About ten years ago, I was on book tour for Radical Acceptance, and one question came

up more than any other question, and I really want to focus tonight on that question, and

it was, how do we accept something that really seems harmful? How do we accept something

that maybe that we're doing that seems harmful? If they were addicted to alcohol or drugs

and we're ruining our body and our life and so on, how do we accept that? Or how do we

accept when somebody else is being harmful, is being emotional abusive to us, or physically

abusive to us? How do we accept that? How do we accept things that happen in terms

of social injustice or policies of our country that we know might lead to more suffering,

more aggression in the world? How do we accept this thing? Is it good to accept? And

then the question really does acceptance sabotage the possibility of constructive change?

That's the inquiry, and really it was the number one question, and it's still the question

I get the most on acceptance. So what I'd like to do is explore a very simple yet basic

principle that is incredibly challenging in practice to work with, and yet there's

truth to it, and that is only by radical acceptance, and what I mean by that is fully allowing

life to be as it is in this moment. Radical acceptance is genuine transformation even possible.

Like everything we're worried about, our own behaviors, others' behaviors, the world,

it's through radical acceptance. This moment opening our being to the reality of what is,

and allowing it to be just as it is in this moment, do we contact the inner resources,

our own mindfulness and compassion in a way that allows us to then respond and not react

to the world? So it's the necessary first ingredient to being able to bring about genuine

change. Acceptance isn't passive. So I want to explore that, and really explore how the

starting place of all real healing is when in some way we're encountering something difficult

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