There are not many certainties in lifebut one thing that is certain is that things will change.

---

Change takes place all around us and it is largely inevitable. Information changes and so do our methods of communication. Our surroundings and the environments that we live in change, as do our behaviors and ways of interacting with each other. Sometimes change happens slowly and sometimes it happens quite fast.

In today's world with the internet and smartphones being prevalent in society and due to the shear amounts of people in the world, more often than not change seems to happen more and more rapidly. Information is essentially at our fingertips, and people can communicate with anyone around the world on a daily bases. As such, information and ideas essentially get passed on immediately in today's world, which causes change to happen extremely fast. What used to take decades can now take months and for some people, it is almost as if world is a different place every year.

By nature, each individual is different and as such, some people deal with rapid change and adapt to a changing world quite easily, whereas others find it more challenging.

So how do we cope with a changing world?

---

Source

Well, one method of adapting to change comes from a clinical therapy model known as Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT). The strategy works well for situations that we have no control over but nonetheless create a sense of discomfort within us. The strategy is referred to as:

Radical Acceptance

Radical acceptance involves accepting something from deep within yourself without attempting to resist or fight it. Resisting reality and things that we ourselves cannot control can lead to feelings of stress and anxiety within us and sometimes it can even lead to feelings of misery and depression. If this is the case for us, then acceptance becomes the key to relinquishing our own suffering.

But acceptance is not always easy.

Some people do not like the idea of radical acceptance because they feel that it is a sort of betrayal of themselves. They see it as a form of giving up or agreeing with ideas and circumstances that go against their own values. In such situations a kind of dissonance happens within them.

For instance, situations where ones beliefs and values do not align with what the individual is seeing in the world around them can be quite distressing and can lead to internal suffering.

Because reality does not appear to be aligned with their own beliefs and values, people may feel that there is something wrong with them, or that there is something wrong with the world - both of which can be quite distressing for an individual.

However, betraying ones own beliefs and values is not what radical acceptance asks.

Individuals may be relieved to know that they do not have to agree with a situation or idea in order to accept it. In fact, radical acceptance allows for a person to wholeheartedly disagree while still accepting. This can intuitively seems to be a bit of a contradiction to some people so the way that I present it to individuals that I work with is as follows:

"This situation that is beyond your control has happened. You don't like it and you don't agree with it, but do you think that you could possibly accept it?"

I find that often when people realize that they do not have to agree with a situation or like it in order to accept it, they are relieved. In these situations the person is still able to maintain their own sense of beliefs and values but can relieve some of the stress associated with the misalignment between themselves and the world around them.

They can disagree with the worldly circumstance but accept that it is happening.

What do you think of the idea of radical acceptance?