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.

EMDR’s Resourcing Tool: A Support in Challenging Situations

All of us have difficult conversations or tough people that we need to face at some time in our lives.  It could be a confrontative conversation with a boss, a tense conversation with a spouse or family member, or walking into a stressful or anxiety-inducing situation.  For an addict in recovery, you might notice triggers that propel you into a desire to act out in your addiction.  For those with trauma, re-engaging with a person, place, or circumstance that is associated with your trauma may lead to fear and anxiety as it brings the memory flooding back.

How can you walk into these challenging moments with a greater sense of confidence and courage?

EMDR, or eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, is a commonly used treatment for PTSD and complex trauma.  Part of the process of EMDR involves bringing awareness to past traumatic memories, which can feel scary or uncomfortable.  Because of this, before the processing of memories begins, you’ll be prompted to create what are called resources.

These resources associated with EMDR are not only effective for preparing you to face uncomfortable, scary, or painful memories.  They can also help you prepare for everyday moments of distress in the present and future.

What are resources?

Resources are places, people, feeling states, animals, objects, etc. that you hold in your imagination to create an internal emotional shift.  For example, a commonly used resource is peaceful place visualization, in which you imagine a place that feels calm and peaceful for you.  Other resources can include supportive figures in your life, such as a nurturing caregiver.  You may also find resources in character qualities or traits you display or have observed in others.  By connecting to these resources in an imaginal capacity, you can connect to the emotional and physical experience of them. 

In EMDR, we couple the imaginal connection to these resources with bilateral stimulation (BLS).  These could be the back-and-forth eye movements associated with EMDR but could also involve tapping alternate sides of the body.  In her book Tapping In, Laurel Parnell teaches strategies to “tap in” these resources using BLS, and much of the resourcing work in this article comes from her work.

Resources are important in EMDR because they can increase your confidence when facing memories, as you know you have your resources as support available to you internally.  In everyday life, resources can help you transition out of a traumatic memory or painful situation.  They can be accessed in your imagination in the present when you notice yourself beginning to spiral into negative self-talk, distressing emotions, or self-destructive behaviors.  They can prepare you for future situations in which difficult emotions or experiences might arise.

How to Find Your Resources

Now that you have an idea of what resources are and when you might need to use them, let’s explore using your imagination to create some of the resources. 

Peaceful, Calm Place

Bring to mind a place that feels peaceful or calm to you.  It can be real or imaginary – a beach, a river, a forest, a room in a secluded cabin – whatever works for you.  Notice what you see, hear, smell, taste, and feel in that place.  Connect to any emotions that arise or sensations you feel in this imagined place.  You’re trying here to connect to the emotional experience: the right-brain, felt sense of the place.  What’s most important isn’t getting the imagery perfect but connecting to the emotional experience of peace or calm that the place evokes.

If you notice your mind going toward the negative and/or your emotions head in that direction, remember that this is your personalized place.  You can control the weather, who is there, whatever you need.  Alter your imagined place until it truly feels peaceful to you.  If that is too challenging based on triggering factors related to that place, consider switching to a different place.

It might be helpful to journal through this or other resources to further solidify the connection to this visualization.  You can read through this journal later to re-connect to the sensations.

Supportive Figures

These three types of supportive figures (nurturing, protective, and wise) are based on Dr. Laurel Parnell’s resourcing work in her attachment-focused EMDR approach.

Nurturing figure

Imagine a person, animal, or symbol that carries a nurturing quality.  It can be fictional or real.  You don’t have to imagine that figure nurturing you: instead, be able to observe a nurturing quality to it.  Pay attention to the sensory experience of observing that nurturing and notice how it feels in your body and the positive emotions it stirs up for you.

Protective figure

Like the nurturing figure, imagine a real or imaginary person, animal, or symbol that carries a protective quality.  You can pull ideas from movies or books.  Remember, you don’t have to imagine that figure protecting you, but instead be able to observe a protective quality in it.  Pay attention to the sensory experience of observing or receiving that protection and notice how it feels in your body and what positive emotions come up for you.

Wise figure

Finally, the wise figure is the last imaginal, supportive figure.  Here, imagine a person, animal, or symbol that you consider to be wise.  Pull the image to mind with as much detail as you can.  When you have a sense of that wise figure, observe the emotions and sensations associated with receiving or observing wisdom.

Supportive figures as a team

Once you’ve identified one or several figures in these categories, you can imagine them together with you as a team.  As you become aware of the presence of each figure, observe how to feels to have all of them on your team, backing you up. 

Character qualities

When you consider the challenge of accessing memories and/or facing difficult moments in the present or future, what resources or qualities might you need to be able to face them?  For example, if you’re considering facing a feared situation, perhaps you’d need courage.  If you’re trying to remain sober, you may need willingness and resolve.  If you are having a challenging conversation with your boss, you might need steadfastness and confidence.

Whatever the character qualities you identify, look back through your life and identify times when you have expressed or embodied that characteristic.  If you can’t think of a time when you’ve displayed that characteristic, consider someone you know or a scene you’ve observed (real or fictional) when you’ve seen that character quality on display.  As you bring attention to that image or scene, observe how you feel and what sensations come up for you, again with a focus on the positive.

Now, imagine yourself in the situation you’re fearing, carrying that character quality with you.  How would you feel?  What would change in your body language?  How might it affect what you say or do?

Container

You may find that when distressing feelings, imagery, or sensations come up, they tend to overwhelm and take over.  This can be true when processing memories, but it can also be true when thinking about entering into feared situations.

In this visualization, imagine a container of some sort, like a steamer trunk, plastic organization box, a chest with a lock, a drawer, etc.  Bring awareness to the physical characteristics of the container by identifying sensory imagery that goes along with it.  You’ll be using your imagination to place negative internal experiences into this box, so feel free to add a lock, chains, or other items that help to make the container feel like it can securely remain closed.

Then, when you’re experiencing negative emotions, fears, memories, or sensations, imagine yourself placing that material into the container to be addressed later.

How to Tap In Your Resources

With any of the above resources, simply visualizing them can bring a sense of greater peace, support, or strength.  To ramp up the power of that experience, however, you can take advantage of the brain’s natural system of strengthening through adding bilateral stimulation in the form of taps.

When you have the picture, emotion, and sensation of the positive resource in your mind’s eye, slowly alternate tapping each knee or the outside of your thigh 6-8 times slowly.  Notice if the feelings evoked by the resource increase in their positive charge.  If so, take a pause, and then do another set of 6-8 taps.  Continue this rhythm until the feeling gets as strong as it can.

You can also try tapping using the “butterfly hug”, in which you cross your arms over your chest and alternate tapping each shoulder slowly for 6-8 taps.  For a demonstration of what this looks like, watch this video.

For more support on this practice of tapping in resources, look into the book mentioned above, Tapping In by Laurel Parnell.  In this book, she gives more detailed instructions and more ideas for resources you could tap into for these difficult moments.

The Types of Thoughts that Keep You Stuck and How to Combat Them

So much of our day-to-day life is impacted by our thoughts, whether we’re aware of them or not.  Our interpretation of events as filtered through our thoughts influences how we experience the world around us.  What we believe about ourselves can affect our confidence, for better or for worse.  How we perceive others can lead to connection or conflict.

Cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, is one of the most common treatment methods in mental health counseling.  One of the central principles to the CBT approach is a recognition of the power of thoughts, or cognitions, to impact our emotional well-being and our behaviors and choices. 

When a situation occurs, your response to that situation typically involves three things: thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.  You might more easily identify your emotional response or how you react behaviorally. What CBT points out is how emotions and behaviors are influenced by your thoughts, or interpretation, of the event.

Since the thoughts you have in response to a situation are the catalyst to emotional distress and destructive behaviors, targeting these thoughts can be a game-changer in improving your overall mental well-being.

Three Types of Thoughts

There are three layers of thoughts that influence emotions and behavior as identified in the cognitive-behavioral model: automatic thoughts, intermediate beliefs, and core beliefs.

Automatic Thoughts

Automatic thoughts are situation-specific thoughts that pop into your head.  They’re referred to as “automatic” because they largely arise from subconscious awareness – you aren’t choosing actively to have those thoughts.  They might be positive, negative, or neutral in tone.

For example, let’s imagine you received critical feedback on a project you completed for work.  A positive automatic thought in response to this might be, “That was a tough project, but I know I have the skills to implement the changes they suggested next time.”  On the other hand, a negative automatic thought might be, “I can’t believe I missed those details.  I worked so hard on this project. Why do I always mess things up?” 

You probably aren’t aware of many of your automatic thoughts because they happen so frequently and quickly.  While some of these thoughts are distorted or influenced by your core beliefs or intermediate beliefs (defined below), you aren’t likely to question these thoughts naturally.  However, you can learn to become more aware of them and implement strategies to evaluate the accuracy of these thoughts.

Intermediate Beliefs

Intermediate beliefs exist as a mediator between automatic thoughts and core beliefs.  These are personal perceptions of how things work that influence how you interpret the current situation.  They can be rules, assumptions, “shoulds,” or attitudes that apply to a variety of situations with a broader reach. 

Let’s take a look at the automatic thoughts from above (“I can’t believe I missed those details; why do I always mess things up?”) to illustrate examples of the types of intermediate beliefs.  Perhaps your reaction is intensified by a rule, such as, “I should be perfect.”  Or maybe you have the assumption, “Weak people make mistakes.”  A conditional, “if…then…” belief might sound like, “if I succeed at work, then I will be okay.”

These beliefs not always explicitly stated, but can be held internally. They form as our brains try to make sense of what we observe in the environment around us from a young age.  We learn these beliefs from what we observe in our families-of-origin, our experiences, our relationships, and elsewhere.  These beliefs serve a purpose: they protect us from the deeper core beliefs that are often more painful and scary.

Core Beliefs/Schemas

Core beliefs are rigid, deeply rooted beliefs about yourself, others, or the world.  They are heavily based in past experiences, often beginning in childhood, and they can be reinforced by trauma.  Schemas are a series of interconnected core beliefs that form a mental framework to organize information. These core beliefs and schemas aren’t activated in every moment of life, but once they become activated, they have a strong influence on your emotional well-being. 

Some examples of core beliefs that might be at play in the work situation are, “I’m a failure.”  “I’m not good enough.”  “I don’t have what it takes.” “I’m weak.”

Core beliefs are a filter through which you see the world.  You observe and remember evidence that serves to confirm these beliefs, and you ignore evidence that doesn’t fit.  You may even find yourself creating situations for yourself that reinforce these beliefs as a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Or you may re-write positive information that doesn’t fit in with your schema or core belief to fit the negative belief (ie. “They gave me a compliment BUT they must have just felt bad for me because I’m so ugly.”)

How to Respond to These Beliefs

When you recognize these distressing beliefs, you can begin to change your pattern of thinking.  Remind yourself that these beliefs are not absolute truth, as much as they may feel that way while you’re having them.  You can pause and question the thoughts, reminding yourself of reality.

First, trace your automatic thought through the intermediate beliefs that influence it and the core beliefs it stirs up in you.  When you notice an automatic thought, reflect on what assumptions, conditions, or rules might be at play.  Use those to identify what core belief might be at work.  To facilitate this process, you can ask yourself questions like, “so what?” or “what does that mean about me, others, or the world?”

Once you’ve identified your three types of thoughts, here are a few strategies specific to each type of thought that may help you change those patterns.

Automatic thoughts

• Look for cognitive distortions and call them out. Cognitive distortions are common irrational belief patterns, such as all-or-nothing thinking, overgeneralization, jumping to conclusions, and emotional reasoning.  These happen so automatically that we often don’t realize they’re distorted until we slow down enough to recognize which distortion is at play.

• Normalize the subconscious, immediate reactions. Rather than getting caught up in anger at yourself for your negative automatic thoughts, identify their origins.  Connecting an automatic thought to a core belief or intermediate belief can help you make sense of why you would think that way and practice more kindness toward yourself.

Intermediate Beliefs

• Ask yourself, “where did I learn this from?” Look for examples where this rule, assumption, or condition was communicated to you or modeled for you, either directly or indirectly.  Identify if there were expectations in your family-of-origin or a traumatic event that may have solidified this belief.

• Check the validity of your beliefs. Just because you have a thought doesn’t mean that it is true.  Put your thoughts on trial by exploring the evidence for and evidence against their truthfulness. Consider what you might say to a friend in a similar situation: would you hold them to the same standard?  Why or why not?

Core Beliefs

• Act “as if” you believed the opposite. Consider what would change in your life if you believed the opposite of your negative core belief.  If your core belief is “I am a failure,” what would change in your life if you believed you were a success?  How would you respond differently?  Begin to experiment with some of those actions and observe what happens. You may find that changing the behavior with a mindset toward altering the core belief can lead you to new perspective.

• Seek out disconfirming evidence. Make a list of all the evidence you can find that your core belief isn’t true.  Instead of filtering positive information to make it fit your negative schema, try the opposite: see if there are alternative explanations for negative experiences.  Reframe your thoughts to fit that more accurate perspective.

Personal Strides in Partner Recovery: The Importance of Participating in Your Own Healing Work

If you are a partner of a sex and love addict, chances are you responded to the discovery of your significant other’s addiction with a mix of emotions: anger, fear, hurt, grief, rage, sadness, loneliness.  These emotions often come out of nowhere and blindside you.  You then have to deal with triggers that arise unexpectedly and bring surges of these intense emotions back.  You’re constantly revising history with the new information about the addiction at the forefront.

Just like anyone who has suffered an unexpected and devastating trauma, recovery from the revelation of a significant other’s sex and love addiction can be challenging and take time and a lot of work.  But one place that I see partners get stuck is with their eyes on the addict rather than their eyes on their own healing.

Where You Get Stuck

Immediately following discovery, your pain can serve as part of the push that generates enough discomfort for the addict to get into treatment and turn their life around.  This is often a good thing!  But not every addict responds in this way.  Sometimes the addict refuses help or seems half-hearted in their attempts to achieve sobriety.

In these situations, you might respond by focusing on the addict’s recovery: what he’s doing or not doing, how he is changing or growing in empathy, or a lack of change.  Being aware of these changes (or lack thereof) isn’t all bad.  It becomes a problem, however, when it’s all you think about.  When how well you are doing depends on the addict’s progress, that can lead to a tug-of-war in your relationship as you attempt to gain control over the impact of his addiction and his approach to recovery.

In attempting to take control of the addict’s recovery, you are trying to control your significant other’s choices, thoughts, behaviors, and attitudes.  But these areas aren’t something you have power over: their choice and responsibility belongs to them.  Attempts at control might include threats, manipulation, passive-aggressive comments, or constant criticism.

This response makes sense in light of powerlessness and fear that come with betrayal trauma.  But over time, you’ll see that it leaves you feeling hopeless, trapped, angry, and restless. 

What Could Be Beneath

Often, when partners shift into fix-it mode or any of these attempts to control their spouse’s recovery, it hints that they might be avoiding more painful emotions or uncomfortable realities they are now forced to face.  These might include the process of grief associated with finding out the person you married wasn’t who you thought they were.  It could involve insecurity about yourself, reminders of past experiences of trauma with an addicted family member, or re-organizing your concept of safety because of the addict’s deception.  You might be battling feelings of shame that prevent you from being able to share about your experience with others.

When you shift your gaze to your own healing work, you can finally experience the relief and freedom from chaos for which you’ve been longing.  You can move toward facing the reality of your current circumstance and taking decisive action to heal and become empowered. 

Practical Ways to Focus on Your Healing

Practice acceptance and commitment.

When I hear the Serenity Prayer, I think of the balance of acceptance and commitment: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.  For you as a healing partner, this requires acceptance or recognition of the reality that your addicted partner is dealing with a legitimate addiction that has caused legitimate trauma, pain, and harm to you and others.  Courage and commitment come when you make empowered choices and recognize the control you have over your own life, response, and healing.

An important note: acceptance does not mean pretending that everything is okay and that you aren’t hurting.  That is denial, not acceptance.  Acceptance instead means recognizing that what has happened has actually happened and that it cannot be changed by wishing it were different.

The Karpman drama triangle can help us recognize reality.  When we look at the dance of the roles of victim-perpetrator-rescuer, we can identify where we’ve been swept up into the drama of addiction.  Recognize the drama you tend toward and learn ways to step outside the drama by identifying your own responsibility and making choices that reflect that.

Gear up with self-care.

Going through the trauma of the discovery of sex and love addiction is like getting in a car accident: you sustain injuries, some of which are plain to the eye, and some of which are invisible.  You need to take time and space to heal physical injuries by taking care of yourself: doing physical therapy, having regular doctor’s visits, eating and sleeping to recover, and resting your body.  Similarly, recovering from the wound of a betrayal requires you to take time and space to heal. 

Vicki Tidwell Palmer suggests focusing on the acronym PIES for self-care: physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual self-care.  How can you care for yourself in each of these ways?

Much of this self-care is best in the context of a community of support.  Find support for yourself through a 12 Step fellowship, support group, or a trusted group of friends who you know are safe.  Safe people are people who can handle hearing about what you’ve been going through without siding too strongly with you or with the addict.  They give you space to process and make your own decisions.  Support also comes through professional help with a therapist specialized in working with partners of sex and love addicts.

Learn and set your boundaries.

Boundaries are an important part of recovery from betrayal.  Saying no to continuing to tolerate behaviors that are intolerable while also taking responsibility for your own thoughts, emotions, choices, and attitudes are important pieces of recognizing your limits.  Setting boundaries can involve making requests of your spouse to change a behavior, but it is ultimately your responsibility to care for yourself regardless of their willingness to change.

The purpose of boundaries is to care for yourself, not to punish the addict.  These are not consequences you’re enforcing, like a parent with a child.  Instead, you are adapting your own behavior to respond to your partner’s behaviors  in a way that best cares for you.  One way to conceptualize this difference is to ask yourself: if my spouse never changes, how might I take care of myself?  You can make requests for him or her to change, but ultimately you are responsible for your own well-being and healing.

Unfortunately, setting boundaries in the early days post-discovery often become empty threats.  Threats to file for divorce or leave often get tossed around in the initial impact of the trauma, but usually they aren’t followed through upon.  Instead, define for yourself what your true deal-breakers are: what behaviors, if continued, would lead inevitably to needing to leave the relationship?  If we don’t know the answer to this question, every mistake or misbehavior gets categorized as non-negotiable.  However, if you’re not willing to leave when that behavior occurs, it’s not truly a non-negotiable.  As mentioned earlier, a trained counselor can help you through this process.

Get in touch with your emotions.

Emotional awareness is an important component of betrayal trauma recovery.  Your emotions provide a window to past experiences and clarify pain that needs care.  Emotions also connect to physical symptoms that may be frightening, like panic attacks, heart palpitations, pain with unknown origin, or decreased immunity.  (Note: if you have any of these symptoms, be sure to get checked by your primary care physician to rule out any other causes.)

While there are similarities to the symptoms of trauma, every betrayed partner has a unique, personal experience with discovering their significant other’s addiction.  This is heavily influenced by your unique upbringing with varied levels of trauma or pain.  Recognizing how the emotions that are arising now connect to themes of past experiences can help you heal from past wounds and identify what your needs are in the present.  As you become aware of your personal emotional reaction, you might also recognize what you might be avoiding by focusing on your partner’s recovery rather than your own healing.

Recognize distorted thought patterns.

Begin to recognize the common thought patterns that either allowed you to stick your head in the sand and avoid seeing the addiction, or that are chipping away at your confidence and ability to be empowered. Common distorted or unhelpful belief patterns involved in betrayal trauma recovery include such thoughts as:

• The addiction is my fault.  I wasn’t a good enough partner.

• I don’t deserve any better due to my shameful past.

• If only I had done ________ differently, this wouldn’t have happened.

• Other people don’t have to deal with this: I wish I could be like them.

• It isn’t the addict’s fault. It’s the fault of the pornography industry/affair partner/addict’s work environment.

• I can’t make it on my own.  I can’t survive without my spouse.

Do any of these phrases or other similar thoughts run through your mind?  Identifying which thoughts come up most often for you and dismantling them to uncover the truth is an essential part of your recovery journey.

Identify your particular tone of trauma.

In the same way that your emotional landscape is influenced by past experiences in your family-of-origin or other areas, the way in which trauma manifests often carries echoes of the past.  What trauma symptoms do you most identify with?  Do you feel trauma physically?  Emotionally?  Spiritually?  How might this be similar to what you’ve experienced with past trauma or with your family growing up?

If you recognize a history of past trauma that pre-dated the discovery of the addiction, it wouldn’t be surprising to have reminders of that past trauma resurface post-discovery.  Methods such as EMDR can help you process and heal those experiences such that you’re not carrying the pain from those into the challenging work of betrayal trauma recovery.

Are You an Unreliable Narrator in Your Own Life?: How Cognitive Distortions Manipulate Your Thoughts

Have you noticed the trend in popular fiction where thrillers are becoming all the rage?  Books like Gone Girl and Girl on the Train have become increasingly popular.  A common element in many of these novels is the “unreliable narrator.”  At some point during the novel, there’s a twist that clues us in to the fact that the narrator may be filtering the truth in such a way that works to their advantage or tells their side of the story.  This plot device adds an additional layer of mystery to the text as we try to figure out what’s true and what isn’t.

When have you realized that what you believed was true was wrong all along?

We tend to filter our experience through our beliefs about people and the world around us in a way that twists reality and leads us to doubt what we know to be true.  It can start with one mistaken belief or critical comment.  Before we know it, that statement grows into an internal voice that leads us to filter our beliefs through this new lens.  In depression and anxiety, this is particularly common, as these disorders add an additional filter to our thoughts that twists them to be even more inaccurate, becoming what psychologists call “cognitive distortions.”

What is a cognitive distortion?

Cognitive distortions are “exaggerated or irrational thought patterns that are believed to perpetuate the effects of psychopathological states, especially depression and anxiety.”

I think of it like the fun house attraction at those traveling fairs that rolled into town in your childhood.  Typically they featured mirrors that distorted your body shape and size.  This is a fitting picture of how our thoughts filter through these different lenses of reality and twist our beliefs into cognitive distortions.

Common Cognitive Distortions and Their Antidotes

While there are several different types of cognitive distortions, here are a few of the most common ones I’ve seen with depression and anxiety.  Alongside an example of each, I’ll provide an antidote (some ideas to try if you notice these are the filters you default to most commonly) and an adaptive thought (an example of a shift in thinking in response to that distortion).

All-or-nothing thinking happens when we believe that only two extremes exist, with no room for gray area in between.  We think in terms of good or bad, right or wrong, pass or fail. 

• Example: “If I do poorly on this test, that means I’m a failure.”

• Antidote: Make room for the gray in your life. We all make mistakes or do things poorly, but there are likely plenty of positives in your life as well. Think in terms of better and best instead of right and wrong.

• Adaptive Thought: “One bad grade doesn’t disqualify the other good grades I’ve gotten or the hard work I put into studying.”

Overgeneralization occurs when we take an isolated event and expect that all other similar events will happen in the same way.

• Example: “What’s the point of going out on dates? The last guy I dated didn’t call me back after the first date, so why should I expect anything different?”

• Antidote: Recognize that each situation you experience is unique. If you believe this pattern exists, look for examples to disprove that pattern.

• Adaptive Thought: “So that last date didn’t work out? We must’ve not been the right fit. The next guy I date might be a better fit for me.”

Jumping to conclusions involves assuming we already know how others will perceive us or how a situation will play out.

• Example: “My friend didn’t say hi to me at church the other day – I must’ve done something wrong or offended her.”

• Antidote: Reality check that assumption by either asking the other person if your belief is true or think of alternative explanations for what happened.

• Adaptive Thought: “My friend might’ve been caught up in a conversation and didn’t see me at church, so it makes sense why she wouldn’t have said hi.”

Personalization is the belief that everything that happens around us is a direct response to something we have done or said.  This can lead to taking too much responsibility for how others respond to us, or worry that we’re being judged.

• Example: “This party is so awkward – it must be because I’m so awkward and I’m ruining the night for everyone.”

• Antidote: Set an internal boundary: affirm that you are not responsible for the thoughts and reactions of other people. What are some other reasons for the situation?

• Adaptive Thought: “This party is kind of awkward because we don’t all know each other yet. Maybe I can start up a conversation with someone new or suggest a game to play!”

“Shoulds” involve thinking that we “should” do things a certain way, and if we don’t, it is a poor reflection on us or our character.

• Example: “I should be exercising 5 days a week and if I’m not, I’m lazy.”

• Antidote: Search for the source of that belief (family, friends, media, school, church, self) and explore why it has such an impact on you. Give yourself freedom to say “no” to it. Frame your decisions as a choice of what you want to do instead of “should” do.

• Adaptive Thought: “I’d like to exercise more. I can choose to go for a run this afternoon.”

Emotional reasoning takes place when have a certain emotional response to our circumstances and come to accept that feeling as truth.

• Example: “I feel ugly, so it must be true.”

• Antidote: Remind yourself that emotions are changeable. Look for evidence that stands in direct contrast to the beliefs those emotions are telling you.

• Adaptive Thought: “Even though I feel ugly, I know I’m feeling worse than usual today because I didn’t get enough sleep last night. I know those emotions will pass.”

Which of these cognitive distortions do you see the world through most often?  How can you actively seek to change those filters and become a more reliable narrator in your life?

This article was originally published on July 6, 2017.

Understanding Ambivalence: How Recognizing the Push-and-Pull of Your Desires Can Set You Free

Think of the last difficult decision you had to make.  Maybe it was as simple as where you’d like to go out to eat or as significant as a change in career path.  What makes the decision difficult is the tension between the options: you might desire some more than others, or fear the downside if you make the wrong decision.  Eventually, the choice is made when one benefit outweighs the other and you feel confident enough moving forward.

But what happens when you get stuck between two desires?  Or worse yet, when you feel two opposing emotions about something at the same time?  Have you experienced loving someone and hating them in the same instant?  What about wanting closeness and intimacy, but pushing others away by your actions or words?

In these examples, what you’re experiencing is a phenomenon called ambivalence. 

What is ambivalence?

Ambivalence is often thought of as apathy or indifference, meaning you don’t care much about something or that it doesn’t matter to you.  On the contrary, ambivalence involves strong desires or emotions in opposition to one another.  You may feel pulled in two different directions at the same time, or you might flip-flop back and forth between two feelings.  This can take place in both simple decisions (where should we go for dinner?) as well as major desires (is this the person I want to marry?).

As time passes and you struggle to resolve these opposing emotions, you might find that you do experience a form of apathy.  The indifference is a numbing response to exhaustion from the tension of trying to balance both sides at once.

What in my story might cause ambivalence?

Ambivalence is common for survivors of sexual abuse or assault as they deal with the aftermath of their abuse.  In many cases, the abuser is someone with whom the survivor has a close relationship.  Positive memories and experiences with that person get mixed up with the abuse, and the confusion of feeling drastically different emotions toward the abuser can be overwhelming. The survivor may also struggle with aspects of sexual abuse that felt good when they confront the damage it has done in their lives.

Similarly, many partners of sex addicts experience the addict’s behaviors as a sexual violation against the partner.  Confusion around staying in the relationship to work things out or leaving is common as they try to reconcile the person they love with the addiction that has destroyed their relationship.

For addicts, shame is a major factor in ambivalence.  Addicts live a double life, attempting to balance the addictive thoughts and behaviors with the normal, everyday self.  Breaking off into these two versions of the self helps to ignore or deny the tension of ambivalence around the double life.

Ambivalence can appear in depression and anxiety as well.  If you’re anxious, you may hate being alone but feel terrified of breaking into a group or connecting with others.  In depression, ambivalence can appear when you lack the motivation and energy for self-care and yet know that the way to feel better is through exercising, spending time with loved ones, or other activities to take care of yourself.

How can I recognize my ambivalence?

One common characteristic of ambivalence is all-or-nothing or black-and-white thinking patterns.  The rigidity of thought patterns requiring a choice between two extremes is what makes the tension between them feel so difficult.  Sitting in the gray area of wanting two things equally and being unsure of what the right next step is can be stressful.  Often, that leads to a desire to escape.

That desire to escape is where apathy and numbness come in.  When alternating back and forth between the two desires or emotions becomes too much, you feel defeated by the struggle.  Rather than staying with the tension, you might just throw in the towel and numb out with addiction or distraction. 

How can I deal with my ambivalence? 

Acknowledge that there are gray areas.  Instead of the rigidity of black-and-white or all-or-nothing thinking, allow yourself to recognize that you can (and are!) feeling or desiring two seemingly opposite things at the same time. 

Press into that knowledge and explore your ambivalence with God and others.  Talk about it with a therapist or trusted friend and explore what might be coming up with each of the desires.   

As a Christian, ambivalence leads to greater intimacy with God.  So many Psalms contain ambivalence: lament, pain, and crying out to God; followed by reminders of the goodness of God and his character.  Often the Christian life involves suffering while also seeking to place hope in God.

Name your desires, even if it hurts to put words to them.  The naming of desires is painful because it involves grief, in understanding that your desires aren’t met yet and you may never see those desires realized.  But recognizing and working through that grief leads to life rather than numbing or escapism.  Addicts in particular struggle to know their true desires, as addiction has offered immediate relief or numbing from desires in the past.  In owning and acknowledging desires, addicts receive freedom to seek out other ways to meet that need instead of through addictive behaviors. 

Learn to practice acceptance. Acceptance isn’t settling for the status quo or pretending that things are okay when they really aren’t.  Instead, acceptance involves recognizing the reality of where you are right now in this present moment, and reminding yourself that you’re okay.  If you aren’t satisfied with what you’re experiencing in the present, acceptance invites you to explore what you might like to change in the future.  Accepting your ambivalence helps you to begin to be curious about it and seek out the story behind your ambivalence.  Understanding your story opens you up to change.

Unspoken Family Rules: How They Shape Your Decisions Today

Have you ever noticed how much families differ from one another?  If you’re married, dating, or have even lived with a roommate, you’ve likely experienced friction as a result of these differences.  You’ve learned certain patterns from your family-of-origin that are different from other families.  Perhaps your loved ones clean differently than you do, cook certain recipes that have been passed down through generations, or have a different morning routine.  These patterns aren’t necessarily negative: just different.

But what happens when the messages you’ve absorbed from your family-of-origin create problems for you?  Maybe your spouse wants to talk about their feelings when they happen, and your philosophy is just to keep quiet and move on.  Perhaps apologizing is difficult because it wasn’t modeled for you growing up.

We assume these patterns of behavior are “normal” because we don’t know anything different.  We expect others to act in the ways our family did.  However, what we come to realize is that these patterns of behavior aren’t always healthy.  Unhealthy coping patterns learned as a result of these unspoken family rules can lead to addiction and dissatisfaction.

What are unspoken family rules?

As a child, you likely had some rules that were clearly outlined.  A curfew, allowance, and chores often have direct and clear expectations.  However, there are often “rules of engagement” in relationships, such as how you speak to one another, the way in which emotion is handled, or identifying who is responsible for consequences.

When these rules are unspoken, as is often the case, you learn them more by the response when you unknowingly break one.  You also might learn from your parents’ modeling of behaviors.  If your parents never talk about their feelings, for example, the precedent is set for you to do the same.

We internalize these “rules of engagement” and pick up unhealthy coping as a result.  If you were taught that it wasn’t okay to experience a negative emotion like anger, then you aren’t given tools to handle anger when it comes up in your adult life.  You may shy away from it or find yourself exploding when it arises and then feeling intense shame. 

Common Unspoken Family Rules

Don’t talk.

This family rule doesn’t mean that you aren’t speaking to one another, but instead that you don’t have conversations about uncomfortable topics.  Certain areas of discussion are off-limits.  This breeds secrecy and hiding, both inside the family and outside as well. 

You might notice this with an alcoholic or drug-addicted parent.  All the family members may be aware of the problem, but you don’t talk about it, instead discussing lighter topics and ignoring the larger issue.

Don’t feel.

Have you ever seen the film Frozen?  (If you’re the parent of young children, my guess is you’ve seen it more times than you’d care to admit.)  In the movie, Elsa has magical ice powers that spiral out of control when she feels negative emotions.  To manage these powers, her parents isolate her and explicity tell her “don’t feel.”  But she soon finds this is impossible, and the plot of the film unfolds as she loses control of her emotions.

It is impossible not to experience negative emotions.  But if they are unacceptable in your family-of-origin, you don’t learn how to manage them properly.  You might become numb to certain emotions or struggle to control them.  Emotions may be seen as a sign of weakness.  Christian parents can sometimes give messages that certain emotions are sinful or signify lack of faith.  Emotions such as anger, fear, hurt, and sadness are commonly minimized and implied as unacceptable.

Another way a child can absorb this unspoken rule is by observing parents’ strong reactions to negative emotions.  If your parent becomes abusive while angry, you’re likely to avoid anger out of fear of losing control.  If you had a parent who was consumed by sadness or depression, you may have learned to take on the role of the positive one who brought up the mood, and sadness will feel foreign to you.

Blame-shifting.

Anyone who breaks unspoken family rules becomes the scapegoat, taking on the blame.  If you speak up as a child against these family rules, you get targeted.  Others who break the rules are blamed as well, such as extended family members who attempt to change dysfunctional family dynamics into more healthy patterns.

If you talk about your parent’s addiction to a teacher, for example, your parents may punish you severely and blame you for the problems the parent is now facing.  You’re told consequences are your fault for speaking up.  The teacher may be made out to be the villain and blamed for their role. 

Children are great observers but horrible interpreters.  When you’re told there’s something wrong with you as a child, you believe that what your parents are saying is true, even when it clearly isn’t.  As an adult, then, you’re more likely to distrust any positive qualities and focus on the negative.

Deny any problems.

Similar to the “don’t talk” rule, denial involves hiding problems under the rug and pretending they aren’t affecting you.  Phrases like “stop making such a big deal out of it” are a hallmark of dysfunctional families.  Imagine an alcoholic parent whose spouse enables by covering up the addict’s behaviors.  Children then learn to minimize their parent’s drinking, even when it leads to abuse or other problems.  In domestic violence situations, children may learn to lie about any injuries they sustain.

This can lead to dissociation in adults, where you cut yourself off from any negativity in your life and compartmentalize to avoid distressing thoughts or feelings.  You might doubt your perception of reality because it had been questioned for so long as a child.

Boys should be… Girls should be…

You may have picked up how boys and girls are supposed to act in a variety of spoken or unspoken family rules.  Phrases like “boys will be boys” or “girls should be prim and proper” are often used to direct behavior.  Often these gender roles can be exacerbated by traditional “Christian” values that often have little basis in Biblical truth.

Appearances are everything.

Focusing more on the external than the internal is a common unspoken family rule.  Perhaps you learned to put on a good face even when there are problems at home, addiction, or arguing.  Body image issues can arise from this rule as well, as you may be taught to wear makeup or be a certain clothing size to hide any emotional distress.  You are taught to pretend that everything is okay on the outside while your emotions are raging on the inside.

Your value comes from what you do/produce.

This unspoken rule teaches you that academic achievement, financial success, Christian service, or some other measure of external success is what makes you worthwhile.  You might feel like you have to be a “good kid” at the expense of being able to make mistakes.  As an adult, you begin to question your value when you make mistakes or fail.

What are the unspoken family rules you experienced growing up?

How can you name these rules today so that you can break the patterns?

• What were topics that were off-limits for discussion in your family?

• What emotions were unacceptable in your family?

• Did you learn to shut off any negative emotions?  Which ones?  Why?

• Where do you tend to place blame when something goes wrong?  Yourself?  Others?

• What gender roles did you learn from your family?

• When do you find yourself putting on a mask to pretend everything is okay on the outside?

• Is it okay for you to make mistakes?  Where does your value come from?

Are You Living Like The Walking Dead?

This Sunday, AMC premiered the 8th season of The Walking Dead with the series’ 100th episode.  It’s fascinating to see how much this show has maintained its popularity through the past 8 years.  Part of the draw in our culture toward TV and movies that focus on zombies is that on some level, we can relate.

Have you ever heard yourself or someone else utter the phrase, “I feel like a zombie”?  Whether it’s because we’re exhausted, stressed, or overwhelmed, we can find ourselves having a hard time functioning.  While feeling exhausted might be remedied by a good night’s sleep, sometimes we feel like zombies caught in the day-to-day of our lives.  We can be emotionless and struggle to make it through each day.  We lose sight of our hopes and dreams for the future, as the fog of everyday stress fills our mind.

One hallmark trait of zombies is their insatiable hunger.  That hunger is what makes them so dangerous.

At the same time, we can relate to the sense of being hungry for something more.

We desire for our lives to have meaning and purpose, to feel content and whole, but we often settle for filling our hunger with things that don’t satisfy.  We can become addicted to alcohol, drugs, sex, shopping, food, or gambling.  We can become entangled in dysfunctional or codependent relationships.  We might fill our lives with things that make us busy so we don’t have time to feel longing for more.  We might spend our money on bigger and better things as an attempt to make us feel happy.  But sadly, none of these satisfy us.

What are you hungry for?

What are the things that you desire?  If you’ve numbed out in any of the above ways, it’s likely that question hasn’t crossed your mind in some time.  Nothing may come to mind for you.  Here are a few questions that might help spark your curiosity:

• If you could change one area in your life that would make it infinitely better, what would it be?

• If you could wave a magic wand and have the life you want, what would it look like?

• What do you daydream about? Why? What will that give you?

• What were the things you loved to do as a child? What did you want to be when you grew up?

As you answer these questions, you may come across desires that aren’t practical or helpful.  For example, if you daydream about having an affair or quitting work to play video games all day, that likely isn’t a desire that will serve you well in life.  However, these daydreams provide clues to your desire.  For example, if you daydream about an affair because your marriage feels like you’re living parallel lives, it can point out a desire for more intimacy in your marriage.  If you desire to play video games all day because you hate your job, that’s a clue that you want something more out of your career.

Keep in mind that this may be a painful process.  Identifying desires breaks the pattern of numbing out and opens us up to feeling longing, sadness, loneliness, anger, and a whole host of other emotions.  But in order for you to feel joy and contentment with your life, you need to be able to move through these negative emotions as well.  I love the book Desire by John Eldredge that outlines how desire is both crucially important and so difficult to engage with.

How do I come back to life?

You’ve identified your desires: now what?  Just identifying desires can lead us back into numbing out if we don’t have a concrete idea on how to move forward into those desires. 

To start, choose one desire you’re feeling in your life.  Typically it’s best to identify the desire that has the most energy or emotion tied to it.   It could be related to your career, your relationships, your spiritual life, or your hobbies.  Next, what is one step you can take to move yourself closer to that desire?  Start with the end goal and trace each step back until you get to a manageable first step.

An example from my own life: I want to be a skilled home baker.  I’m obsessed with watching the Great British Baking Show and Food Network’s Holiday Baking Championship, and I dream about crafting beautiful and delicious desserts.  But the amount of knowledge these bakers have is beyond my competence.  How do I trace it back?.  In order to be a skilled home baker, I need to learn different recipes and methods of baking desserts.  I need understand the chemistry of baking.  I need to practice.  A next step might be to check out a book at the library about baking to read, to sample a new recipe, or to watch a YouTube video about cake decorating.

But what if I don’t know what to do?

Like the CDC developing a cure for the plague, or The Walking Dead’s Rick Grimes forging a new community, you need a guide who can give you direction on where to go and how to get there.  Often, the process of coming back to life is long and arduous.  Like a trek through a mountain, it can be easy to become discouraged when looking at the summit instead of the next step in front of you.  You might slip back into old patterns in that discouragement.

As a therapist, I function as a guide in areas of your life where you feel stuck.  My role is to help you identify and engage with your desires, break down desire into manageable goals, and walk with you as you make progress on your climb up the mountain.  When I see you slipping back into numbing out through addictive behaviors, it is my role to lead you back to the path to your desire.  In the process, I believe that you’ll see areas of your life slowly become more vibrant and in alignment with what you desire.  Hope will grow and flourish as you begin to see these dreams becoming a reality.

What Skydiving Teaches Us About Surviving Anxiety

Imagine yourself strapped into a small plane, ascending into the clouds en route to your first skydiving jump.  As the plane tilts its nose upward, your stomach drops, and you can’t quite tell if it’s an effect of the lift or your nerves.  You talk to your tandem skydiving instructor, hoping for reassurance, but then you notice your palms and forehead begin to sweat.  The thud-thud-thud of your heartbeat is echoing in your ears, and you’re certain everyone around you can hear it. 

As you reach altitude and prepare for the jump, you start to panic.  Your anxiety is higher than anything you’ve ever experienced.  It takes all your strength to just look out the plane at the ground below.  Your instructor informs you that this is the last chance you have to back out.  You have one of two choices – you can retreat back into the plane, giving up on this experience you were so excited about when your feet were flat on the ground.  Or you can jump.

What do you do next?  

Paralysis that hinders the decision to move forward or retreat is a common phenomenon for those who struggle with anxiety.  Often, we learn to retreat back into what is safe, avoiding the situations that make us feel anxious or worried.  In particular, if you struggle with phobias, an anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, or even compulsive thoughts associated with sex and love addiction, you may have seen yourself retreat into destructive patterns that work in the short-term to relieve anxiety.  But these do not solve the problem, and in choosing them, we miss opportunities for growth.

How do we overcome it?

Have you ever bought a goldfish at a pet shop or store?  The seller hands you your fish in a plastic bag filled with water and instructs you to place the tied bag into the fishbowl or aquarium before releasing the fish into the water.  Why do they do this?  It is meant to help the fish get used to the temperature of the water – or habituate.

Just like that goldfish in the tank, we need to learn to habituate to our anxiety.  Habituation involves walking through an experience of anxiety without avoiding or running away from the feared event.  In essence, it is proving to yourself that you can survive the anxiety without turning to the ways you’ve coped in the past that only serve to increase your anxiety next time you face the same situation.

In the goldfish example, habituation occurs as the temperature of the water in the bag slowly adjusts, degree by degree, to the temperature of the water in the aquarium.  With anxiety, the process is similar.  Let’s say you feel anxious about public speaking.  The first time you have to speak in public, your anxiety might be off the charts.  But when you survive that event, the second time you’re asked to speak in public you’ll likely feel slightly less nervous.  Once you’ve spoken in public five, ten, or fifty times, it won’t even faze you to do it again.  Your anxiety levels have adjusted, degree by degree, to allow you to feel more at ease.

Katie d’Ath, a psychologist who works with obsessive-compulsive disorders, illustrates this visually in a helpful format in the video below.  (I would highly recommend other videos in her series on obsessive-compulsive disorder.)

Typically our first response to anxiety is to do whatever it takes to make the anxiety go away.  And it works in the short-term: otherwise we wouldn’t be doing it.  But the short-term fix of distraction or avoidance won’t satisfy the long-term desire to release the anxiety.

How can we begin the process of habituation?

Before starting this process, build up additional coping strategies for anxiety where you can calm your body’s response enough to approach the process in a grounded and rational place.  Techniques such as breathing exercises, mindfulness, and positive self-talk can be a great first line of defense against anxiety.

Once you’re in a place where you’re ready to work through anxiety, it is time to practice sitting in your anxiety.  First, this involves listening to what your body is saying.  Pay attention to the sensations of anxiety in your body.  What do they feel like?  Where does your anxiety feel most present?  What quality does that anxiety have in your body?

Next, notice the thoughts that are running through your mind.  What are the fears you’re having?  What’s the worst-case scenario playing out in your mind?  What are the beliefs about yourself or others that are contributing to the anxiety?

Pay attention to what other emotions are present besides anxiety.  Often fear is linked with anxiety, but other emotions, such as hurt, anger, or sadness can influence the course your anxiety takes.  Read through an emotions chart and identify what you’re feeling.

Then begin to question the racing thoughts in your mind: where are they coming from?  Do they come from a past fear or experience of embarrassment you had?  Are they about the future and what could happen if you take a risk?  How valid are they?  Is this something that is possible, or is it an irrational thought based on a cognitive distortion?

Finally, there comes a decision point – how will I choose to deal with my anxiety?  I can choose to run away and avoid in order to experience that immediate relief.  Or I can choose to run to the things I know that are good for me – greater awareness, support from my loved ones, and self-care.  Ultimately, the foundational way we can conquer anxiety is to believe that we can survive it and act on that belief.

I hope you choose to jump into the anxiety and fear and find that you will make it out on the other side.

Pain, Joy, and Longing: What The Giver Can Teach Us About Desire

What comes to your mind when you think about the word desire?  Is desire a familiar friend to you?  Or something that you run from as soon as you feel even a hint of it? We all carry different desires in our lives: desire for food, desire for another person, desire for a promotion at work, desire for a house (or a bigger house, or more stuff for your house).  Or perhaps your desire is more abstract: desire for more peace and calm in your life, desire to be loved, desire to achieve a mission or purpose in life.

Merriam-Webster's Dictionary defines the verb desire as “to long or hope for;” “to express a wish for” or “to feel the loss of.”  Notice how desire is so closely tied to disappointment or anticipation: we’re looking forward to something, but we haven’t yet attained it.  Or on the flip side, the final definition intertwines desire with loss or grief, as when we desire something we once had but lost.

What are some of the desires you identify most strongly in your life?

A short time before the movie release a few years ago, I read the children’s book The Giver by Lois Lowry.  In this novel, the characters live in a dystopian future where everything exists in shades of gray.  The lack of visible color extends as a metaphor to the citizens’ emotions and longings.  The inhabitants of this community take a pill each day that suppresses desire and emotion.  The plot of the book begins when the main character, Jonas, is assigned to the role of Receiver of Memory.  This assignment requires him to receive all the painful memories that the society has wiped from its memory. 

I listened to a podcast discussing some of these themes in greater detail after reading the book.   This theme discussed in the podcast struck me: because the characters in the book do not experience emotion and have no memories, they don’t experience feelings of pain.

Wouldn’t we all like that?  Our world is full of pain: we have only to open up a newspaper, turn on the TV, or take a walk on the city streets to see suffering in our world.  We grieve the deaths of those we love, we feel pain at broken relationships, we are shocked by the violence around the world, and we weep at images of children who are starving.

As Jonas begins his process of receiving the memories the society chose to erase, he is wrecked by the intensity of the emotions he feels, ranging from joy to sadness.  In the process, something starts to change in him.  He begins to see in color.  He stops taking his pills and begins to experience desire, sadness, and joy in his daily life.  Emotions he didn’t even know existed are now rising to the surface.

Another theme that surprised me in this novel was the assertion that medicating pain through erasing memories doesn't just strip these people of suffering.  Because pain and longing do not exist, there is no opportunity for joy.

There are a multitude of ways that I attempt to make myself happy to feel a fragment of that joy in my day-to-day life.  I’ll obsess over how many Facebook likes I get on that photo, spend hours playing mindless games on my phone when work feels overwhelming, or stop and get my favorite fast food when I’ve had a bad day.   But it doesn’t take long for me to realize that these are all ways I’m simply medicating my pain and deadening my feelings through this false sense of happiness, while denying the deeper desire that bubbles just beneath the surface. 

We all have ways that we choose to escape from our pain and longings. These typically involve us numbing that pain or desire, driving it far away so we don't have to deal with it or feel it.  We can run to shopping, drugs or alcohol, sex, the approval of others, perfection, power…any number of things that quiet the voices inside of us that want something more.

How do you avoid pain and deaden your heart to your desires?

Pain is uncomfortable, that's true.  Longing typically leads to pain, because our longings likely won’t be perfectly fulfilled in this life.  But if I kill my desire and shove my pain into a deep dark corner of my heart where it will never be acknowledged, my life will be flat.  Maybe I won’t feel sadness or longing, but I also am robbed of my ability to experience joy.

I love that joy and pain are juxtaposed so clearly together.  They are two strong and seemingly opposing emotions, but you have to be able to experience one to find another.  As a Christian, I am grateful for the pain God has brought me through, because the deeply rooted joy I can now experience is so clearly an outflow of that.  I can rejoice and be thankful in God.

How can you choose to acknowledge your desire, knowing that it will be painful?

I need to choose to embrace desire every day.  (And to be honest, I’m not always successful.)  It is easy to find ways to medicate pain in our world, because we as a people don’t like to feel these difficult emotions.  But I must choose to sit in pain or sadness when I feel it, rather than running away from it.  I must choose to become alive to my desires, although that often hurts.  And in so doing, I’m opening myself up to experiencing joy and compassion toward others.