Radical acceptance of life with psoriasis

Daisy Mack’s father always repeated a simple mantra: “You can only be you.”

She never understood what he meant until after his death. “There were six weeks between my father’s funeral and the start of COVID in 2019,” said Mack, a personal health coach in Los Angeles.

“I was just so exhausted. I had absolutely no energy, and one day I woke up and thought, “I have energy just to be myself.” I finally understood. “

This was the turning point for Mack, who had lived with high levels of stress and psoriasis all his life. He knew he couldn’t keep working in the grueling world of promoting the music industry and be good.

“I had put so much effort into my future goals that I never accepted myself into the present, and that’s where all the beauty and power lies,” says Mack. “If you start being yourself now, your future will take care of itself.”

What she describes is a simple but difficult act of radical acceptance.

“Radical acceptance is acceptance of what is as it is now,” said Jennifer Teitz, PsyD, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles. “With any health condition, judgment or physical stress around him can make it worse. Radical acceptance can make it a little easier by not worrying about anything but this moment or expecting it to get worse. “

Radical intake can help greatly, such as coming to terms with a diagnosis of psoriasis or another chronic illness. It can also benefit you in smaller ways, such as stress management.

Radical acceptance of your diagnosis

The purpose of radical acceptance is “to go from the place of not fair in a place of gratitude and continuing to improve your life even when it feels unfair, ”says Taitz. Which, of course, sounds easier than it is.

The first step is to get all the information you can about your diagnosis, Taitz says, and then “deal with things as they come, not imagine the worst-case scenarios.” This can happen when you “slow down and ask yourself: if you really accept this, what will you do?”

Some options include:

• Make lifestyle changes such as diet, stress reduction and exercise to control seizures
• Learn about your treatment options
• Consider attention-based stress reduction classes designed specifically to help people manage chronic health conditions

Practicing radical acceptance in small moments

It’s a simple idea, but it takes practice to learn. Here are the steps of Taitz:

1. Notice when you judge experience or struggle with reality. Your inner voice may say, “It doesn’t have to be this way. I can not accept it. Not fair.”
2. Pay attention to how your body reacts to these thoughts.
3. Get rid of both thoughts and any tension you hold in your body in response to them.
4. Go back to accept what it is and give up the battle.

Another skill you should try is called half-smiling. “You release the tension in your face,” says Taitz, “and then you lift the upper corners of your lips slightly. This little movement sends a neurological signal to your mind to be at peace.

Therapy and other tools

Psychotherapy and attention can help you develop radical acceptance. The concept was popularized by psychologist Dr. Marsha Linehan, who developed dialectical behavioral therapy, and meditation teacher, Dr. Tara Brac, who created the acronym RAIN (recognition, resolution, research, and education) for a step-by-step process of accepting things as they are. are, and sustaining yourself through challenges.

Look for practitioners who include these or other approaches, such as acceptance and engagement therapy and meditation. “There are a lot of really good books, podcasts and meditation apps that apply radical acceptance to chronic conditions,” says Taitz.

Radical acceptance is a practice

“My whole life has taught me that every time you think you’ve learned a lesson, you’re going to take a new test,” said Mack, who recently had one of her most severe episodes of psoriasis, including painful psoriatic arthritis. from mold to a house she rented. Before he knew the reason and moved out, Mack felt powerless and scared.

So she buried herself in her instrumentation to dance in her bedroom, showing compassion and keeping a diary “to get all my negativity out of the page.” All this helped her to “radically be myself.” When she managed to get out, her skin improved dramatically, “but it was definitely a test,” she says.

“Radical acceptance takes a lot of practice,” says Taitz. “Just keep coming back to him and learning from your failures. It’s not too late at any moment. “