Seeing Your Self as Your Context: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Series

In our series on Acceptance and Commitment therapy, we have laid the foundation of several basic principles of ACT.  We’ve discussed using mindful awareness to remain in contact with the present moment in order to observe and take notice of your internal world.  We’ve reviewed what acceptance is and isn’t, and discussed how practicing acceptance leads to more openness through releasing what is outside of our control.  We’ve also explained and practiced thought defusion, lessening the power we assign to the products of our mind, like our thoughts and feelings.

All these steps involve taking on the role of an observer.  Contact with the present moment allows you to notice your thoughts, feelings, memories, or urges, as well as how you assign power to them in a way that influences your behavior.  Observing shows you how circumstances outside of your control affect you and lead you to struggle with acceptance.  With this next concept, we’ll take observing deeper, exploring how you can separate the products of your mind from your identity – who you are as a person – in order to offer alternative ways of responding to your circumstances.

Self as Context

What does it mean to see your self as your context?  Rather than overidentifying with your thoughts or other internal experiences, self as context requires you to view yourself through the lens of an observer who sees all parts of you, not just the one you’re experiencing right in this moment.  Who you are is not the same as your fleeting feelings, urges, physical sensations, memories, or thoughts.

Your internal experiences don’t need to define your identity.  In the observer role, you notice that while your self contains these internal experiences, they are not one and the same with the whole of who you are.

Attachment to the Conceptualized Self

In contrast, when we link our thoughts, emotions, urges, memories, etc. to who we are as people, we often become locked into rigid ways of responding to the world around us.  We begin to feel stuck, unable to change the patterns that are causing us more harm than good.

We tell ourselves stories we believe to be true about who we are.  These can be long-standing narratives adopted from a young age, that came out of abuse, or that we’ve heard from others in our adult years.  These stories about ourselves dictate our actions in response to a thought, memory, emotion or urge.  For example, if I believe the narrative that I am always late, chances are I will not arrive to meetings or appointments on time.  Even if this is a habit that annoys me, my belief that it is true about myself will influence my behavior.

Similarly, an addict feeling an urge to use their drug of choice might have the thought, “This is the only thing that makes me feel good.”  Believing that narrative, they remember previous euphoric experiences that came after using their drug of choice and feel desire to use again.  Overidentifying with these thoughts can lead this addict to feel as though they have no other choice but to respond by using.

Attachment to the conceptualized self leads to hopelessness and resignation, as you find yourself repeating destructive patterns despite not wanting to continue.  Over time, the believe that you cannot change and deep-seated resistance to other options become solidified.

Why does self as context matter?

As an observer, you can watch what happens internally with some level of detachment.  You also learn that your observing self typically remains stable – your sense of self doesn’t change even though your internal experiences change moment to moment. Who you are is much deeper than just what happens in your mind. Your internal experiences are transient and therefore carry less weight than the sum total of who you are.

Seeing yourself as your context offers more options for actions in response to your circumstance, rather than the rigid, inflexible ways of responding to which you are accustomed.  Instead, self as context sets you up for flexible perspective taking, or seeing multiple points of view or options on how to respond.  When you can take the perspective of others, that often opens up different choices for behavior or perception of your experience.

For those who struggle with addiction, understanding self as your context leads to recognition that the urges you have do not make you a lost cause, but they are part of your addiction.  You can observe and respond to these sensations with actions that are in alignment with what is important to you.  Similarly, those who deal with depression or anxiety can benefit from distancing themselves from taking on the identity of an anxious or depressed person.  Defining yourself as depressed because you have depressed thoughts or a depressed mood can perpetuate the symptoms of depression.  Believing that you are an anxious person and overidentifying with your worst-case scenario thinking can consume your thoughts and trap you.

Principles

You are more than your thoughts, feelings, memories, sensations, and urges.

When you are overly attached to this internal world, you may find yourself limited by it.  It may feel like the workings of your mind consume you and make up the bulk of who you are.  But this is not true. Who you are is multifaceted, and these thoughts, feelings, or urges are just one part of your experience that is transient and will likely change in just a few moments.

From the observer perspective, you can distance yourself from the thoughts.  As we discussed in the practice of thought defusion, using a phrase like, “I’m having the thought…” instead of accepting it as true can create psychological distance.

You can observe the workings of your mind as if from outside.

You can look at your thoughts, feelings, and other internal experiences from the perspective of an outside observer to see other perspectives on what you might be going through, implementing the concept of flexible perspective taking.  What might someone else be thinking if they could listen in to what’s going on in your head?  If you were talking with a friend and they shared this with you, how might you respond to them?  What would you be feeling or thinking about them?

Flexible perspective taking helps you to identify alternative explanations and options you’re your ingrained, rigid ways of responding.  Consider: what are other reasons you could be responding this way?  What are other actions you’ve seen others take or that you could take when you feel this way? 

Not every story we tell ourselves is true of our identity.

As you explore some of your narratives that come up repeatedly, you might find it helpful to challenge their validity through flexible perspective taking.  Even those that have a basis in reality (maybe you are someone who tends to run late!) don’t constitute all of who you are.  Allowing yourself to explore various different narratives about yourself rather than limiting yourself to one definition that may or may not be true can help you release the limitations you feel.

You have options and the ability to choose.

Who you are is flexible in different situations.  You can choose what you want to do and who you want to be based on your values.  For example, you have the ability to choose confidence and directness in your relationships with coworkers, while choosing to be fun-loving and laid back while at dinner with friends.  You have options about how to respond in different contexts because who you are is nuanced.  You have options of how you act in those various situations, rather than being stuck in one way of responding.

Your self is stable, despite the changeable nature of your internal experiences.

The more you practice observing your mind, the more you will notice that your observer self doesn’t change.  The emotions, thoughts, and memories you have change over time and in different contexts, but who you are is fairly stable.  You’ve been you for your entire life, while the workings of your mind are in many ways different from the way they were five years, days, or even minutes ago.

Practices

Observe your thoughts and feelings without judgment.

Going back to contact with the present moment, notice over the course of a few days the various thoughts, feelings, emotions, memories, urges, and sensations you have.  Track the triggering event and your behavioral response afterward.

As you do this, seek to keep a nonjudgmental perspective.  Watch these internal experiences as they come and allow them to pass by.  Do your best not to fixate or evaluate them as “good” or “bad,” but instead to notice them as they happen. 

Identify a few common stories you tell about yourself.

Look for themes in what you’ve recorded to pull out narratives that keep surfacing about yourself, either from your own mind or how others treat you.  These could be personality traits you believe you have, actions where you don’t feel like you have a choice, or moments of feeling hopeless or trapped.

Identify the specific incidents that taught you this was true from your past.  Where did it come from? Did someone say something to you that solidified this narrative in your mind?  Have you repeated it to yourself over time?  Have you interpreted it based on your actions? 

Imagine your younger self’s perspective.

Imagine yourself 5-10 years ago and look at your current experience through their eyes.  You’d be surprised what different perspective you might notice. You may clarify the origin of your ingrained narratives about yourself.  You might notice more or less pain in your past self.  How might your younger self compare with where you are now and offer a different point of view?

Imagine your older self’s perspective.

Now look ahead into the future. Imagine yourself 5-10 years from now and ask for the point of view of the future version of yourself.  What would an older and wiser version of you say?  If it’s hard to connect to yourself in this way, you can think of an older mentor or close friend who has a more wise perspective.  What might they think?

Consider how someone you admire handles similar situations.

Bring to mind someone who you think does a good job of handling situations like the one you find yourself in.  What different options might they have?  What do you see them doing or believing that is different from you?  What different perspective or point of view might they have?

Remind yourself of options.

Consolidate the insights from these different perspectives and make a list of the options you might have, both in your internal world and behavioral responses.  How might you think differently about yourself?  What other narratives or layers might you be missing that could open up options?  In terms of action, what other options might you have for how to respond?  Do you have to do what you usually do?  Are there any ways that could change?

Visualize taking one of these options.

What would it feel like to try a different option from the way you usually operate?  Visualize yourself taking that path.  Imagine yourself acting in a way that fits with your values, different from your normal experience.  What resistance or feelings of being trapped do you notice?  What makes you not want to take that option?  Would it be uncomfortable in any way, and why?

As we move into the upcoming foundational principles of ACT, values and committed action, you may need to come back to this step when you feel stuck.  Explore what is getting in the way of you taking value-based action from these various perspectives.  Notice how the stories you tell yourself can limit you from fully embodying the person you want to be.

Defusion of Distressing Thoughts: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Series

How many thoughts would you guess pass through your mind in a single day? Let’s imagine you’re out to eat with a friend.  Even with your best intentions to stay present and listen, there’s a running commentary going on in your mind.  What are some of the thoughts you might have?  I wonder what she’s thinking of me.  Should I have said that?  I sound like an idiot. I’m still so angry from that meeting with my boss this morning.   He’s so overbearing and impossible to work with.  What am I forgetting from my grocery list?  I’m so forgetful, I must be losing my mind.

Needless to say, these thoughts pull you out of the moment and make it more challenging to listen. You might find yourself censoring what you say out of insecurity, comparing yourself to your friend, or even cutting your lunch date short to get back to the office quickly because you’re feeling stressed.

What’s happening?

When you find yourself stuck in your thoughts, you’re likely dealing with cognitive fusion, another destructive mental strategy that acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) addresses.  When we’re in cognitive fusion, we believe that the workings of our internal mind (thoughts, memories, images, reasoning, comparisons, etc.) are true and real, such that we allow them to influence our behaviors.  Our thought patterns have power and control over our lives and seem to make our decisions for us.

Often these thoughts include cognitive distortions, like catastrophizing or all-or-nothing thinking.  They can include negative self-talk or beliefs about yourself that you hold to tightly based on past experiences.  When we believe these things, they become self-fulfilling prophecies.  For example, our fears of being awkward contribute to social anxiety or discomfort.  We then avoid social situations to try to manage the uncomfortable feelings that coincide with them, adding to the dynamics of experiential avoidance that lead us to disengage rather than live out what is important to us.

There are several different types of cognitive fusion that we may face.  They include:

• Rules: “shoulds” for self or others, ways the world or people “ought” to work or be.  Example: People should always be kind and respectful.

• “I” stories: identity-based statements about ourselves that become self-definitions and self-fulfilling prophecies.  Example: I’m always late.

• Judgments/evaluations: beliefs about what is fair vs. unfair, good vs. bad, or right vs. wrong.  Example: It’s unfair that I keep getting passed over for the promotion.

• Meaning-making/reasons: justifying what I do or looking for the answer to the “why?” question to explain what happens.  Example: I’m single because I’m so socially awkward and unattractive.

• Worries about the past/future: overfocus on the past or anxiety about the future that pulls us out of the present moment. Example: How am I ever going to pass that exam next Friday?

• “You/They” stories/comparison: beliefs about others that become self-fulfilling prophecies, particularly as they relate to us. Example: She’s better than I am at everything.

Cognitive fusion is a problem because our thoughts and feelings then run our lives for us and toss us around at every whim of our minds.  Yes, thoughts can feel very powerful.  Memories that pop up as flashbacks, ingrained patterns of meaning that carry shame, and automatic responses that elicit strong emotions can feel crippling at times.

Yet it is important to recognize that, though these thoughts can feel powerful and real, they may not have as much power as we think.

What is defusion?

Consider the image of defusing a bomb, as in an action movie.  In order for the hero to save the day, they must somehow disconnect the power this ticking time bomb has in order to keep it from destroying its target.

Similarly, our thoughts act as ticking time bombs that can unleash an explosion of painful thoughts and emotions, followed by destructive behaviors that lead us away from our values.  We can defuse the thoughts by removing the charge that sets them off: the automatic behavioral reaction that comes after the thoughts.  We do this by observing our thoughts from a place of distance rather than getting caught up in the storm they create in our minds.

The previous two concepts we’ve discussed in this Acceptance and Commitment Therapy series are essential building blocks to support this defusion.  Defusion helps us to practice acceptance to willingly encounter painful thoughts and feelings, rather than running away or avoiding experiences we find uncomfortable.  It is also essential for us to remain in the present moment in order to be aware of these thoughts from the role of an observer.

Principles

Thoughts are just thoughts.

Thoughts do not have the power to control your life.  You can have a thought come into your mind, but choose to act in a way that is different from your default response to the thought.  They do not have to control what you do.

Thoughts don’t last forever.

We find some surprising results when we pay attention to how many varied thoughts we have in a day.  To test this, sit quietly in a room with a pad of paper and write down every thought that pops into your head for 5 minutes.  When you’ve completed that list, count how many thoughts you had and multiply that number by 192 to create an estimate of how many thoughts you have in a day.  Recognizing that your thought patterns are fleeting and eventually come to an end can reduce their power.

How we relate to our thoughts is more important than the content of the thoughts.

ACT approaches thoughts differently from a traditional cognitive-behavioral approach, which places emphasis on understanding and changing the content of your automatic thoughts and core beliefs.  While reframing thoughts can be beneficial for some people, ACT theory emphasizes that our thoughts are powerful because we assign that power to them.  Rather than attempting to change a thought that may not be changed very easily, it is more effective to defuse the power of those thoughts.

This approach is helpful if you have tried to change the way you think about yourself or others for a long time, but aren’t finding those changes sticking.  Rather than continuing to try to force a change, allow the thought to be present, but reduce its power by taking an observer role and acting in accordance with your values instead.

Thoughts, emotions, meaning-making, memories, images, and other internal experiences are just products of the mind.

These internal workings don’t have any greater meaning than that.  They don’t have the power to force us to behave in any particular way, despite the fact that we may believe they do. 

At the same time, we can choose situations in which we want our thoughts to have an influence over our behaviors.  We can choose to engage the thoughts that move us more toward what is important to us.  In this way, we’re not eliminating the power of our thoughts entirely, but making an intentional decision of how much power we want to give to those thoughts.

Practices

Keep a record of your thoughts.

Listen to and track your thoughts, noticing whether they carry a positive, negative, or neutral charge.  Identify if there are any strong emotions that go alongside them.  Notice what behaviors flow naturally out of your thoughts and emotions.  Are those behaviors you want to be engaging in?  Or are they impulsive, reactive, automatic responses?  You can find a helpful tracking tool for this step here.

Affirm your role as an observer of your internal world.

After recording your thoughts, you are in a better position to recognize and notice thought patterns as they come up.  When you have a distressing, painful, or challenging thought, see what happens when you intentionally remind yourself of the phrase, “thoughts are just thoughts.”  How does it impact the power of that thought?

Similarly, you could label your internal experience as if you were an outside observer with words like, “I’m having the thought…” or “I’m having the emotion…”. Another strategy is to imagine your thoughts being played on a radio or told as a story outside of yourself.

Visualize the thoughts passing by.

Often we fixate on our thoughts, which gives them the illusion of power.  We obsess over them or attempt to stop them from coming up, which just entrenches them more deeply in our minds.  Instead, use this commonly practiced mindfulness technique: instead of trying to control, change, alter, or rid yourself of your thoughts, just notice them passing by.  Using a visual cue, like imagining thoughts like cars passing on the street or clouds floating by in the sky, can help you to allow them to pass through your awareness without giving them undue attention.  You’ll notice that your thoughts don’t need to command your focus all the time, but that they can come and go.

Write the thought down and look at it regularly.

If you notice a pattern to your distressing thoughts, such as a repeated phrase or belief that feels like it controls you, take that thought and write it down on something you can carry with you, such as a notecard or post-it note.  Throughout your day, pull out the note with your thought on it and read through it.  Notice how it feels when you look at it.  See yourself as an outside observer of that thought.

Notice how the relationship you have to the thought changes.  The words on the paper do not change, but the way you interact with them will differ at various points throughout the day.  This is a good indicator of the importance not of the content of the thought, but of how you relate to it.

Imagine a common situation influenced by this thought, but with a different outcome.

Choose this thought you’ve written on the card, another common thought pattern you’ve identified, or an image or memory that tends to impact your behaviors.  Now imagine yourself having that thought, but making a different decision about how to respond to it.  What behavior might line up better with what is important to you?  What would change?  How would an outside observer see you?  Would it be possible to act in a different way while still having the thought?

Take a risk and put your different outcome into practice.

Now put into practice this shift in behavior in response to your thought.  Release the thought using a statement like, “thoughts are just thoughts,” and take a risk to act in a way that aligns with what is important to you.  For example, if you’re in a social situation with the thought, “I’m too awkward to talk to people like them,” take a risk by engaging in conversation with one of those feared individuals.

Recognize that this will not eliminate the thoughts.  In fact, taking the risk may even intensify your discomfort.  But this practice of stepping out and making a change in your behavior while still experiencing the uncomfortable thoughts can teach you that your thoughts don’t have the power you think they do. You still have control over your own actions such that you can respond to challenging circumstances in alignment with your values.

Practicing Acceptance: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Series

Tell me if you’ve had a day like this one: you’re in your car on the way to work.  The sky is blue, the sun is shining, and the road is clear…until you hit the freeway and traffic comes to a standstill.  You’re slightly annoyed, as you don’t want to be late for your meeting at the beginning of the workday.  Suddenly, a car whips in front of you, nearly hitting your front bumper.  Your anger skyrockets.  You might yell some curse words or make a rude gesture at the driver.  By the time you arrive at work 15 minutes late for your meeting, your day is ruined.  You may think to yourself, “why do I always do this?  There’s no reason to get this worked up about traffic.”

We began this Acceptance and Commitment Therapy series with an overview of ACT’s purpose: to approach all situations and circumstances with an eye toward personal values and committed actions in alignment with those values.  The first concept discussed was contact with the present moment, which requires staying in tune with your sensations, thoughts, and emotions in any given part of your day.  But what happens when those internal experiences are frustrating or overwhelming?

Acceptance

The next concept of ACT is so crucial to this theory that it makes its way into the name: acceptance.  As humans, we often attempt to avoid or control our pain. In so doing, our creativity and perspective become narrowed, and we are disconnected from what is important to us.  Our interpretation of events magnifies our pain and disrupts our daily life. 

When we resist acknowledging the painful realities that exist in our internal world and our external experiences (circumstances, other people, relationships, etc), we create tension that interferes with taking action and causes us to feel stuck.  In his book Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, the creator of ACT called this experiential avoidance, defining it as “efforts to control or avoid private experiences (eg. sensations, emotions, thoughts, memories, urges) when doing so is ineffective, unnecessary, or contrary to living a meaningful life.” 

Why We Need Acceptance

It makes sense that we would act in ways that attempt to protect us from pain.  But often the end results of our self-protection are consequences and disconnection from our values.  And trying to force our internal world to change doesn’t always work.  We can’t force ourselves to feel a certain way, we can’t suppress our urges for very long, and our thoughts arise automatically.

In the same vein, it is impossible to control things that are outside of ourselves, as much as we may try.  We cannot force someone to love us, change others’ thoughts or experiences, or control how bad traffic is on any given day.

In addiction recovery, addicts often find that trying to suppress their urges to act out or use their drug of choice end up backfiring.  Similarly, denial of the reality of harm done by their addiction in relationships can lead to the dissolution of those relationships and more severe consequences than if reality was accepted and acknowledged in the first place.

What Acceptance Is…and Isn’t

We need to practice acceptance in order to thrive and create the life we want.  But what does acceptance look like on a daily basis?  It requires taking the role of an observer of both your internal world and external circumstances to see things as they are without judgment, removing any labels like “good” or “bad.”

But acceptance is not the same thing as settling or resigning yourself to your fate.  Settling is a passive response: putting up with their circumstance without any hope of taking action.  Often, those who feel they have settled carry some degree of anger or resentment, even if it is buried beneath the surface. They feel stuck in a situation they don’t want, and it seems impossible to change.

We think acceptance means a barren life, but the opposite is actually true.  Acceptance is not a resignation or giving up, and it doesn’t require you to like the situation in which you find yourself.  In fact, acceptance leads the way to change.  In order to change what isn’t working, we must first accept the reality of what is.

Principles

Suffering is universal and unavoidable.

None of us can go through life without pain.  Pain will be there whether we accept it or not.  Many of our efforts to avoid or control pain end up creating more harm for ourselves or others, in such forms as addiction or relational disengagement.  Accepting the reality that we will experience pain can help us prepare for it and be conscious of it when it happens, rather than being taken by surprise, believing that we should always be happy, or expecting that we will think positive thoughts all the time.

Observe negative thoughts or painful emotions without attempts to change them.

One recent study showed that repeating positive self-statements did not have a positive effect on those with low self-esteem, but rather left them feeling worse.  Attempts to avoid pain by forcing positive thoughts actually had a negative effect on those individuals.

According to ACT theory, attempts to change negative thoughts or painful emotions only exacerbate the pain and don’t allow for acceptance.  This principle exists in contrast to more traditional cognitive theories, like cognitive-behavioral therapy, that encourage reframing or changing thought patterns.  ACT also contrasts the cultural message that if you’re struggling with negative thoughts or painful feelings, you must not be trying hard enough to get better.

Often in acknowledging these thoughts and emotions and letting go of the need to change them, you can experience a greater peace as you become an observer rather than a controller of your experience.

Open up to what shows up. 

Acceptance is characterized by a mindset of openness, both to circumstances outside of yourself and your internal response to those circumstances.  It involves a willingness to engage and receive whatever comes, whether it is painful or joyful.  We choose to engage with the feelings and circumstances that we would rather avoid, moving closer to them in an attempt to grow toward thriving in a meaningful life.

Foster creative hopelessness.

As you’ve made attempts to cope with painful emotions and circumstances, you’ve probably noticed that your coping strategies have varied levels of impact.  However, one thing you’ll likely see is that none of your coping strategies eliminate pain forever.  Even if it is a temporary fix, the pain will come back at some point.

Creative hopelessness comes when we recognize that none of the things we do to try to change our internal or external worlds actually eliminates pain.  Many of our attempts to do so are futile in the long term, even if they provide temporary relief.  Acknowledging this reality means that we can begin to explore more creative strategies about how to live out our values. 

Practices

Observe your thoughts, feelings, and urges intentionally.

Sit in a comfortable position and set a timer for five minutes.  During that time, observe any thoughts, feelings, sensations, memories, or urges that float through your mind and body.  As you’re doing this, recognize that there is no need to change them, but simply to observe them.  Notice how long they take to work their way through your system or if they repeat or resurface.  Notice any impulses you have to suppress or push them away.

The purpose of this observation time is not to clear your mind, but instead to watch your mind and body and catch what comes through you.  There is no judgment of these thoughts as “good” or “bad,” but rather an impartial awareness. 

List experiences you are avoiding.

Make a list of any experiences, both internal and external, from which you are trying to stay away.   Maybe it’s an emotion, like anger, that comes with an urge toward violence or lashing out verbally.  Perhaps it’s a belief you have about yourself like, “There must be something wrong with me.  I’m so stupid.”  Maybe it’s an uncomfortable social situation where you tend to feel shame or embarrassment.  Usually, these avoided experiences are those that create some form of pain in your life, whether due to an internal cause or a circumstance outside of yourself.

Identify attempts to control, avoid, or influence painful experiences.

Make a list of behaviors you do to try to control or influence your circumstances, reduce discomfort, and/or avoid pain.  More obvious behaviors are external, such as going for a walk or binge-watching TV.  But also include those behaviors that are internal, such as suppressing thoughts or overanalyzing your emotions.  This list can include both self-destructive or harmful behaviors as well as supportive coping behaviors.

Now ask yourself: do any of these internal or external coping behaviors eliminate pain completely?  Do they make it so that pain will never come back?  Or do they provide only temporary relief within the larger context of life?  Chances are, you’ll find that no behavior can completely erase the experience of pain.

Dig deeper into your behaviors.

Look back at the list you just created and notice patterns of behaviors that help you avoid or control pain.  Ask yourself: what would happen if I did not carry out these behaviors?  What thoughts, feelings, urges, memories, or sensations would be left?  What, in essence, am I avoiding?

Similarly, you might ask yourself what function the behaviors serve.  How do they work for you, and why do you keep going back to them? 

Evaluate the function of your avoidant behaviors.

It is important to acknowledge and validate your process of avoidance so that you don’t begin to shame yourself for your behavioral response.  We will never fully eliminate the urge to control pain with these behaviors, so seek to understand and accept your coping behaviors with kindness and compassion.

One way to recognize a behavior’s function over time is to track the ways in which you avoid pain in the upcoming week. Notice how that goes.  Recognize how different behaviors work or don’t work for you, and notice where avoidance gets in the way of value-based living.

Slow down and acknowledge.

Practice slowing down to acknowledge a painful internal experience.  Use the prompts in the first observation practice to connect to your body and mind as you consider a painful moment.  Can you survive the temporary feeling of pain?  Often we think we can’t handle or survive a painful emotion or experience, but reality tells a different story. 

Then imagine holding that internal experience in your awareness while also doing something that is important to you.  Is it possible to be acting in a way that is in accordance with your values while also feeling pain?  Can you feel a certain way, have a memory resurface, or think a painful thought and still show up how you want in life?  Can you exist and thrive with these thoughts, feelings, urges, sensations, and memories still being present?  Imagine yourself doing so and see what comes up.

Contact with the Present Moment: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Series

Imagine with me that you’ve been in therapy for a while.  You’ve been addressing the faulty thinking patterns of shame and self-doubt that led you into depression.  Or you’ve been working through panic and crippling fear that propelled you into treatment for anxiety.  Perhaps addiction and its lasting effects on you and your family led you to seek counseling, and you’re beginning to experience healing.  Or you’ve learned strategies to cope with some of the worst of your chronic pain. 

Yet, in spite of these gains you’ve been making, you find that you still get stuck.  Whether you wish you could just make the anxiety go away, or you are hit with triggers of addiction at the most inopportune times, the lasting impact of these experiences might never disappear.  You wonder to yourself, “will I ever just be happy and not have to deal with this anymore?”

Enter the game-changing principles of acceptance and commitment therapy, or ACT.  ACT is based around the concept of psychological flexibility: an openness to your present experience that allows you to adapt your response to any circumstance in service of your personal values.  Rather than attempting to change or eliminate negative thoughts or alter emotions, ACT focuses on utilizing mindfulness to recognize and separate who we are from our negative internal experiences (acceptance) and focus instead on implementing value-based actions (commitment).  It acknowledges that suffering is a universal and inevitable reality, and the goal of “being happy” isn’t always realistic to life.

Often where we get stuck in our work through varied mental health and life struggles is wishing they would disappear entirely.  But when that is not an option, ACT provides another path that can enrich and deepen your life.

In this series, we’ll be covering the six components of psychological flexibility that make up the foundation of ACT.  These include contact with the present moment, acceptance, defusion, values, self as context, and committed action. 

Contact with the Present Moment

Consider the thoughts you’ve had in the past hour.  How many of them have been about something that’s coming up in the future?  What about past experiences and events?  Or have any of them been focused on what’s happening right now?

The majority of our thoughts are focused on recalling past events or planning for the future, rather than being in the present.  Therefore, we don’t accurately observe what we’re experiencing in the moment.  Our lack of connection to present experience causes us to feel confused when we react in a way we don’t expect to certain situations.  We don’t often understand the cause and effect of our actions because we are distracted by our thoughts.

Contact with the present moment requires you to “be here now.”  Be present with your thoughts.  Be aware of what is happening in your body.  Notice the sensations you feel, the ways in which your five senses are interacting with the world around you.  Be conscious of your emotional landscape.  In essence, this component invites you to bring attention to your current experience without the filter of your thoughts and judgments. 

Principles

Nonjudgmental awareness

What does it mean to bring attention to your experience without a filter?  It requires you to contextualize your emotions, sensations, thoughts, and urges as data of which to take note, rather than interpreting those events with certain labels or assumptions.

We tend toward these judgments naturally.  Have you ever had thoughts like, “This is bad,” “I am stupid,” or “That would be perfect”?  Most commonly, we label things as “good” or “bad.”  For example, you might feel excitement about an upcoming event and label that experience as “good,” but fear about driving through rush hour traffic is labeled as “bad.”  On the way, a car could cut you off in traffic, and you automatically have a negative thought about someone else, label the thought as “bad,” and become angry with yourself for having that thought. 

Instead of jumping to judge, this component encourages you to approach those thoughts and emotions differently.  Notice what happens and occurs in your body instead of instantly moving to label or assume something about yourself or someone else.

Let go of the “why”

We often seek to make meaning out of our experiences, whether consciously or not.  We have a natural tendency to try to figure out why things work the way we do, including our minds and our bodies.  However, that can sometimes backfire and prove unhelpful, particularly in situations that have many factors outside of your control.

Attempting to find the meaning behind an accident or sudden death can keep you stuck in pain much longer than is needed.  Similarly, wondering why you’ve been hit with chronic pain or illness simply intensifies the experience.  Staying with the present moment and experience without venturing into the “why” of it is another way to prevent losing contact with the present.

Mindfulness as an access point

Mindful awareness in ACT is intended to help you come to know and understand yourself more fully.  The purpose of mindfulness here, moreso than relaxation, is to recognize our minds, feelings, urges, body sensations, and experiences in a way that helps us come to terms with our reality.  Mindfulness is not emptying the mind, controlling the mind, or focusing concentration. Mindfulness can happen even if you aren’t sitting still or you struggle to focus on your body.  Any moment can provide an opportunity to check in and become more aware of your internal landscape.

There is no right or wrong way to approach mindfulness.  In fact, the way in which we approach mindful awareness can often teach us something about how we are living our lives and the challenges we experience.  Have trouble connecting with your body? That’s a piece of data you can take away and learn about yourself.  Find yourself falling asleep when you try to do a mindful breathing exercise? That could hint at some clues about your pace of life or your needs for sleep.  Let the process of mindfulness be another source of learning about yourself.

Practices

Create intentional space for mindful awareness

In your busy day, you might find it difficult to devote an extended period of time to a guided meditation or mindfulness exercise.  Instead, look for opportunities to create a moment or two where you pay attention to your thoughts, emotions, and experiences in the present moment in a different manner than you would normally.  I’ve written previous articles about quick meditations or simple grounding exercises that may provide helpful strategies or ideas to implement this.

Use formal or informal practice

You might be someone who is well served by setting aside a specific time each day for a mindfulness meditation or grounding exercise, like those listed in the article above.  If that describes you, find a time in your day where you can slot 10-15 minutes to sit quietly, breathe, and bring awareness to your internal experience.  Meditation apps like Headspace or Calm may help you if guidance would feel supportive.

But what if you don’t have the time to set aside for mindfulness meditation?  Remember what we discussed earlier – you can be mindful at any moment throughout your day.  Bring awareness to the warm water on your hands and the smell of dish soap as you wash the dishes.  Notice the thoughts that are running through your mind while you’re out for a walk.  Pay attention to the feelings that arise in you while you’re having a conversation with your spouse or a friend.  Any moment can be a mindful moment if you choose to bring present awareness to your thoughts, emotions, sensations, and urges.

Build in a daily pause

Create a time each day where you can slow down and observe or describe your experiences.  This might be first thing in the morning before you hop out of bed or as you prepare to fall asleep.  You may want to set an alarm for some point during the day as a reminder to check in with your internal experience.  Focus on what’s happening, rather than interpreting what is happening through a label of judgment.  What’s more important for you is the growing awareness of what is happening internally, not the mind’s interpretation of what is happening.

Make it work for you

Don’t allow someone to tell you, “you need to meditate every day for 15 minutes or else you’re doing it wrong.”  As mentioned earlier, there is no right or wrong way to be mindful!  Adapt what works for your circumstances at this point in your life.  Allow for flexibility as you seek to connect more with the present moment, and let go of any rigid expectations or needs for the time.  Often you’ll find that it’s challenging to become aware of the present moment, or your experience doesn’t go how you would expect.  Resist the urge to label that as a “bad” experience and instead remember that it is all normal, part of the learning process, and also providing you with helpful information about yourself.

Keep an eye out in future weeks as we continue to explore the different components of psychological flexibility found in ACT that can help you get unstuck in your healing process.

The ACT Matrix: A Map to Awareness and Empowerment for Change

Imagine you wake up in the morning full of energy, looking forward to what you have planned for the day.  As you step into the kitchen to make your coffee, you think of the big presentation you have coming up for work.  Suddenly, you start feeling afraid and nervous as you imagine everything that could go wrong.  Thoughts of insecurity begin to flood your mind: “I can’t do this.  I don’t know enough to give this presentation.  This is going to be a disaster.”

The energy you felt getting out of bed is draining fast.  After pouring yourself a cup of coffee, instead of tackling your emails or the tasks you had planned to complete in the morning, you end up sitting on the couch and scrolling through Instagram.  Maybe you give up on the coffee altogether and go back to bed.  Or you pick a fight with your spouse when they walk into the kitchen to let out some of the stress and anxiety you’re feeling.

Later in the day, you think back and wonder, “How in the world did that happen?  My morning was going great, and then everything fell apart so quickly.  Why does this happen to me?”

Oftentimes, we find ourselves in frustrating patterns of behavior that make us unhappy, but we’re not quite sure how to change them.  Often these concerns lead people to seek out counseling.  They know there’s something wrong, but they just aren’t sure how to fix it.

Luckily, there is a tool for making sense of these thoughts, behaviors, and feelings: the ACT matrix.  It is a guide to seeing your behavior within the framework of what inner and outer experiences move you toward or away from what really matters to you.

The ACT Matrix

The ACT Matrix was developed out of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which emphasizes the balance between acceptance of your current reality (supported by mindfulness and self-soothing strategies) and commitment to change what is within your control (supported by behavior change strategies and skill-building).  The goal of this framework is to move toward change with compassion and self-understanding, integrating nonjudgmental awareness and making peace with challenging emotions and experiences.

The ACT matrix tool was developed as a way to visually represent this framework.  It was created by Kevin Polk, Jerold Hambright, and Mark Webster for use with trauma and addictions.

Credit: Dr. Kevin Polk

The matrix helps you see the function of your behaviors, or how and why they work (or don’t work) for you.  Understanding these foundations can help you take a more holistic, compassionate, and long-lasting approach to change.

The Horizontal Axis: Moving Toward vs. Away

Looking at the diagram above, you’ll notice a horizontal line with the labels “toward” and “away.”  This axis represents how we move in each of these two directions.  We have hard-wired biological responses that move us toward things that feel important to us and away from potential threats or what we do not want.  Consider the instincts of animals in the wild: they move toward things that provide something they need (food, shelter, other animals of their kind) and away from threats (predators, wildfires, humans). 

The Vertical Axis: Inner vs. Outer Experience

As humans, however, we don’t live our lives purely on instinct.  We can observe and respond to stimuli that are outside of ourselves, but we also have a vibrant inner world that influences and shapes our responses.  We can use reason, control impulses, make decisions, and weigh options.

The vertical axis on the diagram represents this shift between our inner and outer worlds.  Our outer experiences are things we do that other people could observe, including behaviors or actions.  Our inner experiences are what happens inside our mind and body: thoughts, feelings, sensations, decisions, etc.

In every moment of our lives, we exist somewhere on this vertical line.  Either we are more connected to our internal world, absorbed by the thoughts and feelings associated with it.  Or we are more connected to the outer experience, what we’re doing or what’s happening around us.

The Matrix as a Road Map

Consider that each of these axes are a continuum.  Rather than living in all-or-nothing, this matrix provides a road map to identify what can move you closer to one side or the other.  There are a range of possibilities to explore along each of these lines.

Creating Your Matrix Map

Now, let’s consider how you can reflect on your personal values to fill out this road map and identify what patterns are keeping you stuck.  We do this through a series of four questions that guide you to identify how you are moving toward or away from your goals, and how your internal experience as well as your behavior play a role in that dynamic.  Let’s start with the bottom right quadrant.

Quadrant 1 (bottom right - moving toward, inner experience)

What matters to me?  What is important to me?  What values do I hold?

Write a list in this quadrant of what is most important to you.  Aim for about 4-5 people, things, concepts, values that are most significant.  Reflect on what they mean for you.  For example, if one of your values is “happiness,” consider what your ideal picture of happiness would look like.

Quadrant 2 (bottom left – moving away, inner experience)

What thoughts, feelings, urges, or other internal experiences get in the way of living into those values?  What limits me from being able to have what is important to me?

Reflect on the internal experience that gets in the way of the full expression of those values.  Perhaps your lack of confidence prevents you from being able to date and pursue marriage, which is valuable to you.  Maybe you feel bouts of intense sadness and grief over the loss of a loved one, which is preventing you from living out your goal to achieve at work or pursue friendships.

Quadrant 3 (top left – moving away, outer experience)

When I have the thoughts and feelings in quadrant 2, what do I do?  How do I respond in observable behaviors?

Now it’s time to see how these thoughts and feelings influence your behaviors and how you respond.  These may include attempts at coping with the troubling internal experience, for better or for worse.  What you’re looking for here is anything that moves you away from what is important to you.  For example, you may find yourself overeating every time you feel lonely.  Or you drink more when you’re dealing with a storm of insecure thoughts. Perhaps you withdraw and isolate from others when you’re feeling lonely or rejected.

Quadrant 4 (top right – moving toward, outer experience)

What can I do to move me toward what is important to me?

The ultimate goal of this guide map is to help you brainstorm and define ways to increase movement toward the things that are important to you.  By reflecting on the first three quadrants, you may be able to clarify for yourself what behaviors support your values and goals.  You might identify initiating a date with your spouse as an action that moves you toward intimacy in your marriage.  Or you might include exercise or getting more sleep if one of your values involves health and fitness.

Feedback Loops

Often where we get stuck is in the interplay between quadrants two and three.  Look at the behaviors you listed in quadrant 3.  When you engage in those behaviors, how do they impact your thoughts, feelings, urges, and inner experience?  Typically, they either reinforce the internal experience that’s already happening, or they create another inner dynamic that moves you away from what you value.

When we have an inner experience that is challenging, distressing, or painful, we respond to that experience with behaviors that reinforce it and send us back into the pain.  No wonder we find ourselves stuck in those loops!  But there’s good news: once you’re aware that this feedback loop is happening, you can change the way you interact with it, often by using the behaviors involved in quadrant 4.

Compassion

One strength of the ACT matrix approach is looking at these behaviors with a nonjudgmental lens.  When you see where they fit on this road map, you can identify how they function. All behaviors have a function and work to serve that function, even if they seem confusing or counterintuitive.  Another way to explain this is that everything you do works for you in some way – otherwise, you wouldn’t be doing it.  What you need to ask yourself is what function that behavior is serving in your life.

For example, if you find yourself endlessly scrolling through social media, perhaps that behavior is serving a numbing function.  Maybe it is a way to feel connected when you’re isolated from loved ones.  Or perhaps it’s a springboard for creative ideas.  Each of these potential functions (and sometimes a combination of several) drives and motivates this behavior. 

Seek to offer kindness to yourself and explore where you are on the continuum without judgment, exploring where you might want to go and what steps you can take to get there.

Agency

Some versions of this matrix include a circle at the center that overlaps all quadrants.  This circle represents you as the observer, becoming aware of the system of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that influence you.  Awareness of the system can lead you to reflect on what’s in charge of the systems in place: for example, who is in charge of choosing what’s important to you (quadrant 1)?  Who is having these thoughts and emotional responses (quadrant 2)? Who is acting on these behaviors in response to the thoughts and feelings (quadrant 3)? The answer to all these questions is you.

This demonstrates how much agency you have over these areas of your life, empowering you to change.  If you are the one in charge, then you are the one capable of creating change in your life.  You can become aware of the feedback loops in your life and explore alternative options.  You can learn new skills to move you toward what is important to you.  Even small changes like intentional mindful breathing can shift your experience between your inner and outer world, demonstrating the control you have over your moment-by-moment experience.

Spend a day observing your movement on this ACT matrix: how your thoughts and actions influence how connected you are to your inner or outer experience, or how much you are moving toward what feels important or moving away from it. Become more conscious of the behaviors that move you toward what matters to you and to reduce the intensity of the feedback loops you experience.

If you find yourself noticing these patterns but still feeling stuck or unable to change, that’s where a good therapist can help you work through those stuck points. 

Additional ACT Matrix Resources

• Kevin Polk, one of the creators of the ACT Matrix, has trainings to understand this concept further through his ACT Matrix Academy.

• Mark Webster, another contributor to the matrix, has a three-part YouTube series demonstrating how it works.

• Jacob Martinez, an ACT matrix trainer, has resources at his ACT Naturally website.