The Power of Radical Acceptance
How resisting what happened hurts more than what happened
The Power of Radical Acceptance
How resisting what happened hurts more than what happened
Sara Kuburic
Oct 13, 2026
39
3
5
Share
What keeps many of us from contentment, or even happiness, isn’t that life is imperfect. It’s that we can’t accept things as they are, and keep pushing against the truth.
It’s exhausting!
We let the question of
why
something happened delay the acceptance that it did.
We get stuck in the million reasons we didn’t get the job, why the relationship ended, why they never answered the text. As long as we’re searching for an answer that would make the experience less painful or easier to understand, all we’re really doing is postponing the fact that it happened. We think that if we stumble on the right answer, it will somehow change what occurred. It won’t.
Every hour spent demanding that the past be different is an hour taken from the one thing we can shape, which is how we respond to the situation. How we choose to move forward.
In my own life, this cycle of why, this resistance to the failure, rejection, or situation, has caused me far more pain than the failure or rejection itself. The meditation teacher Shinzen Young puts it as a simple equation:
suffering equals pain multiplied by resistance.
The pain is often unavoidable. The resistance is the part we add.
I’ve come to see radical acceptance, even of things we never wanted, as one of the most liberating gifts we can give ourselves. Acceptance isn’t approval, and it isn’t giving up. It’s the decision to stop arguing with reality. It lets us stay close to the truth, and from there, it helps us move on and, hopefully, learn something.
Reflection Questions
What situation in your life are you still asking “why” about? What would change if you stopped needing the answer?
What are you afraid would happen if you fully accepted something as it is?
Looking back on something you eventually accepted, what did you learn only after you stopped fighting it?
Leave a comment
Ways To Support My Work:
Share this newsletter with someone you think would like it or needs to read it.
Come say hi on
Buy
my book:
It’s On Me
Download my course with Simon Sinek
How to Handle Conflict at Work
Thank you for being here!
Notes From My Phone is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
39
3
5
Share
What did you think?
Your reaction is separate from the prediction. It won’t change your rule.