Radical Acceptance During the Holidays: Letting Go of the Fight With Reality

The holiday season has a way of stirring up expectations—about family, connection, joy, tradition, and how we think this time of year should feel. When reality doesn’t match the picture we’ve been carrying, many people don’t just feel disappointed; they feel guilty, ashamed, or as though they’ve failed in some quiet but meaningful way.

This is where radical acceptance becomes not just a therapeutic concept, but a stabilizing practice—especially during the holidays.

Rather than asking us to force cheer or “make the best of it,” radical acceptance invites something far more humane: the possibility of releasing the fight with reality so we can tend to ourselves with honesty, steadiness, and care.

What Is Radical Acceptance?

Radical acceptance is a core skill from Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). At its foundation, it means fully acknowledging reality as it is—without denying it, minimizing it, or judging it.

Acceptance does not mean:

• Approving of a situation

• Agreeing with harmful behavior

• Giving up or resigning yourself to suffering

• Stopping efforts to change what can be changed

Instead, radical acceptance focuses on recognizing what is outside of your control in this moment, so emotional energy can be redirected toward regulation, boundaries, and intentional action.

Research consistently shows that acceptance-based skills are associated with reduced emotional reactivity, lower rumination, improved distress tolerance, and greater emotional regulation—especially during periods of interpersonal stress. In other words, when we stop fighting reality, we reduce the suffering layered on top of pain.

Why the Holidays Make Acceptance So Hard

The holidays activate idealism—deeply ingrained beliefs shaped by memory, culture, family systems, and longing. Many people carry internal narratives such as:

• This should be a happy time.

• Family should come together.

• If I do this right, it will finally feel good.

When those ideals collide with reality—estrangement, grief, conflict, exhaustion, or emotional distance—the nervous system often responds with distress. The pain is real, but the suffering intensifies when the mind keeps protesting:

This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.

That ongoing resistance keeps the body in a state of emotional threat, making regulation and presence far more difficult.

Guilt, Shame, and the Weight of “Shoulds”

Guilt and shame often surface quietly during the holidays.

Guilt tends to sound like:

• I should go.

• I should try harder.

• I should be grateful.

Shame cuts deeper:

• There’s something wrong with me.

• Other people can handle this—why can’t I?

• I’m failing at the holidays.

Psychologically, shame thrives when people believe they are violating an unspoken rule. Radical acceptance gently challenges the rule itself. It shifts the story from personal failure to contextual reality—from “I’m not enough” to “This is hard, and I have limits.”

Acceptance doesn’t erase responsibility or care. It removes self-punishment from the equation.

When Family Relationships Are Painful or Estranged

For many people, the most painful part of the holiday season involves family relationships—especially when those relationships are strained, unsafe, or estranged.

Radical acceptance may involve acknowledging:

• That some family members are unwilling or unable to change

• That contact may come at a high emotional cost

• That distance can be an act of self-protection, not rejection

• That grief and relief can exist at the same time

Family systems research consistently shows that chronic exposure to invalidation, criticism, or boundary violations increases anxiety, depressive symptoms, and physiological stress. Letting go of the fantasy that this year will finally be different can feel devastating—but continuing to chase that fantasy often deepens harm.

Acceptance does not require reconciliation. It requires honesty.

Radical Acceptance and the Nervous System - The Science Behind It

From a neurobiological perspective, resistance to reality keeps the stress response activated. The brain remains vigilant, scanning for threat, disappointment, or emotional injury.

Acceptance sends a different signal:
This is happening. I can respond rather than react.

This shift supports emotional regulation by:

• Reducing rumination and looping thoughts

• Lowering physiological stress responses

• Increasing clarity around what is within your control

Radical acceptance doesn’t remove pain—but it creates the conditions for steadiness.

What Radical Acceptance Looks Like During the Holidays

In everyday life, radical acceptance often sounds like:

• I don’t like this, and I can stop fighting it.

• This isn’t the holiday I imagined, and I can still care for myself.

• I can grieve what I hoped for without shaming myself for it.

It is a both/and practice—holding disappointment without self-blame, boundaries without bitterness, and grief without collapse.

Radical Acceptance as a Pathway to Resilience

Radical acceptance is not something people “get right.” It is a practice, not a personality trait or a single decision. Most people move toward it, resist it, lose it, return to it, and circle back again.

That process is not failure—it is how resilience is built.

Resilience doesn’t come from forcing yourself to be okay. It comes from staying emotionally present without abandoning yourself. Acceptance reduces the internal battle, freeing energy for rest, boundaries, and meaning.

Importantly, radical acceptance is emotionally demanding. It often requires loosening your grip on idealized hope—the hope that things will finally become what they should be. That can bring grief, fear, anger, and exhaustion. These reactions are not resistance; they are human responses to loss.

Sustainability and Self-Compassion

Sustainable acceptance happens in small, livable doses:

• Accepting today, not the entire season

• Accepting one relationship or limit at a time

• Allowing acceptance to ebb and flow with stress and capacity

Self-compassion makes this possible. Without it, acceptance can turn into emotional suppression.

Self-compassion sounds like:

• Of course this is hard.

• It makes sense that I’m struggling.

• I can honor my limits without judging them.

Research shows that self-compassion reduces shame and supports emotional resilience, especially during chronic stress. Acceptance paired with compassion allows reality to be held without turning inward as self-criticism.

Redefining a “Successful” Holiday

Radical acceptance invites a quieter definition of success:

• Presence over perfection

• Emotional safety over obligation

• Regulation over performance

• Meaning over tradition

The healthiest holidays are not the most polished. They are the ones that respect emotional truth.

Final Thoughts

If this season feels heavier than expected, you are not alone—and you are not doing it wrong. The holidays have a way of revealing what matters most and what hurts most, often at the same time.

Radical acceptance is not about making peace with what is painful overnight. It is about allowing yourself to stop fighting reality long enough to breathe, to soften, and to care for yourself within it. Some days that may look like clarity and groundedness; other days it may simply look like surviving with kindness toward yourself.

You are allowed to grieve what you hoped for.
You are allowed to protect your emotional well-being.
You are allowed to redefine what this season means to you.

Acceptance does not erase longing, love, or hope—it creates space for them to exist without shame. And sometimes, that space is the most compassionate gift you can give yourself.

Wherever you find yourself this holiday season, may you meet it with honesty, gentleness, and the reminder that tending to your mental wellness is not a detour from meaning—it is part of it.

References

• Linehan, M. M. (1993). Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder. Guilford Press.

• Linehan, M. M. (2015). DBT Skills Training Manual (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.

• Hayes, S. C., Strosahl, K. D., & Wilson, K. G. (2012). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. Guilford Press.

• Neff, K. D. (2011). Self-Compassion. HarperCollins.

• Gross, J. J. (2015). Emotion regulation. Psychological Inquiry, 26(1), 1–26.