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Okay, we are more than halfway through 2019. How are we doing? As we watch our country get riven apart? As we fear for the well-being of the planet? As we think about the people we love and what they want, what they need, what we want and need, what we might not yet be getting, all the ways we are failed and feel we fail? Mindfulness has been all over the mental health shop for a long time. So has acceptance. I admit to struggling with this idea in our traumatized world, as many things do not appear acceptable to me. But I am starting to think maybe there is a new goal that doesn't insist I accept unacceptable things: understanding that mental health looks like ever increasing tolerance for uncertainty. This kind of acceptance goes beyond social media therapy advice to "let it go and live our best lives." It's more like DBT's radical acceptance, where we go as far out as we can get, get really radical, until we are at the edge of the painful existential truth of human life: we don't really have any way to control what is going to happen. Terrible, beautiful, boring, fascinating things happen everyday, everywhere. So at a time when it's really hard to keep holding up, what if we say:
How much can I increase my tolerance for this reality, right now, working for change and growth always while learning to tolerate more and more the lack of control and certainty that is the hallmark of human existence?
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AuthorTracy Bryce Farmer LCSW Archives
March 2024
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