Although the word, therapy, is in its name, I think it’s more of a lifestyle choice than a therapy. Therapy can imply a course of action on which one embarks to make oneself better. ACT can be incorporated into a well person’s life, as easily as an unwell one’s. I think it’s a tool for improving the quality of one’s life, regardless of one’s mental or physical state.
ACT can initially be broken down into three components: thoughts, emotions and actions.
Thoughts: thoughts can be looked at as the stories the mind creates to interpret and make sense of our lives, situations etc. They may not, in fact, be true. For example, if I pass a friend at the shopping centre and she seems to look right through me, it’s possible that she hasn’t seen me. My mind, however, may tell me the story that she doesn’t like me anymore. That’s not a fact; yet, my mind has told it to me and I’m likely to agree with it. I have “fused” with that thought and am now feeling pretty upset about the fact that my friend doesn’t like me anymore.
The first step in ACT is to “defuse” with our thoughts. There are several ways to do so but they all work on the idea that thoughts are not facts. My favourite way to defuse is to slightly distance myself from the thought by saying to myself, “I’m having the thought that Hermione hates me” instead of “Hermione hates me.” Another way to do so is to say to oneself, “Oh it’s the old Hermione hates me story.” The idea is to acknowledge the thought without fusing with it. It’s just a thought.
Emotions: Let’s say that it turns out that Hermione actually does hate me. I’m going to be very upset when I find out. This is where, in ACT, “expansion” comes in. Instead of feeling bad that I feel like bad and guilting myself for a perfectly normal emotional reaction to the situation or trying to make myself feel better with positive platitudes, I’m going to make room for the feelings. I’m going to sit quietly and, rather than thinking about Hermione or something distracting, I’m going to focus on how my emotions are manifesting themselves physically. I’m going to notice that there’s a knot in my stomach, a lump in my throat and tears just behind my eyes. The idea of expansion is to make room for the feelings and allow them to be there. Once I notice them, I address each one separately, and simply let it be there. Whilst it doesn’t make one feel better – that’s not the point of it – it can circumvent both an escalation of the feelings and the barrage of unhelpful thoughts.
As a society, we tend to think of emotions as being “good” or “bad”, and that we have a choice as to how we’re going to feel. Emotions are just the way we feel; they’re neither good nor bad. Some groups even believe that happiness is our natural state. I disagree. I believe emotions are a response to what is happening in our lives or in our heads. I wasn’t at all happy when my mum passed away; I experienced the normal reaction of grief. We expend a lot of energy trying to fight and or deny the ones which make us feel bad. In ACT, we just have to make room for them.
The other day, I felt really happy for an unknown reason. My immediate reaction was to try to work out why and then tell myself that whenever I felt happy like that, something bad would happen so it wasn’t good to feel happy. First of all, I used “defusion” to distance myself from the unhelpful thought. Then, however, I thought that, if my thoughts were true, wouldn’t the best thing to do be to enjoy the feeling while it was there, rather than make it go away with such thoughts. Consequently, I used “expansion” with a “good” feeling. I focused on the way my mouth was shaped into a smile, my stomach had delicious butterflies and a laugh was a bubble in my throat waiting to be released. Eventually, like all feelings, it passed. This time, however, I fully experienced the feeling and simply allowed it to be there. It was very enjoyable, too. Maybe something bad is going to happen. Who knows? If it does, I have a lovely feeling of happiness to remember that may just help.
Action: Another important part to ACT is living by one’s values. I’m going to deal with that in my next blog post. The idea of action is the third component to the first part of ACT. Having defused from one’s unhelpful thoughts and expanded to allow room for whatever one’s emotions are, one commits to a course of action doing something one values or working towards a goal that allows one to live by one’s values, and giving it one’s full attention.
The most frequent situation in which I use ACT is when I’m out and about and feeling nervous. I simply commit to continue what I’m doing. I value being able to get out, after having experienced agoraphobia. Even though my mind is telling me that I’m going to have a panic attack and die and my heart is trying to beat its way out of my chest, I choose to commit to being wherever it is that I am and doing whatever it is that I’m doing. Furthermore, I try to notice all that is going on in that situation. I do so by sense. I focus on what I can see, hear, smell, taste and feel, depending on what I’m doing. Of course, thoughts and emotions always come and go. I try my best to let them do so without engaging.
We can’t help what we think or feel; all we can do is defuse from our thoughts and expand for our emotions. We can, however, control what we do and how we do it. There will always be “unhelpful” thoughts and “negative” emotions, over which we have no control. To be able to walk out the front door, say no to another drink, walk away from a futile argument with a loved one, say no to that chocolate cake because your doctor has told you that you’re morbidly obese and you want to be around to see your kids reach adulthood are actions which can be chosen to live one’s values.
None of it is easy. That’s why it’s important to identify what matters to one in one’s life. That’s coming in the next post.
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