radical acceptance: A love letter to the parts we want to hide

Doesn’t it always start with the phrase, “I just wish I wasn’t…”
…carrying this extra weight.
…feeling these hard feelings.
…in pain.

This isn’t supposed to happen.
This isn’t how it’s supposed to work. Right?

That’s where it begins—the lack of acceptance.
The moment we fight what is.
The moment we tell ourselves we shouldn’t feel the way we feel.

What is that, really?
Denial? Resistance? Self-protection?

Acceptance, to me, has an energy of receiving.
The opposite of acceptance is rejecting. Not receiving at all.

So if we aren’t receiving ourselves…
Are we actively giving parts of ourselves away?

I'm sitting in a coffee shop right now. It’s a Monday afternoon in a Northeast Ohio suburb. People move in and out—some dressed in work attire, others in leisurewear. There are quiet moments, bursts of laughter, the smell of espresso, and the subtle choreography of humans just being human.

I notice things.

The way people enter a room. The way hands tug at shirts. The way eyes dart and glance, as if wondering, "Am I allowed to take up space here?"

And then—she walks by. A silver-haired woman in her seventies. Confident. Grounded. Nothing about her body says, "I need to be different."
She moves like someone who has already said yes to herself.
Who has nothing to prove.

I hope I carry myself like that when I’m her age.
But I also hope I don’t wait until then.

So if there’s a part of me that believes acceptance comes with age…
There’s another part of me that says—no.
Let’s not wait.

Not another year. Not another decade. Not another “someday when.”
Let’s begin now, in the mess, in the longing, in the tender attempt.

Radical means thorough.
Radical means extreme.
It means going to the root.

It can even refer to a person who challenges the norm—who holds a perspective that requires fundamental change.

So what if we applied that to ourselves?

What if, instead of not loving our bodies, we did the opposite—and loved them radically?
What if, instead of shaming our desires, we did the opposite—and celebrated them?

What if we accepted more of ourselves?
More than society, culture, family, or even our past conditioning says we “should.”
What if we accepted it all—so fully, so thoroughly, that it felt like rebellion?

How do you know when you're in self-acceptance?

For me, it feels like allowing.
There’s a softening. An exhale. A somatic experience of settling into my own center.

Sometimes surrender can feel limp and lifeless, like turning into a puddle.
But other times, surrender sounds like:
Okay. I see this. I’m not fighting it.
I can accept that this is here. I can welcome this into my awareness.
I can love this part—not because it’s pleasant, but because it’s real.

And no, you don’t have to like it to love it.

That’s the paradox.
Acceptance doesn’t have to feel good.
Sometimes it arrives through grief.
Or disgust.
Or shame.

And maybe that’s even where it’s needed most.

One of the simplest and most profound questions I ask my clients is:
“Does it feel possible to accept this right now?”

This feeling?
This emotion?
This sensation in the body?
This reality?

So often, when we’re in an unfamiliar emotional state or experiencing something uncomfortable, acceptance feels absolutely unavailable.
But what if we offered even the tiniest yes?
What might happen?

My somatic therapist often says, “What would happen if we just made space for that right now?”

In other words:
Acceptance.

Radical acceptance.
I think I love this phrase because it feels slightly dangerous and deeply good—like something that’s both sacred and subversive.

When I practice it, I feel like I’m honoring all the women, all the humans, who couldn’t.
Who weren’t allowed.
Who didn’t feel safe enough to say yes to what was happening in their bodies or lives.
Because the cost of acceptance was too high—it threatened their place in the world.

So when I choose to accept—fully, deeply, thoroughly—I feel like I’m healing something old.
Something ancestral.
Something collective.

When we accept radically, we reject nothing.
Not in ourselves.
Not in others.

Even the parts that feel uncomfortable.
Even the people we want to change.
Even the ones who triggered the parts of us that never felt accepted in the first place.

That part of me—the one that wants to reject before being rejected—struggles the most with this.
It doesn’t want to radically accept.
It wants to self-protect.
It wants to push people away before they can get too close.

But the more I accept myself, the more I accept others.
And the more I accept others, the more space I have to love.

So the next time you hear yourself saying, “Ew” or “No” or “How could they?”
Pause.
Ask yourself:

What if I accepted this right now?
What if I let my belly be here?
What if I let my blood be here?
What if I let this emotion rise and move through, without trying to change or hide or numb it?

Maybe—just maybe—these parts wouldn’t be so disruptive if they had space to belong.

In my trainings with Layla Martin, one of the foundational teachings is that every part of you—every thought, every sensation, every cell—has consciousness.
Each part is alive with wisdom.

And when we relate to our bodies in that way, with that reverence, we reject less.
We belong more.
To ourselves.
To each other.
Maybe even to the world.

So instead of rejecting your belly—
Ask what it’s trying to say.
Instead of covering the emotion—
Let it live.
Let it breathe.
Let it be what it is, until it isn’t.

Next time a feeling brews, what if you named it and simply allowed it to be true?

Would you fear it as much?
Would you fight it?

Or would you notice it…
Welcome it…
And receive the message it carries?

This is my practice.
This is my current muse.

Radical acceptance.
Letting more of life—and more of me—be here.
Not just the shiny parts.
All of it.