Radical Acceptance

A couple days ago I took the School of Life's "How to Enjoy Life" virtual class where the instructor introduced the concept of "radical acceptance". It is the name of Tara Brach's book and the idea is that suffering is optional, pain is not.

Pain + non-acceptance = suffering

Radical acceptance means we don't fight with reality or things that cannot be changes, like the past. This idea reminds me of Byron Katie's "Loving What Is". I believe I read that book back in 2014 but I've virtually forgotten what I learned.

​Byron Katie came up with 'The Work' which is an exercise of asking yourself four questions.
1. Is it true?
2. Can you absolutely know that it's true?
3. How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?
4. Who would you be without that thought?

I wished that I actually practiced that. Sometimes I convince myself of the worst possible situation and I behave and act as if the worst has happened when it has not and may never. In other words, I suffer for a non-reality, which is stupid and a waste of time.