Radical Acceptance

Radical Acceptance Plot Summary

Introduction

Sarah sat across from me, tears streaming down her face. "I've spent my entire life feeling like I'm not good enough," she whispered. "No matter what I achieve, there's always this voice inside telling me I'm a fraud, that I don't deserve happiness." Sarah's story is heartbreakingly common. Despite her successful career as a physician, loving family, and numerous accomplishments, she lived in constant fear of being "found out" as somehow deficient or unworthy. This sense of fundamental deficiency is what I call the "trance of unworthiness." It's a state where we're convinced something is wrong with us, that we're flawed at our core. We might experience it as a background whisper of anxiety, a constant need to prove ourselves, or harsh self-judgment that colors everything we do. In this trance, we're unable to recognize our inherent goodness and instead identify with our perceived shortcomings. Through compelling stories and compassionate insights, we'll explore how this trance manifests in our lives and discover a revolutionary approach: Radical Acceptance. This practice of bringing mindful awareness and compassion to our experiences becomes a pathway to freedom—not by changing who we are, but by fully embracing all aspects of ourselves, even those parts we've long rejected.

Chapter 1: The Trance of Unworthiness: Stories of Inner Struggle

Chris grew up feeling invisible. As a child, he once wandered away at a family picnic, and no one noticed his absence for hours. While the adults frantically searched, he hid behind a tree, watching them. He had wanted to teach them a lesson, but instead felt humiliated and abandoned. Eventually, he curled up on the ground and fell asleep. Years later, as an adult, Chris still carried this wound of invisibility. He studied with several spiritual teachers, moving from one to the next because, as he put it, he had "never really felt seen by any of them." With his most recent teacher, a rabbi, Chris tried desperately to be noticed—playing guitar at temple gatherings, showing off his knowledge in classes, and striking up conversations whenever possible. The rabbi was friendly, but Chris never felt that he truly mattered. This need to be "number one" extended to every area of Chris's life. In dating, friendships, and work, he felt worthless unless he was the center of attention. If he wasn't standing out as special, he felt overlooked or rejected. The intensity of his unfulfilled desires made him feel unappealingly needy, which only reinforced his sense of unworthiness. "It drives women away," he explained. "As soon as they sense it, they are turned off." Even when he tried to hold back from making overt demands or asking for reassurances, he felt his "vibe" betrayed him. Our sense of self emerges from our reactions to intense pleasant or unpleasant sensations. When we want loving attention, like Chris, we feel certain sensations in our body—perhaps an aching longing around the heart, along with excitement and openness. When our needs are denied, we experience physical contractions—shame, the desire to hide, and fear. When this pattern of wanting and not getting repeats over time, we form an enduring association: our wanting leads to fear and shame. This cluster of reactive feelings, locked in the body, forms the energetic core of a wanting self. We identify with these persistent feelings through what Buddhist teacher Ajahn Buddhadasa calls "I-ing and my-ing." The tension and excitement of wanting arise, and we experience this as my longing for intimacy, my craving for attention. Similarly, it becomes my fear and shame when rejected. We consolidate this sense of a wanting self by telling ourselves stories: "Something is wrong with me for wanting so much. Why don't I already have what I want? The world has it in for me." As this cycle of reactivity repeats, our identity as a wanting self—fundamentally deprived, isolated, and unworthy—deepens, trapping us in a trance that disconnects us from our authentic desires and our deepest longings for love and belonging.

Chapter 2: The Sacred Pause: Finding Space in Reactivity

Barbara had been meditating regularly for over a year, finding it a peaceful refuge. But after returning from her first ten-day retreat, disturbing childhood memories began invading her morning sittings. One image kept emerging: she was an infant being bathed by her mother when her drunk, angry father barged in, shoving her mother aside and dunking Barbara's head underwater. The memory was so terrifying that Barbara wondered if she should stop meditating altogether. Throughout her childhood, Barbara had experienced the same paralyzing fear whenever her father's rage erupted—the strangling grip around her throat, wild butterflies and sourness in her stomach. Like many children of abuse, she believed she was somehow to blame for his outbursts. "What have I done wrong now?" she would wonder, followed by the belief: "I'm bad. I'm so bad... that's why he hates me." This sense of shame made her want to hide under the covers. By her teens, her persistent self-image was of a misfit—powerless, frightened, and utterly alone. As an adult, Barbara hid her fears well. To the outside world, she appeared capable and responsible. Even her friends didn't know she lived in constant fear of unknowingly offending someone or making a mistake. They only knew her as a wonderful listener who made them feel nourished. Barbara became a high school guidance counselor, hoping to offer teens the support she never had. But her fear of doing something wrong made her stiff and distant with students. Meeting with parents was even worse—her performance anxiety translated every comment they made into criticism of her abilities. Barbara described trying to keep her fears at bay as like locking wild dogs in the cellar. The longer they were trapped, the hungrier they got. Eventually, they would break down the door and invade the house. Sometimes they broke loose before dawn, as she lay in bed dreading the day ahead. Other times, they emerged after intimate moments with her husband Randy, when the fear that something wonderful would be followed by disaster would suddenly overwhelm her. In therapy, Barbara learned that rather than fighting these fears, she could pause and meet them with mindful presence. She began practicing widening her awareness, imagining herself sitting on a park bench and inviting her feelings to sit beside her. "The fear's lined up next to me on the bench," she reported with relief, "but at least it's not on top of me. I have room to breathe!" This sacred pause—the willingness to stop and be present with our experience rather than running from it—becomes the foundation for healing. When we pause, we create space to see our reactions clearly instead of being controlled by them. We discover that our fears, while uncomfortable, won't destroy us. As Barbara found, by pausing to acknowledge her anxiety before meeting with a troubled student, she could access her natural warmth and intuition. The pause allowed her to hold both her own vulnerability and the student's suffering with compassion. Through this practice of presence, we begin to dismantle the trance of unworthiness, discovering that we can face our deepest fears and still remain whole, connected, and capable of love.

Chapter 3: Desire's Grip: When Wanting Takes Over

Sarah arrived at a ten-day meditation retreat panicked about how she would handle food. Would she get enough? Would she like what was served? Would she eat too much? She dreaded sitting at the long dining tables in silence, afraid others would somehow know she had an eating disorder just by watching her eat. During the first few days, food dominated her awareness. When the gong announced a meal, she walked slowly toward the dining room, feeling as if an irresistible magnet were pulling her. While waiting in the lunch line, anxiety and excitement squeezed her. As she ate, she planned what more she would get, often going back for seconds or thirds and taking her additional servings to different parts of the dining hall to avoid being seen. At her first interview, Sarah confessed she felt "riddled to the core" with obsession and craving. She felt horrible shame about being such a failure, being so "unspiritual." The hardest part was that no matter how much she wanted to control her eating, she couldn't stop herself from overeating. These futile daily attempts to control herself made her feel like a complete failure. While we often don't like ourselves when caught in wanting, this dislike turns to full-blown aversion when wanting takes over our life. We see how we ruin our bodies and relationships by bingeing on food or alcohol, how we hurt our children when addicted to endless achieving, how we sabotage intimate relationships when driven by neediness and insecurity. As one student described it, "My wanting self is my worst enemy." During her next interview, Sarah shared that she had been participating in Overeaters Anonymous for several years before trying meditation. She had made progress—when strong cravings arose, she would call her sponsor instead of heading straight for the refrigerator. Yet the binges continued, and each time she introduced herself as a "compulsive overeater" at meetings, she felt further bound to that identity. Sarah had come to the retreat hoping meditation might help release the grip of addiction. Instead, without daily distractions, her addiction and shame felt more oppressive than ever. When she tried to pause and pay attention to her craving for food, the agitation was unbearable. Every cell in her body seemed to be reaching out to fill an impossibly big hole inside. During their session, the teacher guided Sarah to close her eyes and sense what most wanted attention in that moment. Sarah immediately said she wanted the teacher to have a good impression of her. When encouraged to notice this as a felt sense in her body, she reported "jumpiness in my chest." As they continued, Sarah softly named her unfolding experience: "Jitteriness in my stomach. Fear: I'm not going to do this exercise right. Anger. Thinking: I'm taking too much of your time. Another thought: You must think I'm a real basket case. Soreness, squeezing around my heart. Another thought: This is what I always feel when someone pays attention or cares about me. Longing. Trembling. I want to be loved. Sadness." After about five more minutes, Sarah began noticing moments of calm. Several days later, Sarah had a breakthrough. While meditating, she managed to note her inner experience continuously without getting lost in judgments about herself. She observed her mouth watering and stomach tightening when she smelled cookies baking, without wishing these sensations would disappear. "Suddenly it became clear that all my desires and thoughts and feelings are an endless, changing parade," she explained with surprise. "I'm not making it happen." This realization—that she wasn't controlling what was happening inside her and never had been—dramatically shifted how she related to herself. She hadn't asked to be filled with craving; she couldn't stop the barrage of obsessive thoughts. During that meditation, she heard a voice whisper, "It's not my fault. It's never been my fault." Sarah began sobbing, grieving all the years spent blaming herself for her addiction, for her sneaking and pretending, for her insecurity around others. This insight reveals the heart of Radical Acceptance—recognizing that our cravings and reactions arise from countless streams of conditioning beyond our control. By acknowledging "it's not my fault" and forgiving herself for the presence of wanting, Sarah interrupted the painful chain of reactivity driving her addiction. When we stop blaming ourselves for our desires and instead meet them with compassionate awareness, we create space for transformation. We discover that even our most compelling cravings can be witnessed without being acted upon, and that beneath our addictive patterns lies a deeper longing for connection that can be met with kindness rather than judgment.

Chapter 4: Meeting Fear: Facing Our Deepest Vulnerabilities

When Barbara came to therapy, meditation had become so unpleasant that she wondered if she should continue practicing. Frightening scenes from her childhood had begun to invade her morning sitting, leaving her shaken and distraught. She told me about one particular image that kept emerging: she was an infant and her mother was bathing her in a basin on the kitchen table. She could hear the splashing of water and her mom's gentle humming. The two were engrossed in their experience, in love with each other. Suddenly her father barged in, drunk and angry, yelling at her mom. Shoving her mother aside, he grabbed Barbara and dunked her head underwater. She could feel the large hands pushing down on her shoulder and head, and the wild panic of drinking in water. Throughout her childhood, whether her father's rage was directed at her mother or herself, Barbara would again and again feel paralyzed by the same feelings—the strangling grip of fear around her throat, the wild butterflies and sour feeling in her stomach. Even when her father wasn't home, Barbara felt anxious and on edge. Young children make sense of abusive experiences by thinking that they caused them to happen, that they were in some way to blame. Barbara grew up assuming that she brought on her father's unpredictable outbreaks. When he would suddenly start yelling at her, she would wonder, "What have I done wrong now?" Beneath that always lay the belief: "I'm bad. I'm so bad... that's why he hates me." As an adult Barbara did a good job of hiding her fears from the world. She was regarded by anyone who knew her as a highly capable, responsible person. Even her friends didn't know that she lived in constant fear that she might unknowingly offend someone, that she might make a mistake, that she might do something to invoke someone's anger. Barbara told me that trying to keep her fears at bay felt like locking a pack of wild dogs down in the cellar. The longer they were trapped there, the hungrier they got. Inevitably they would break down the door and invade the house. Each time the fears took over, she'd feel as if the dogs were tearing apart every room, every closet, every nook and cranny, and there was nothing she could do to stop them. During our sessions, Barbara began witnessing the raw fear that was controlling her life. When she felt fear in her body, she noticed how her throat tightened and her voice became high and thin. She became aware of the thoughts that made nonstop predictions of what could go wrong. After a month of working together, Barbara told me that something was changing for her: "When I'm here with you, the hungry dogs haven't gone away, but they don't seem so dangerous. I guess with someone backing me up, I feel safe enough to open the door a crack and take a look at the fear." I let her know I understood—it is easier to face the out-of-control rawness of fear when we don't feel alone. What perpetuates fear is the horrible pain of isolation. As our work continued, Barbara learned to widen the lens of her attention, creating more space for her fear. "Try visualizing yourself sitting on a park bench," I suggested softly. "Simply name whatever experience arises, say a friendly hello and invite it to sit beside you." After practicing this, Barbara reported, "The fear's lined up next to me on the bench, but at least it's not on top of me. I have room to breathe!" This widening of perspective made all the difference in her next meeting with a troubled student named Marty. When Marty arrived saying, "This is a waste of time. No one cares about me anyway," Barbara felt panic rising. But she mentally noted "panic," said hello to it, and placed it on a park bench next to her. Taking a full breath, she glanced out the window, remembering the vast space of awareness that could hold her fear, the sounds in the room, and Marty too. In those few moments, Barbara's mind was released from her gripping fear of failing. When she turned her attention back to Marty, she saw a confused and hurting person. With an openness that surprised them both, she asked, "Marty, please tell me, what's happening?" Barbara's story illustrates how we can transform our relationship with fear through the practice of Radical Acceptance. When we stop running from our fears and instead meet them with mindful presence, we discover they don't have the power we imagined. By widening our perspective—seeing fear as just one part of our experience rather than defining our entire reality—we create space for our natural wisdom and compassion to emerge. As Barbara found, this doesn't mean our fears magically disappear, but rather that we develop the capacity to hold them with kindness while remaining present and responsive to life. This is the heart of spiritual freedom: not the absence of fear, but the ability to meet it with an open heart and continue loving despite it.

Chapter 5: The Compassionate Heart: Learning Self-Forgiveness

Daniel arrived at a weeklong meditation retreat convinced he was the most judgmental person in the world. "When I meditate, whatever I'm thinking or feeling... I end up finding something wrong with it," he confessed during his first interview. "During walking practice or eating, I start thinking I should be doing it better, more mindfully. When I'm doing the lovingkindness meditation, my heart feels like a cold stone." When Daniel's back hurt while sitting, or when his attention wandered, he would rail at himself for being a hopeless meditator. He even felt awkward coming in for an interview, afraid he would be wasting the teacher's time. While others weren't exempt from his barrage of hostility, most of it was directed at himself. "I know that Buddhist teachings are based on being compassionate," he said bitterly, "but it's hard to imagine they'll ever rub off on me." When asked how long he had been turning so harshly on himself, Daniel paused for several moments. He said it had been for as long as he could remember. He had joined his mother in relentlessly badgering himself from an early age, ignoring the hurt in his heart. As an adult, he treated his heart and body with impatience and irritation. Even in the face of a tormenting divorce and a long bout of chronic back pain, Daniel hadn't been able to acknowledge how real and intense his suffering was. Instead, he criticized himself for having screwed up the marriage and for not having the sense to take proper care of himself. When asked what happened in his body when he was judging himself, Daniel pointed to his chest and said his heart felt bound by tight metal cords. To his surprise, when asked how he felt about this pain, Daniel heard himself saying, "You know, this really hurts." When gently asked how he felt about the pain in his heart, he responded softly, "Sad," his eyes welling up with tears. "It's hard to believe I've been carrying this much pain for so long." The teacher suggested he put his hand on his heart, on the place where he most felt the pain, and send a message to the pain: "How would it feel for you to say, 'I care about this suffering'?" Daniel glanced at the teacher and then looked down again: "Strange, I think." When encouraged to try, to just whisper the words softly, Daniel's shoulders began to shake with quiet sobbing as he repeated the phrase. Over the next few days, whenever Daniel became aware of judging himself or others, he would check into his body to see where he was feeling pain. Usually he would find his throat, heart, and stomach tightened in fear, and his chest heavy and sore. With a very gentle touch, Daniel would place his hand on his heart and say, "I care about this suffering." Because he was sitting in the front of the meditation hall, the teacher noticed that his hand was almost permanently resting on his heart. One afternoon Daniel shared that during meditation, a scene had arisen in his mind of being at his mother's house engaged in an angry exchange with her. As he tried to explain why it wasn't irresponsible for him to take a week off to meditate, he could hear her disdainful reply: "You lazy bum, why don't you do something worthwhile with yourself?" He felt his chest fill with the heat and pressure of rage. In his mind he heard himself shouting, "You fucking bitch, you don't understand! You've never understood. Can't you shut up for just a minute and see who I am!!" Daniel could feel the pain of anger and frustration like a knife stabbing at his heart. He was just about to launch into a diatribe at himself for being such a wimp for not standing up to her, and for being a meditator filled with such hatred. Instead, he placed both hands on his heart and whispered over and over, "I care about this suffering. May I be free from suffering." After a few minutes, the stabbing anger had subsided, and in its place he could feel warmth spreading through his chest, and a softening and opening around his heart. Feeling as if the vulnerable part of him was listening and taking comfort, Daniel said, "I'm not leaving you. I'm here and I care." When he came in for his final interview, Daniel's whole countenance was transformed. His edges had softened, his body was relaxed, his eyes bright. In contrast to his former awkwardness and hesitancy, Daniel seemed glad to be there. He said that the judgments and self-blame had continued but not with such unrelenting cruelty. No longer imprisoned by constantly feeling something was wrong with him, he was beginning to notice the world in new ways—other students seemed more friendly; the acres of forest were an inviting, magical sanctuary; the dharma talks stirred up a childlike fascination and wonder about "how it all is." He felt energized and somewhat bewildered by the fresh sense of possibility in his life. Daniel's journey reveals the transformative power of self-compassion. Because we become so addicted to judging and mistrusting ourselves, any sincere gesture of care to our wounded places brings about radical transformation. Our suffering becomes a gateway to the compassion that frees our heart. When we become the holder of our own sorrows, our old roles as judge, adversary, or victim are no longer being fueled. In their place we find not a new role, but a courageous openness and a capacity for genuine tenderness, not only for ourselves but for others as well. By holding himself with a compassionate presence, Daniel was becoming free to participate more fully in his world, discovering that the path to freedom lies not in perfecting ourselves, but in meeting our imperfections with kindness.

Chapter 6: Widening Circles: Extending Compassion to Others

Kim arrived at a New Year's retreat on "Awakening the Heart of Compassion" feeling utterly humiliated from a mishap at work. After printing out five thousand brochures for her company, she found that she had missed several very obvious typos. In a nasty exchange with a coworker, Kim had defensively tried to deflect some of the blame, suggesting that if he had covered the phones instead of staying so long at the holiday luncheon, maybe she wouldn't have been so distracted. She punctuated her remarks by angrily sweeping a neatly piled stack of brochures off her desk. Now, alone with her own mind, Kim found herself rerunning this scene, squirming with shame as she recalled the tone of her voice and how she had just stood and watched as her coworker stooped to collect the brochures. In their first interview, the teacher encouraged Kim to let go of the story and just drop down into the feelings of fear and shame as they arose in her body and mind. She reported feeling a deep ache in her chest and a vise around her throat. Using the traditional compassion meditation they had introduced at the retreat, the teacher guided Kim to begin with awakening compassion for herself. "Holding those painful areas with care, you might repeat the phrases you learned: 'I care about this suffering. May I be free of suffering.'" When Kim had relaxed, the teacher asked if she could think of any family members or friends who'd also felt embarrassed by mistakes and emotional reactivity. Kim brought to mind her mother and her brother. As she remembered times when they'd felt ashamed and humiliated, Kim felt a welling up of tenderness for them and silently whispered: "I care about your suffering; may you be free from suffering." Continuing with the compassion practice, Kim expanded the circle of her caring by bringing to mind people she was familiar with but didn't know well—others at the retreat, people she saw working out at the gym, parents of her children's friends. Still feeling the rawness of her own self-doubt, Kim could imagine how some version of that same fear might live behind the aloofness or arrogance, busyness or defensiveness she noticed in some of them. As she let in a sense of each person's vulnerability and offered her prayer of care, Kim felt an intimate bond arising. With her heart feeling more open, Kim brought to mind the coworker with whom she'd felt so irritated. She remembered the hurt look in his eyes when she lashed out and recognized that he too feared being unworthy and incompetent. Kim felt a surge of remorse and then sadness as she realized she had probably struck him in a very vulnerable spot. The teacher guided Kim to the last step in the compassion practice—opening her heart and attention boundlessly, extending care to all beings who suffer, to all who feel insecure and alienated. When Kim finished the meditation and opened her eyes, her face had softened and her body had relaxed. Sitting back in her chair, she rested her hands openly and easily in her lap. She gave the teacher a smile that was both sad and sweet and said, "When I remember that other people feel the same kind of insecurity that I do, then it's not like I'm bad—I'm just human." She paused and then added, "I can feel how we're all in it together." This practice of intentionally reflecting on suffering—our own and that of others—is the basic form of Buddhist compassion meditations. We include the suffering of those we cherish, those we barely know, those we find difficult, and those we have never met, out to the widest circle. While we might not formally reflect on those in each domain during every meditation, the practice deepens our capacity for compassion. As Kim found, when we reflect on the suffering of others, we realize we are not alone in our pain. We are connected through our vulnerability. The Buddha taught that our fear is great, but greater still is the truth of our connectedness. When we open to this truth, we discover that we are all journeying through the night with plans, breathing in and out this mysterious life. The "tender gravity of kindness" naturally awakens as we pay attention to others. As we widen our circles of compassion, we begin to see past surface appearances to the deeper truth of who we all are. We recognize how we are all the same—vulnerable, wanting to be happy, afraid of suffering. This recognition dissolves the boundaries that keep us feeling separate and alone. In the words of the Dalai Lama, "My religion is kindness"—the commitment to live with an unconditionally open and loving heart. When we refuse to push anyone, including ourselves, out of our heart, we discover the freedom and peace that comes from knowing we all belong to each other.

Summary

The journey through desire, fear, and compassion reveals a profound truth: our suffering stems not from these experiences themselves, but from our resistance to them. When we feel unworthy—believing something is fundamentally wrong with us—we create a trance that disconnects us from our authentic nature. Yet within this very trance lies the seed of our awakening. Through Radical Acceptance—the practice of bringing mindful awareness and compassion to our experience—we discover that what we've been running from can become our greatest teacher. The stories of Chris, Barbara, Sarah, Daniel, and Kim illuminate different facets of this transformative path. They show us that pausing to meet our experience with presence rather than judgment, widening our perspective to hold our pain with compassion, and recognizing our shared vulnerability with others are not merely spiritual techniques but gateways to freedom. When we stop fighting against our wanting, our fear, and our shame, we discover they are not permanent states but changing energies moving through the vast field of awareness that is our true nature. As we extend this acceptance to others, we realize we are not alone in our suffering—we are all in this together, connected in our humanity. This recognition dissolves the trance of separation and unworthiness, revealing what has been here all along: the wakeful, loving awareness that is our birthright and our home.

About Author

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Tara Brach

Tara Brach is a leading western teacher of Buddhist meditation, emotional healing and spiritual awakening. She has practiced and taught meditation for over 40 years, with an emphasis on vipassana (mindfulness or insight) meditation. Tara is the senior teacher and founder of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington. A clinical psychologist, Tara is the author of Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha, True Refuge: Finding Peace & Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart and Radical Compassion: Learning to Love Yourself and Your World with the Practice of R.A.I.N. (Viking, Dec. 31, 2019).Tara is nationally known for her skill in weaving western psychological wisdom with a range of meditative practices. Her approach emphasizes compassion for oneself and others, mindful presence and the direct realization and embodiment of natural awareness.

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