I used to spend a ridiculous amount of time worrying about things I couldn’t change.
The business deal that fell through. The friend who stopped calling. The mistake I made three years ago that still kept me up at night. I’d replay scenarios in my head, thinking if I just worried enough, somehow I could go back and fix them.
Spoiler alert: it never worked.
What did work was something I stumbled upon during one of my more stressful periods; the concept of radical acceptance. Let me tell you, it changed everything.
Radical acceptance isn’t about being passive or giving up. It’s about acknowledging reality as it is, not as we wish it to be. It’s about freeing ourselves from the mental prison of resistance and unnecessary worry.
Today, I want to share seven simple ways you can practice this and, perhaps, free yourself from all that pointless worrying.
1. Recognize what you can and cannot control
This is where it all starts, folks.
The Stoic philosopher Epictetus said it best: “The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control.”
When I was in my twenties managing a language school, I wasted so much energy worrying about things completely outside my control. Student enrollment numbers during a bad economy. Government policy changes. What competitors were doing down the street.
Meanwhile, I was neglecting the things I could actually influence, like improving our teaching methods or building stronger relationships with existing students.
Here’s what I learned: make a list. Seriously. Write down what’s bothering you, then honestly assess what you can actually do something about.
Everything else? Let it go. Not because you don’t care, but because worrying about it is just burning energy you could use elsewhere.
2. Stop arguing with reality
This one was tough for me to accept.
For years, I’d get frustrated when things didn’t go according to plan. A business partnership would dissolve, or a project would fail, and I’d spend weeks thinking “this shouldn’t have happened” or “if only things were different.”
But here’s the truth: reality doesn’t care about our preferences. What happened, happened. Fighting against that reality is like standing in the rain and getting angry that you’re getting wet.
Radical acceptance means acknowledging things exactly as they are. Not saying they’re good or bad, just seeing them clearly. Once you stop fighting what already is, you free up mental space to actually deal with it constructively.
I’m not saying this is easy. It took me years of practice. But every time I catch myself thinking “this shouldn’t be happening,” I pause and remind myself: but it is happening. Now what am I going to do about it?
3. Practice the pause
When something triggers worry or resistance in you, take a breath before reacting.
I learned this the hard way during a particularly stressful period in my startup days. I won’t go into details but I wanted to fire off emails, make frantic phone calls, basically do anything to change the situation immediately.
Instead, I forced myself to wait. Just 24 hours. I went for a long walk, worked out, and let myself process the emotions without acting on them.
By the next day, I could see the situation more clearly. Yes, it was a setback. No, it wasn’t the end of the world. And there were actually some opportunities I hadn’t noticed in my initial panic.
The pause creates space between what happens and how we respond. In that space, acceptance becomes possible.
4. Feel your feelings without judgment
When I first started practicing acceptance, I thought it meant suppressing negative emotions and just being zen about everything. That’s not it at all.
Accept your feelings too. If you’re disappointed, be disappointed. If you’re angry, feel the anger. The key is to experience these emotions without judgment and without letting them control your actions.
I remember when a business deal I’d worked on fell through. I felt devastated. Instead of pushing those feelings away or telling myself I shouldn’t feel that way, I let myself feel it. I acknowledged the disappointment, the frustration, the sense of failure.
But I also didn’t let those feelings make my decisions for me. I felt them, accepted them, and then moved forward anyway.
It’s counterintuitive, but it works.
5. Let go of the need to be right
This one hit me hard when a colleague called me out on it years ago.
I used to have this need to prove I was right in every discussion. Even when it didn’t matter. Even when being right just meant winning an argument but losing a relationship.
Radical acceptance means accepting that other people have different perspectives, and that’s okay. You don’t have to agree with them, but you can accept that they see things differently.
More importantly, it means accepting when you’re wrong. Not beating yourself up about it, just acknowledging it and learning from it.
I’ve found that letting go of the need to always be right has made my life infinitely more peaceful. Arguments that used to consume hours of my mental energy now just roll off my back. I can listen to opposing viewpoints without feeling threatened.
It’s liberating, honestly.
6. Practice present-moment awareness
Most of our unnecessary worry lives in two places: the past we can’t change and the future we can’t predict.
Radical acceptance pulls us into the present moment, which is the only place we actually have any power.
I’m not naturally a mindful person. My mind loves to wander off into worst-case scenarios or replay past mistakes. But I’ve found that even simple practices help.
When I catch myself spiraling into worry, I bring my attention back to what’s happening right now. What can I see, hear, feel in this exact moment? Usually, right now, everything is okay.
The present moment is where acceptance lives. We can’t accept what hasn’t happened yet or change what’s already passed. We can only work with what is, right here, right now.
7. Embrace impermanence
Everything changes. The good stuff, the bad stuff, all of it.
When I was going through a particularly difficult time in my mid-twenties, this realization was both unsettling and comforting. Unsettling because it meant nothing lasts forever. Comforting because it meant the hard times wouldn’t last forever either.
Radical acceptance includes accepting change itself. Not clinging to good moments or trying to rush through bad ones, but understanding that both are temporary.
I’ve found this perspective especially helpful when dealing with worry. That thing you’re stressing about? In six months, you probably won’t even remember it. That failure that feels crushing? It’s just one chapter, not the whole story.
Accepting impermanence doesn’t make us passive. It actually frees us to engage more fully with life because we’re not constantly trying to freeze time or push it forward.
The bottom line
Radical acceptance isn’t about giving up or becoming complacent. It’s about seeing reality clearly so you can respond to it effectively.
Since I started practicing these seven approaches, I’ve noticed something interesting. I still face challenges and setbacks, as many as before. But they don’t consume me the way they used to. I don’t lose sleep over things I can’t change. I don’t waste energy fighting against reality.
Instead, I can focus that energy on what actually matters: taking meaningful action where I have influence and letting go of the rest.
It’s been a journey, and I’m definitely still learning. But if you’re tired of carrying around unnecessary worry, give radical acceptance a try. Start with one of these practices and see what happens.
You might be surprised at how much lighter you feel.
Until next time.
Just launched: The Vessel’s Youtube Channel
Explore our first video: The Brain Beneath Our Feet — a short-film by shaman Rudá Iandê that challenges where we believe intelligence comes from.
Instead of looking to the stars or machines, Rudá invites us to consider that the first great mind on Earth may have existed without a brain at all… and that the oldest form of thought might be living beneath our feet.
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