The Life-Changing Practice of Radical Acceptance | Maria Milagros Vazquez | TEDxNatick

The most powerful thing we have is history. We tell ourselves about who we are, what that means, and what we are capable of and deserve. That story impacts and influences the thoughts we allow to remain and take root. The words we speak. The actions we take and even the relationships we have after a childhood filled with abuse, a near-death accident that should have left me immobile, and an adulthood filled with anger and depression. I am intentional with my story. I have tools, techniques, affirmations, mantras, rituals and

practice

s. I have it all in my toolbox. One of those

practice

s is called

radical

acceptance

.

Now when I speak, I usually don't define words in my talk, but today is an exception. I'm going to define the word because I want to make sure we're all on the same page

radical

means a sharp departure from the usual or ordinary sharp quick quick hm after the kind of

life

I lived I'm not trying to have an ordinary

life

I'm trying to live an extraordinary life here and here like this I can live extraordinary here and here Yes, the more I practice radical

acceptance

, the stronger that ability becomes over time and what I realized is that life will always be a curve ball, life will always bring changes and life will always give you something unexpected and unplanned and I found that I had a little more peace of mind and that I could go with the flow and not that fake kind of going with the flow, you know, I'm fine, I'm fine , everything is fine and then I cry myself to sleep at night, no real peace in my mind and body, so one day I'm home, I'm cooking and cleaning and I'm listening to something on my laptop and my computer laptop is in the dishwasher and in the laptop there is a USB drive and on that USB drive there are approximately 30 of my talks worksheets slides notes invoices proposals on that USB drive there are photographs of my daughter when she was very little until today, approximately three or four phones on that USB drive are pictures and videos of family and friends and nieces and nephews on that USB drive is all the documentation I need all year long to run my business and not turn around and throw away that laptop to clean it. of the dishwasher, yeah, so the laptop landed in this teepee-like formation. which I later found out actually protected it from impact, but the USB drive was wiped out.

Wait, I can feel you judging me, so let me go ahead and tell you that not a single piece of information was backed up, yeah, so when the USB drive got destroyed and exploded all over the floor. I felt torn in two and here was my old version saying oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, and here is this new, more evolved version, you know, an extraordinary version and she is. so it happened, let's breathe and somewhere in between I'm experiencing the duality of who I used to be and who I'm working to become and all I can do is calm down, cool down, cool down, cool down and then my daughter, after listening to the Ruckus and I I get frantic, great, great, he walks around the room and silently helps me collect all the pieces, we put them in a small container.

I stand there and go, well, that happened, this sucks, what's wrong? I now realize that practicing radical acceptance helps. I let go of the why and why I'm right and it helps me see what just happened so I can move on to how I'm going to respond to this situation, so I stay there, take a deep breath and I think Geek Squad, so I call to Geek Squad, I make an appointment for later that night, when I arrive, I get to the counter, I hand him the little container, the guy opens it and gasps in horror and says, uh, this is the worst.

I have seen it once and there is nothing we can do, we don't recover data here so we will have to send it and you will have to wait two to three weeks to find a response and even send it to you. You have to swipe your card and pay us $550, so I take a deep breath so I can radically accept the new information and as I do, he looks around and leans in and says okay, so there's a mom-and-pop store not far from here. and if you go see them maybe they can fix it for you and if they do it will be faster and it will be much cheaper he tells me the name of the business and lies down just as his coworker arrives. comes out of the b and says I'm sorry there's nothing we can do for you ma'am to which I reply no no thank you for your time hurry to the car look for it understand it's closed because it's Saturday night a First thing Monday morning, do you know where I am?

I'm in I'm getting into that business. I slide my container onto the desk. The boy opens it and gasps with excitement. He says. I haven't seen anything this bad since I was in school and I'm really excited to try it. you know how sometimes our burdens or the things we think are the worst can actually be a blessing to someone else mhm so I said well what's your name? Good sir and he said: Hello, Seuss and I said, of course, because today you are my savior he said well well we'll see, we'll see give me a couple of days and I'll call you three days Jesus was resurrected in three days no, but Jesus Jesus called me 3 days later and said, let's go down, he left me a message, he said, come on, come on, you're going to like what we have, so when I get there, Jus is like he has every document, every picture, every video.

I took everything out of your, stop right now. I think I love you at that moment Jus says not only did I get everything but we didn't have a USB drive big enough for all your stuff in the store so we gave you the next best thing he gave me, this has 4 terabytes of data. space and it's practically indestructible Jesus is like he knew me, you know, and then Jesus charged me $110, right, Jesus was my savior while he and I were having this exchange, his wife comes in and says this is her, this is the woman who brought me the thing and his wife turns to me and says thank you, thank you for bringing that to my husband because he got to work on skills he hasn't used in a long time.

Now imagine if we saw our challenges as opportunities to practice. and hone our skills imagine if we saw our challenges as ways to play, have fun and adventure imagine how different we would show up in our lives. It could have spirals. I could have lost my mind and it would have been justified. I could have disrespected people in that period of time and then said it's not my fault oh my god this happened on my USB drive and you know what happened they would have said oh my god poor thing and they would have including my story.

I have given my two most valuable assets, my time and my energy, to that circumstance that I had no control over at the time. I could have done it, but with the practice of radical acceptance something even better happened. I took full control of my story and left room for adventure that you see with radical acceptance a couple of things one that I had a great opportunity to take root in I'm good Under pressure turns out to be true she didn't win she did two I had that very funny exchange with the guy from Best Buy what kind of It reminded me of a scene from The Incredibles, you know what I'm talking about if you don't look for it and three.

I gave another person an opportunity to hone her skills and do something she thought was fun, practicing radical acceptance. things that supports our overall health by reducing our stress and anxiety, gives us room to have more fun and have more adventures in life because life will always be fun and fit for adventure and also gives us the opportunity to be more solution-oriented and get there faster, but the most important thing that radical acceptance has done for me is give me the opportunity to empower my story because in my life I am no longer a victim, I choose to listen, life is not happening to me, it is happening to me and through me, that's a powerful way to live, so let me ask you who up here is ready to practice radical acceptance with their hands in the air Liars no, I'm kidding, I'm kidding, I'm kidding, who's right to practice radical acceptance, yes, and truly, all you have to do.

What you have to do is get into the practice of well, that's happening now, what's happening? Who is ready to start

changing

your story? Raise your hand. Who is ready to start taking back your power and creating more ease, more joy, more play, more fun in your lives? because, like he said before, listen, we only have one life and time is limited. I'd be damned if I wasn't enjoying it while I'm here, especially that old story going into the extraordinary, so I hope that if you raised your By the way, you do something with radical acceptance, but if you don't, I'll radically accept it, thank you.