In short, radical acceptance is accepting reality for what it is. Accept your situation, who you are as a person, who your family and friends are, what's happened to you in the past, etc. Everything.
The concept is based on the premise that denial really won't get you anywhere. Fighting the past is totally pointless as past is past and therefore can't be changed, no matter how hard you want. The past was probably unfair, cruel, and to be honest, shitty at one point or another. And bluntly, you just have to learn to deal with it.
A huge part of radical acceptance is willingness versus willfulness. I will define each:
Willingness-Doing exactly what is needed, and just what is needed. Focus on effectiveness and listen to your wise mind, doing what you KNOW is right and not what you FEEL is right. Be aware of where and who you really are, not where you feel you are or who you feel you are.
Willfulness-Refusing to make changes that are necessary. Giving up. Doing the opposite of what works, therefore not being effective.
There really are only two steps to radically accepting. The first is to "turn the mind"; basically choosing to accept instead of reject reality. Turning the mind is making an inner, deep commitment to accept. This must be practiced, again and again, over and over, in every aspect of your life. The second step is to choose willingness over willfulness.
When you are not embracing radical acceptance, pain and suffering will always be there because you're fighting reality. Anger tends to build up in those of us who do this and many of us end up lashing out, which is definitely not helpful and can cause significant issues. Over analyzing and obsessing over what is will not help whatsoever; you have to acknowledge the past, present, everything without criticism or judgement.
Now, as I said, I have the hardest time with this whole concept. First for the same reason many people claim this is the most difficult DBT skill to master; accept EVERYTHING without judgement or criticism and don't try and change it?! I thought unless you're a damn monk it must be near impossible. Secondlt because this whole acceptance thing confused me. Does it mean you have to accept your bad situation without changing it? If your spouse does something to hurt you, do you say, "Oh, okay. I accept it, I won't change you. I'll live with it."? Or if you're an addict, do you say, "I'm addicted to drugs, it's how it is. I'll accept this without trying to change anything."? This was my dilemma, and I'm still working on wrapping my mind around it to be honest. But here's the way I'm seeing it now:
I have to change my attitude in order to move on. Dwelling on what's happened to me, what my flaws are, what upsets me, is not going to help me one bit. And denying these things is equally as harmful. I have to just say, "Yeah, that happened. It sucked. Now what to do about it and move on." Also, I cannot change or control anything but myself. And even bigger, it isn't my job or responsibility to do so. I can't try and force someone to do/feel/say/think what I want. If a person does something harmful to me, i can leave the situation, but I can't change the person. If I have a thought such as, "I'm so damaged and dirty because of my past that no one will ever love me.", using radical acceptance I would think, "Okay, yes I was abused, and it had an effect on me. Move past the thought. I have people who love me."
My girlfriend (who also had BPD) and I were just discussing this concept earlier today and we boiled it down to a pretty blatant statement:
"Stop being angry about the shit causing you suffering because it won't change a goddamn thing. The past fucking sucks, it hurt, but get up and just deal with it. Freaking about it all the time isn't going to help at all. You can't be a control freak about everything because then when you don't get what you want, it makes you lash out. Just go with the flow, work on yourself, see what really is, and be logical."
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