Radical Acceptance
By Tran T. Doan
“Clearly recognizing what is happening inside us, and regarding what we see with an open, kind and loving heart, is what I call Radical Acceptance. If we are holding back from any part of our experience, if our heart shuts out any part of who we are and what we feel, we are fueling the fears and feelings of separation that sustain the trance of unworthiness. Radical Acceptance directly dismantles the very foundations of this trance.”
Forgiveness comes in small doses and can take years to unpack. When I decided to forgive my father, a Vietnamese boat refugee, I appreciated him more. As a result, memories of him being a good father flooded back. He cared and that’s finally enough. He wanted to spend more time with us, and instead I focused on how awkward I felt when we went out for dinner after my parents separated. Life is short, and I want to spend the rest of my time on Earth embracing the ones who love us and whom we love in return.
My first home was in a small apartment in Southern California. My dad was a long distance truck driver and my mother sewed garments for a factory. At the time, she worked from home to look after two small ones. I was two or three years old at the time, but some of my first memories in that apartment was bawling after my father left for long distance assignments. I hardly imagined how he felt when he saw his daughter crying after him. Was he touched? Sad? Or shrugged it off because of machismo? I wondered if he thought about his first daughter, my older half-sister, whom he left behind.
People say I look just like him. When I turned 30, for the first time, I wanted to learn more about the Vietnamese side of myself. I overlooked how I look is a piece of the legacy that my family has left me. Although I don’t know what my paternal grandparents look like, but I guess I don’t need to look further than my own reflection. I appreciate my features because I get to hold a piece of them in my features, my DNA. When I wonder what they looked like, I can now stare in the mirror with wonder. Whose eyes do I have? My nose is definitely from one of them. If I looked like the conventional beautiful women in fashion magazines, then I wouldn’t look like my family, and I choose them. In choosing them, I am better able to choose me.
I’m not sure exactly how it happened but when I forgave my father, I am slowly finding radical acceptance in myself.