386: The Acceptance and Resistance Survey, Part 1 of 2

Accept this Sh__? Hell No! Rhonda and David  are joined in today's podcast by two dear friends, Dr. Matt May, a popular regular on our show, and Matt Pierce, a co-founder of the soon-to-be-released Feeling Great App Brief bio sketch of Matt Pierce goes here, should you wish to include it in the show notes. Matt,. A pic would also be great, but not required. People get tired of the same pics each week, so a fresh face to illustrate this episode would be cool! You've probably heard about acceptance. It's a popular buzzword in the mental health space these days. In fact, some experts claim that it's THE key to happiness and enlightenment. It's NOT, but it can be incredibly helpful. I wanted to learn more about Acceptance and put some numbers on it's effectiveness, or lack of effectiveness, so I recently sent an invitation to the 45,000 people on my mailing lists to complete a new survey on acceptance and resistance. More than 1,000 quickly responded, which was great. I hoped the data could provide some answers questions like these: What is acceptance? How interested are we in accepting themselves, other people, and the world? Many people, and perhaps most of us, strenuously resist acceptance. Why? What are the things that we have the most trouble accepting about ourselves and others? Is all the hype about acceptance justified? Does it actually have meaningful effects on how we feel? Can money buy happiness? And if so, how much, exactly, does it cost? Why are single people more depressed and unhappy than people with partners? And if so, is it because of the lack of a loving partner? Or was there some other reason? Thanks for listening, David, Rhonda and Matt