During and shortly after the lockdown, temperatures were taken twice a day — at 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. Food was delivered to crew members’ doors and left on nightstands placed outside.
Francis also picked up a copy of “Can’t Hurt Me” by David Goggins, a man who went on from an abusive childhood to become a Navy SEAL, an ultra-endurance athlete and a world-record holder. He watched movies, played video games, talked to friends online when the Wi-Fi worked and checked in on the lifeguards who worked with him.
Radical acceptance can best be summed up by this example, said Randy Wolbert, a DBT clinician and Zen teacher based in Michigan: “I can have a preference,” Wolbert said. “There’s a lot of times I have a preference. But the acceptance piece, the freedom piece, comes from letting go of having to have it.”
“It was difficult that day when I made the call to my family,” Rogers said. “I’m not a very openly emotional person, and I just cried. I was at work, and I just cried. I think it just was that release. I knew it was inevitable. I knew that it was coming, and it finally all just bubbled up.” Things got more difficult when Billock found out that an in-person funeral would take place, but that only 10 people could be in the room at a time. “We could have gone, but we didn’t want to take away from time the immediate family was going to be able to spend together,” she said.
Pieracci also outlined a practice that she encourages her own patients to follow: Start by creating a statement of acceptance for yourself. Maybe your children are home more during the pandemic, and you’re also working full time. Your statement might be as simple as, “My kids might interrupt me during this work call.”
“Willingness is that whole idea of being open to participation,” Wolbert said. “Open to full participation and whatever comes. Willfulness is actually much more sitting on your hands. It’s like, ‘I shouldn’t have to deal with this.’”