Radical Acceptance

Dear friends,

I hope you are all doing well. My thoughts today are related to a lecture that I just wrote for a neurodivergent advocacy conference that is happening this week on-line (The Nurture Programme). The conference theme is “radical acceptance” of those of us whose minds function in a different way than the majority. 

My topic was about how easy it is for those who have limited verbal language skills to be overlooked or ignored in our society, effectively making us invisible or anonymous.

I love the term, “radical acceptance.”  My understanding of the word “radical” is something that is dramatically different from the norm. How cool would it be if society suddenly began accepting and celebrating the uniqueness of each person rather than trying to get everyone to conform to a predetermined standard that motivates us to try to be different than who we are? Who gets to decide that standard anyway? 

It would indeed be a radical idea to always find what makes our friends, family members, colleagues, and even competitors different, special, and unique. 

Isn’t it the contrasting colors, textures and perspectives that turn a regular painting into a masterpiece? The world could be a masterpiece. It would take a radical approach.

Be radical.