ACCEPTANCE AND COMMITMENT THERAPY
Get Out of Your Head and Into Your Life...
A stubborn truth about life is that being happy is really difficult! When we look at our own experiences, we can see that many of our problems are tied to how we feel and what we tell ourselves. It’s easy to believe that if we didn’t have these negative thoughts and emotions our lives would be a lot better. However, just telling ourselves to stop thinking that way or stop feeling what we do is not very realistic. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is less concerned with challenging our thinking patterns and more concerned with employing acceptance and mindfulness practices to see that our thoughts are only stories that we’ve created, not the true reality. We learn how to step back and observe these tales that our minds weave, gaining distance and the freedom to choose whether to act or not based on our core values. Recognizing that our ideas are not facts, but stories and that our emotions are not problems, but valuable information frees us to experience them, and move towards life-affirming values and actions.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) gets its name because it teaches us how to reduce the impact and influence of painful thoughts and feeling (acceptance) while simultaneously taking action to build a life that’s rich, full and meaningful (commitment). ACT gets you in touch with what really matters in the big picture: your heart’s deepest desires for how you want to behave and what you want to do during your brief time on this planet. You then use these values to guide, motivate and inspire what you do. Here are some of the core concepts in ACT Therapy:
THOUGHTS
We learn through Acceptance and Commitment Therapy that when thoughts pop into our head, we don’t focus on whether a thought is true or false, but whether it is workable. To determine workability, we ask this question, “Is this thought working to give me the sort of life I want, in the long term?” If the answer is yes, then we say it’s “workable”, so there’s no need to change it. And if the answer is no, then we say it’s “unworkable” in which case, we can consider alternatives that may work better. In other words, if I let this thought guide my behavior, will it help me create a richer, fuller, and more meaningful life?” Does this thought help me to be the person I want to be and do the things I want to do?” And of course, by thoughts we mean memories, feelings, emotions, anything that rents space in our minds and refuses to vacate.
ACCEPTANCE
There’s a big difference between tolerance and acceptance. Would you want the people you love to tolerate you while you’re present, hoping you’ll soon go away and frequently checking to see if you’ve gone yet? Or would you prefer them to accept you completely and totally as you are with all your flaws, and be willing to have you around for as long as you choose to stay? In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, we define Acceptance as making room for unpleasant feelings, sensations, urges, and other private experiences; allowing them to come and go without struggling with them, running from them, or giving them undue attention.
EXPERIENTIAL AVOIDANCE
Bottom line, experiential avoidance describes all of the things we do to avoid or get rid of unwanted feelings that actually increase the suffering in our lives. For example, many addictions begin as an attempt to avoid such as boredom, loneliness, anxiety, guilt, anger, and sadness. Anxiety disorders provide another good example. It’s not the presence of anxiety that creates an anxiety disorder. In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy we learn that anxiety is a normal human emotion that we all experience. At the core of any anxiety disorder lies excessive experiential avoidance: a life dominated by trying very hard to avoid or get rid of anxiety. For example, suppose I feel anxious in social situations, and I stop socializing. I get a short-term benefit by avoiding my anxious thoughts and feelings, but over time my anxiety gets deeper and more acute, and now I have “social phobia”. My life gets smaller, I become isolated, and I find myself stuck in a vicious cycle.
COGNITIVE DIFFUSION
Have you ever had that experience of “being in the zone” when you are totally absorbed with a project that you are passionate about and everything just seems so easy? These are those rare moments when our cognitive capacities can produce an amazing state of flow, which erases the boundary between the self and some absorbing, challenging task. This higher-level thinking mode is the basis of our scientific, technological and artistic achievements. In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy we learn how this mind machine, the machine that labels, compares and judges, is turned against ourselves, creating undesired outcomes. Often these labels and judgments are negative and global (e.g. I’m worthless, I’m a failure...he’s selfish...they’re mean). We then become fused with these judgments. They come to define ourselves and our experience in a manner that doesn’t do justice to complexity or nuance. We engage in black or white thinking and are unable to see the shades of gray. Nevertheless, the negative judgments become our reality and we become hooked.
PRESENT MOMENT
Being in the Present Moment is to engage fully in whatever it is that we’re doing in order to realize more satisfaction and fulfillment. To train our awareness so we can perform better or act more effectively. Paying attention, with openness, curiosity, and flexibility, lies at the heart of all mindfulness. It is the starting point for all cognitive diffusion, acceptance, and other strategies. And it plays a major male in values-based living. If you're acting on your values but not fully engaged in what you're doing, then you're missing out. Being present adds richness and fullness to your life no matter what you are doing.