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.

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.