Healing Through Radical Acceptance: Beyond Pain & Mental Struggle

In a raw and revelatory conversation with Oprah, Lady Gaga illuminates a profound truth about healing: our deepest wounds can become portals to transformation. As the global superstar opened up about her battles with psychosis, anxiety, and chronic physical pain, she revealed something far more powerful than her struggles—she showed us the revolutionary impact of radical acceptance.

“God has given me this pain to understand what pain is so that I can help others,” Gaga shared, her voice carrying the weight of hard-won wisdom. It’s this perspective that transforms her story from one of mere survival to a masterclass in spiritual alchemy. Her journey through sexual assault and PTSD becomes a beacon for others walking similar paths, showing that none of us walk alone.

What strikes deepest is Gaga’s approach to her suffering—not with resistance, but with prayerful acceptance. She’s discovered that radical self-acceptance isn’t just a comfort; it’s a powerful tool for navigating the intensity of emotional triggers and physical struggles. Through this lens, she’s learned to contain her shame, making it “very small,” while expanding her connection to both the divine and her global community, finding strength in prayer and the courage to share her truth.

The path to wisdom

“Wisdom came from accepting the pain.” Gaga shared with Oprah. Oprah then asked Gaga what lesson has taken her the longest to learn. Gaga answered, “How to be wise” … “You see, there is a rational mind and the emotional mind. Wise is when you are both rational and emotional at the same time, and the two meet. I have learned how to pull myself back from either place and sit in the centre.”

I know from experience what it feels like to vacillate between the tyranny of the rational mind and harshness of over-reactive emotions. I know how oppressive and confusing the logical mind can be and how helpless the emotional body can feel.  I also know how tremendously freeing it is to find the centre point between the two. It’s peaceful and calm. That is where emotional maturity takes root and in how we transform ill-health and relationship issues into accurate reflections of who we truly are.

The blessings of vulnerable strength

Gaga’s candid sharing moves me because I see myself in her vulnerable strength.

I, too, have suffered intense emotional triggers from past sexual abuse, as well as the pain related to my mother’s murder in 1976 and the ensuing betrayal of my grandparents, who tried to convince me that my father was the cause. I’ve seen how blame embitters the heart and how pain is so misunderstood and unwelcomed in our society.

Pain is shamed, ignored, denied, neglected and over medicated, and still it resurfaces over and over again to be accepted and healed. No matter what we as a society do with pain, no matter how much we try to hide it in a corner, pain persists because it needs love. Our fear needs love. Sorrow needs love. Even the past needs love because it exists here and now in our bodies and our relationships. Transformational healing requires radical acceptance, empathy, compassion and mutual support.

The role that medicine plays in navigating mental health Issues.

I cannot bring up mental health without addressing medication. In the interview with Oprah, Gaga talked about the importance of medication and how it’s a controversial topic, noting that there’s an intense stigma surrounding treating mental illness with medication. She said that medication has helped her tremendously and that she takes anti-psychotic and anti-anxiety medicine.

I have friends and clients, who when unable to cope with life, keep a job, or maintain their relationships, benefit from medication. They receive needed respite so that they can better navigate their emotional triggers, exhaustion and desperation. 

As well, a family member who, after attempting suicide numerous times, was diagnosed with BPD. Medication has stabilized her emotionally and helped her avert the destruction of her marriage and family. A generation past, my mother, didn’t receive the proper care she needed. In a fit of depression and drunkenness, she tried to throw herself in front of oncoming cars. Her eldest daughter, then 10, stopped her. I wonder what life my mother would have led and who she would have been without the destructive tendencies of her mental illness.

Healing as a Community: The Integration of Modern and Traditional Approaches

Mental health is not an individual journey but a collective calling that touches every human heart. We are bound together in a shared humanity, each carrying the imprints of conditioned responses and survival mechanisms passed down through generations. Yet within this inheritance lies an invitation to collective healing and wholeness.

My own path to healing has woven together multiple approaches—from the steadfast support of loved ones to the wisdom of therapeutic and spiritual mentoring. Through traditional Chinese medicine and homeopathy, I’ve discovered healing modalities that honor both body and spirit. This integrative approach has allowed me to face my underlying false beliefs and trauma with courage, leading to a profound peace with my family history and the transformative realization that I am loved and belong.

While medication plays a vital role for many, as Lady Gaga openly discusses, we must also acknowledge those who seek alternatives. Some find that conventional medications leave them feeling disconnected from their spiritual essence. In today’s mental health landscape, where medication can be overemphasized, it’s crucial to remember Gaga’s insight that medicine alone isn’t the complete answer. Her embrace of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) alongside medication illustrates the power of a balanced approach.

The basic premise of CBT is that our thoughts—not external events—affect the way we feel. In other words, it’s not the situation you’re in that determines how you feel, but your perception of the situation.
– Melinda Smith, Robert Segal, and Jeanne Segal

Modern medicine does not take into account a person’s spiritual life and in how personal crisis can be the emergence of one’s spiritual awakening.

Spiritual emergence is the work of highly attuned healers, spiritual mentors and counselors. However, the spiritual world is riddled with misconceptions, spiritual do-gooders, and ego-driven leaders. Who and what does one trust?

As a spiritual devote, I’ve come across many spiritual advocates who denounce medication for both mental health and chronic pain, and some go so far as referring to mental health and suffering as an illusion. They say that it isn’t real. But it is real. If you suffer from mental health issues and chronic pain, then your experience is very real. It’s not your imagination. But it isn’t something that is happening to you; mental health and chronic pain are directly related to your survival mechanism, your conditioned beliefs.

In The Mind-Body Prescription, Dr. John Sarno suggests that unconscious emotions lie at the root of chronic pain and fatigue. I understand that fatigue plays a big role in depression and anxiety.

Sarno explains that ongoing pain is a response mediated by the Autonomic Nervous System, as part of a whole mind-body attempt to manage the emotions and beliefs below the surface of one’s consciousness.

“Pain and fatigue are an autonomically mediated distraction mechanism, a way that the brain defends itself from painful emotions which are too threatening to allow into consciousness,”
— Hal Greenham

Whether it is a physical pain, mental fatigue or trauma-induced disorder, the body is producing survival-based signals to protect the underlying emotions. The key is to establish a sense of safety with radical self-acceptance and acceptance of the pain and struggle — to not view it as right or wrong, good or bad, but as the state of one’s health that needs tending to with compassionate care.

“When you accept yourself completely,
you give others permission to love you just the way you are.”
— Masiandia,

❖

If you struggle with depression, you feel lost and disconnected
from your spirit, and you experience chronic anxiety or pain,
please consider receiving my support.

BodySOUL integration treats the whole body, mind
and spirit as resourceful, innocent and whole.

❖

Feature image by JR Korpa