectical Living centers on synthesizing this tension between acceptance and change. The goal is recognizing that neither works well without the other, and that the synthesis shifts in every situation.
Acceptance of the change we didn’t choose allows us to effectively embrace the change we do. The synthesis helps us proceed in a way that’s consistent with what makes our life worth living.
People often wonder why I didn’t push my ex-husband overboard. Aside from not loving the idea of physical harm, focusing on the benefits of accepting the facts helped keep me grounded. Frustratingly, this wasn’t a one-time process. It was something I had to practice repeatedly, and for months.
Continually practicing acceptance allowed me to experience my emotions, grieve my reality, and stay hopeful for something different later on. It also allowed me to remain connected to the present.
My marriage was ending. And, I was still able to enjoy scuba diving among some of the greatest known underwater biodiversity. Both were true.