As a recovered addict there has been one thing that stuck with me trough years and years of rehab. Even now, over a decade after my last treatment I am using it to regulate my own emotions. The serenity prayer;
"Oh, God, give us courage to change what must be altered, serenity to accept what can not be helped, and insight to know the one from the other"
In periods this is something I repeat daily, sometimes several times a day. Even though I am not religious or believe in a God. Why, you might ask? Well, because it helps me cope with the absolute shit show of this thing called Life through something called radical acceptance. I'm here to help you understand how you can tackle the skill of radical acceptance to improve not only the relationship with your own dog, but to help them develop this underrated distress tolerance skill as well. Let's talk about it!
Radical acceptance is a term frequently used in therapy modalities such as DBT. It is a coping skill used to improve distress tolerance in order to accept reality for what it is. It can be explained in various ways, including:
Accepting situations that are outside of your control without judging them.
Recognizing and accepting the reality you’re in, even when it includes pain or discomfort.
Embracing what is happening now in a non-judgmental way.
Accepting experiences, beliefs, and perceptions without offering judgments or believing that things should be different than they are.
Sometimes, when my almost 2 year old twins are having really difficult days and I feel like I just want to throw in the towel, I repeat the serenity prayer. When I was homeless I repeated the serenity prayer. When I've struggled with my mental health I've repeated the serenity prayer. When I've gotten out of abusive relationships I've repeated the serenity prayer. And just 30 minutes ago when I was putting my kids down for a nap while my almost 6 year old pug mix Suzie was whining outside of the door because she felt left out, I repeated the serenity prayer. Not because I believe in God (I do believe in A Divine Force, however I do not believe in God as in the traditional concept or consider myself religious) but because it helps me rememeber, Life is hard, but it doesn't mean I need to choose to suffer in it. I can choose to put things into perspective. I can choose to observe the feelings and let them move on without feeding into them. I have control over my own perception of Reality and even when I am suffering greatly I can choose to continue to live and accept the suffering without judging it. What is out of my control is out of my control and what is in my control I can choose how to navigate. Now, this is just laying the foundation to understand radical acceptance. Let's move away from the philosphical vibes and into the science behind this very important skill.
Our nervous systems are responsible for (among very many other things) a process called neuroception. The function of neuroception is to gather cues of safety and danger in the environment around us. This could be things such as picking up on bird song stopping (signals to our nervous systems that a predator is close by) or picking up on subtle social cues from the people around us. This process enables us to stay interconnected with other living beings and the world on a more subtle and unconcious level. We can pick up on subtle changes very easily, our nervous systems do this every single second without us being aware of it. Which also means that all of our emotions, thoughts and behaviors occur for a very valid reason. If we feel anxious, there is a valid reason for that. If we feel scared there is a valid reason for that. Sometimes, when we have experienced trauma, especially complex relational trauma, our nervous systems can become maladaptive in how they process these cues of safety and danger. A kind gesture from another human can be interpreted as a potential threat. Someone yelling at you can be interpreted as an attractive romantic trait. The world we are living in is also very unnatural and overloads our nervous system with information that it actually doesn't need or should have to process. There is research done that shows us that anxiety disorders and depression are statistically higher in and around larger cities, and we can assume this is the reason. Our bodies are not designed for these environments. This means, that one of the most important things we need to do, is to learn to train our nervous systems to respond in adaptive and healthy ways. We need to re-wire certain automatic responses and we need to slow down and listen to ourselves in order to properly do this. Our bodies have so much information that we keep disregarding because we are in such a hurry to be productive, to make ends meet, to simply survive. In order to better learn to do these very difficult things of changing our nervous system responses, we have certain tools that can help us change the way we approach our own emotions, thoughts and behaviors so we can stop, pause and respond rather than simply react out of habit. Radical acceptance is one of those tools.
When we master radical acceptance we master the art of control. We can distinguish between what is in and out of our control and therefore it liberates us from a lot of unneccesary suffering. It doesn't mean the suffering isn't there or isn't being experienced, but we can let go of it rather than dwell on it and letting it linger. This helps us regulate our emotions and in it's turn it helps us regulate our nervous systems. When we regulate our nervous systems on a habitual level we re-wire the foundation of our nervous system reponses. It helps us stay more in regulated spaces and it helps us to cope with dysregulation in healthy and adaptable ways. It helps us move through dysregulation with skills that are actually good for us rather than skills such as self-sabotage or self-destruction. This in it's turn helps us become safer, healthier and happier beings. This is what healing refers to. Healing isn't about always feeling happy, regulated or peaceful. Healing is about coping with the absolute horrific reality of this world and life in ways that are good for us, in ways that helps us access self acceptance and unconditional love, in ways that improve us not only on an individual level but at a collective level as well, all while we don't reject or deny the suffering we experience on an individual and collective level.
For example, I can radically accept the absolute horrible state of the world, mourn and hold space for the constant suffering, while still finding immense joy in my day to day life by smelling the flowers or being amazed by a beautiful sunset, by loving my children or cooking food for my friends that we can enjoy together. I can cry my heart out in the shower after seeing a horrific video of a beheaded child on instagram and then choose to unconditionally love and appreciate my children sleeping peacefully in their room. Both polar extremes can exist at the same time and I can learn to contain all of those emotions and experiences in me, whithout breaking apart in the process. It doesn't mean I am denying either of those realities. It means I will not let the things I can't control consume me and take away the beauty of the present moment.
I can also learn to distinguish between the things I can and can't control. I can learn to channel my energy into the things I actually can control. This is where our relationships become even more important. Because I might not be able to do anything to help that mourning, traumatized father of the beheaded child. But I can do a lot of things to help others around me, including my dog.
Now, when we develop the skill of radical acceptance we, as mentioned, also develop the skill of regulation. When I have distance to my own emotions, I will naturally have more distance to the emotions of another. This does not equal lack of empathy, this means I have mastered the skill of enmeshment. When we are too enmeshed with one another we start to take responsibility for the others emotions, we can even get caught up in the emotions of another. So when Suzie was whining outside of the door earlier today I could have easily started to feel that heartbreaking guilt of not letting her be in the room with us, starting to feel rushed to get out to her to comfort her, or I could even have started to feel angry, resentful and triggered by her whining, why can't she just understand I am busy and oh my God she is so annoying! Do you recognize either of these emotional states? That is enmeshment. Suzie is not allowed in that room when the kids are sleeping for safety purposes - end of story. That is something I can't change without risking someone getting hurt. So I need to accept the experience and recognize what I can influence. First, I need to find a way to distance myself from her experience of rejection (which is a very valid experience for her, but it also belongs to her) instead of internalizing that into guilt or resentment. So, what happened then? I recognized that Suzie was struggling with feelings of rejection and I was not. I also noticed that I was feeling quite stressed too, because we had a little bit of a rough day so far with a scraped up knee on one of my toddlers and some mishaps during our walk earlier in the day. I could notice her and my emotional state as two separate events. I started thinking, what do I need to feel better so I can show up for Suzie and meet her needs once I get out of this room? I had already responded in some not so optimal ways to my kids and to Suzie during the morning and I realized I need to listen to what I need now, I am feeling overwhelmed already and it's only 10 am, I have a full day of parenting left. I noticed I was hungry and tired. Once the twins was about to fall asleep I left the room, Suzie still whining outside of the door. They were a little upset but fell asleep within ca 30 seconds after I closed the door so I decided to give Suzie a warm greeting with some cuddles, gave her a frozen kong and then warmed some leftovers for me. Now the twins are sleeping in their room, Suzie is sleeping next to me and I am getting some work done.
I am not trying to teach either my twins or Suzie to suppress their feelings or to alter their behavior. I will be there for them no matter what. I am simply trying to teach them emotional regulation through skills such as radical acceptance (among other things) and part of this is to cope with things such as delayed gratification and rejection. In a perfect world both my kids and Suzie would be having their emotional needs met 100% of the time. But our species are meant to have ca 10-15 caregivers for each child. I am one person on two children and one dog. Our modern society is not supporting our biological needs. And that is why we have such a strong need for things such as radical acceptance. Suzie usually don't whine outside of the door when I put my kids down for a nap. But today she did, and I needed to simply recognize her need and meet it without judgement. I also needed to recognize my own needs and meet them without judgement. Instead of feeling hopeless of a crappy day and feed into that dysregulation even more, I was able to stop - notice what was happening without judgement - accept what was out of my control (Suzie feeling rejected) and change what was within my control to change (meeting my own needs and my response to her emotional needs).
Animals are in fact experts on radical acceptance, so this is not something wild to think we can help our dogs to learn as a foundational survival skill. We don't see wild animals dwell on unfair life circumstances. They take the challenges offered and do their best to survive. However since humans and our domesticated pets are so disconnected from our own bodies, our own needs and nature, we usually lose connection with our emotions as well. Emotions become something scary that we attach so many judgements and narratives to. The truth is, emotions are just emotions and we can let them exist without letting them dictate our life. Experiencing distress isn't going to automatically traumatize us. Suzie whining outside of the door isn't trauma. If Suzie would have been crying for hours without me coming to co-regulate with her - that would have been trauma. My children getting a bit upset when I left the room isn't trauma. My children crying alone in their room for hours without me coming to co-regulate with hem - that would have been trauma. Trauma occurs when no repair has been made. Repair can be made from connection, from de-escalation, from play, from physical proximity, from soothing, from empathy and understanding. And when we habitually repair any moments of distress we build up the distress tolerance, creating independent coping skills through interdependency. When I show my dog that I am there for her, I see her, I understand her, and I am available to meet her needs - on a consistent basis long term - her nervous system will re-wire into a foundationally more regulated state. And here she can learn functional, healthy and adaptive coping skills, such as radical acceptance. She is usually very skilled with this, as I said it is not common for her to whine outside of the door anymore, but there sure was a time when that was the norm. Me helping her regulate and re-wire her nervous system has helped her cope with this experience much better the last 2 years. When we see our dogs develop these skills with our help we can see them tolerate distress better. Which in it's turn reduces suffering. Reduced suffering opens up more space to increased joy, love and pleasure.
The goal shouldn't be reduction of behavior. I couldn't care less if my dog or my children cries or not cries, how they behave or who they are. What I care about is that they feel safe to express themselves with me, that they feel safe to seek out my comfort and that they know they are unconditionally loved and safe with me. I trust that with that regulated and healthy foundation - their behavior will over time reflect that inner safety, the inner peace and inner unconditonal self love and acceptance. The goal should be wellbeing.
Once our dogs are in this regulated, safe space on a habitual level, we can start to think about functional behaviors and how to teach them. This is when we can start to think about training and using quadrants. This is when positive reinforcement training will be the most effective. We are usually way too quick to rush into behavior modification. The changes start in the symbiotic and transformative power of our relationship. We are social animals after all. Let's tap into that aspect of ourselves, the core to our needs and health. We need connection, we need each other and we need interdependency. That is how we thrive.
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