Solocast: Acceptance

In this episode, Dawn Baker talks all about acceptance. She shares stories of her own resistance, along with tips for how to practice acceptance in your life. As we head into a busy holiday season, let this episode be a grounding and gentle reminder of how to approach your own resistance to circumstances, other people, and yourself! 

Relevant/Mentioned Links:

Lean Out Podcast - How to Deal With Avoidance, Human Being vs. Human Doing

Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha

Get in touch with Dawn: 

• Website - practicebalance.com
• Instagram - @practicebalance
• Facebook - Dawn Baker
• LinkedIn - Dawn L Baker, MD
• Buy the Lean Out Book
• Buy the Lean Out Confidence Course (listeners can use the code POD for $100 off!)

Transcript

0:01

Welcome to the lean out podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Don baker. Are you looking for a new approach to finding authentic and sustainable work-life balance? You've come to the right. Place. For inspiration. information. and a community. community. of like-minded. Professionals. Let's get to the show. Hello. Hello. Thanks for being here. So this week was supposed to be the start of my husband's big trial in Salt Lake City. And while a trial goes typically 10 or 12 days, the whole thing is a three to four week process because they do witness prep and jury selection and a bunch of stuff beforehand. He's an intellectual property attorney, which is in general a kind of lawyer that never goes to court. Like literally the last time he was in court, I was being induced with my daughter, and she's now about to turn 10. But he has some clients with recent conflicts that are actually making it to trial this year. Anyway, this trial has been put off and put off, changed by judges and opposing counsel, bumped by criminal cases, and it was set for basically most of November. So months ago I arranged my entire work schedule, locums and per diem and whatnot, and speaking at. Uh, conferences to fit around this trial, taking November off, and shuffling things around in 2026. I have a couple of speaking engagements in the spring that I have mentioned before. I'm speaking at the White Coat Investor Conference in March, and I'm speaking at the revitalized Physician renewal retreat in April. So I added also a temporary locums position to the mix, and basically everything was all set up perfectly until next May. Well guess what happened? They moved the trial again to March and not at a convenient time for my presently designed schedule at all. So here I am trying to add back work, uh, late notice in November so I can rearrange some of what I set up in the spring, but not all of it can be moved. So I am going to have to get very creative with childcare. Part of what makes my work life balance right now work is that my husband can be with our daughter when I travel to do anesthesia, but not if he's traveling too. And I have to say to all you listeners with dual career families that have a more traditional work schedule, hats off to you because all these moving parts are hurting my brain. At the same time though, I know that it will all work out. This gets to what I wanna talk about today, which is acceptance. It is turning into winter where I live, and as someone who's pretty cold and tolerant and it's getting worse as I get older, I'm having a hard time with it. I know I've talked about this at some point in a podcast episode before, but basically for the first few weeks that it turns cold and starts to dip below freezing at night. I will act like a complete jerk complaining about the temperatures, constantly refusing to go on my regular walks outside because it's just too unpleasant. My face is too cold, my feet are too cold, et cetera. Until finally I accept that I'm not going to change this weather. I have to work with it. It comes every year, and then I move on. So what is acceptance and why is it important? As we head into the holiday season, acceptance also seems like a good concept to incorporate into our lives. This time of year comes with lots of changes, events and obligations outside our normal routines and seasonally related stressors. Family get togethers can bring up unmet expectations, old patterns of behavior related to roles we played when we were younger. Maybe the need to explain why you have or haven't achieved a particular thing by a particular age, interpersonal conflicts and the like. The end of the calendar year also brings a push to meet business and work goals, and you might feel like you haven't done everything you told yourself you wanted to do this year. And like me, you might be sensitive to the shortened days and the colder temperatures. Not accepting things as they are can trap you in fear avoidance and suffering. I just talked about avoidance a couple of episodes ago in a solo cast, so if you missed it, go back and listen to that short episode. I'll link it in the show notes. You can imagine that the increased stress of resisting reality can negatively impact both physical and mental health. It can lead to not making necessary changes to your physical health, like remaining sedentary. Instead of embracing outdoor exercise in the cold months, it can lead to anxiety or depression due to trying to control everyone and everything and inevitably being unsuccessful with it. So let's talk a little bit more about what it means to practice acceptance and how you can improve your own practice. And truly, I am recording this because I need these reminders every year, like I mentioned. So what exactly is acceptance? When I talk about acceptance, I'm not only referring to accepting things outside my control, I am also talking about accepting myself the way I am flawed and imperfect. In her book, radical Acceptance, mindfulness expert Tara Brock talks about the trance of unworthiness. We can all fall into. I'm sure you can relate to this terminology, it can lead us to compare, strive for perfection, and want more and more things and achievements in order to feel worthy. I was just saying recently in my talk on authentic confidence at the Brave Enough Conference that one of the key thoughts of imposter syndrome is the thought that I am not enough. Instead, the concept of radical acceptance means being willing to experience both ourselves and the circumstances of our lives just as they are. Acceptance doesn't mean being complicit in a situation either. Two things can be true at once. Like you can love your body as it is, but still be wanting to improve it through fitness and nutrition. You can love and accept a family member engaged in self-destructive behaviors while disagreeing with what they're doing, and you can find joy in your present work-life balance situation as it is while still seeking to improve it in some way. Whenever you find yourself resisting, ask yourself this key question, what is truly in my control? You've probably seen those graphics on social media with a big circle diagram. The items inside the circle are under your control, and the items outside the circle are outside your control. Inside the circle are things like your actions, your thoughts, your words. Notice that theme here, and all of the items outside the circle are pretty much everything else, like other people's actions, other people's thoughts, the weather, the future, the past, et cetera. So how can you start to practice acceptance in your own life? There are two key tenets, and those are kindness and mindfulness. Kindness means being kind to both yourself and others. In the story I gave at the beginning of this episode with my husband's court case being moved, I failed to mention the reason the trial was moved was because the opposing counsel's wife is dying of cancer and he's her sole caregiver. If I hadn't initially been wrapped up in my own first world bs, I could have thought about this differently. Like, how would I feel if this were me? Wouldn't I want to go through the holidays with an ill family member and not spend one month of the that holiday time in trial? And when you think about things that way, it saves suffering and distress regarding kindness to yourself. You must learn to treat yourself the way you treat other people. If your spouse or child made a mistake or didn't meet a deadline, would you tell them they're, a stupid, sorry excuse for a human being. No, you wouldn't. But we say these kinds of things to ourselves and don't act like you don't, because I know you do. Everyone does this from time to time because we're naturally wired to be self-critical and to recognize dangerous situations because our survival use to hinge upon not making big mistakes, but of course times have changed. I like what Gretchen Rubin says. She says, to treat yourself like a toddler. Care for yourself. Attend to your basic needs. Be kind and remember that you are worthy of being in this world simply because you are human. If you want more inspiration on that particular front, go back to the episode where I read chapter six of Lean Out. It's called Human Being versus Human Doing, and I will put the link in the show notes for you. So let's talk about mindfulness now. The other key tenet of acceptance. As you know, mindfulness is about paying attention to the present moment without judgment. Because what is in our control, the only time that's in our control, is the present moment. If it already happened, it's outside of your control and you need to accept it. If it hasn't happened yet, it also can't be in your control. But the one important thing to note is that you can control your thoughts and your responses to what's happening, and what better way to do that than to cultivate a practice of mindfulness. As I've mentioned before on the show and in numerous articles found on practice balance.com, having a regular mindfulness practice does not have to look like some sort of perfect meditation session every day, and it also doesn't have to be a long period of time. It can be something short like two to five minutes. There are a couple problems people fall into when they try to adopt a regular practice of mindfulness. The first is they think it has to look a certain way, so when we can't meet that perfect picture. They give up and they stop doing it. But truly, it can be something as short as just doing a breathing exercise or taking a quiet walk. It can be inhaling the aroma of your coffee in the morning and savoring that while you sip it without scrolling your phone. The practice can look like different things on different days, but consistency is key. Did you do something each day? If so, then you're establishing a consistent routine. Number two is they don't schedule the time for it. By using some sort of reminder, calendar entry or habit tracker. Treat your short mindfulness sessions just like you would any other appointment or task you must do each day. Put it into your calendar or on your checklist of things that you need to do each day. Just because it's short and it's only for you, that doesn't mean it's not important. And I've had a lot of conversations on this podcast with inspiring people who say that they schedule in on their calendar things like walking the dog or reading a book because it's that important to them. You might be wondering how mindfulness is related to acceptance. Well, when You're able to realize when you are having stress about something you can't control or something related to not feeling good enough, you're then able to observe your own thoughts, and that is a very powerful position to be in. The last point I wanna make is that acceptance, just like mindfulness and work-life balance and confidence for that matter, is a lifelong practice. It's always something we can work on. You're never perfect at any of these things and you're not meant to be. So give yourself some grace and try some of these practices I mentioned. Okay, that's all I have for today. Thanks for listening, and I hope you found these thoughts helpful. As you enter the busy holiday season, tell me what have you been resisting or not accept? Share your thoughts by sending me a text message through your podcast listening app, leaving a comment on the blog post associated with this episode@practicebalance.com or sending me a DM on Instagram I'm practice balance. Thanks for listening to the lean out podcast. If you find these conversations inspiring and useful, please forward them to a friend and also leave a review on iTunes or Spotify so that other people can find them easier. If you want to get in touch with me, you can find me at my website, practice balanced.com, where you can subscribe to my newsletter and get updates regularly about new podcast episodes, blog posts, speaking, engagements, and coaching services. You can also support my work by buying my book, lean out a professional woman's guide to finding authentic work-life balance for yourself, a friend, family member, or coworker. Have a great day and we'll see you next time