Hi everybody,
Welcome to part one of a multi-part series on one of the therapeutic approaches I use when working with people. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is an approach I use for many kinds of people look to make a change in their lives without necessarily making some sort of disorder the primary focus. Sometimes people are just looking for a little help without putting a label on themselves. ACT has six primary areas of a person’s life that it focuses on and today I’d like to take time to tell you about one of those areas.
The first aspect of ACT I would like to talk about is acceptance. Given that it is in the name of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy you can imagine the creators of ACT considered acceptance to be pretty important. When I work with people on acceptance that doesn’t mean I want them to accept every single thing in their lives. Some things, like abuse or neglect, should not be accepted.
Acceptance is about accepting your own emotions. It’s okay, take a minute to pick your jaw up off the floor. If that statement surprised you it’s probably because society has been teaching you that certain emotions are “bad”, right? Apparently, we are supposed to be “happy” all the time and reject other feelings like sadness and fear because they are “bad”. However, running away from those emotions tends to make things worse, not better. People lose jobs, lose best friends, develop substance abuse problems, and miss out on life experiences because they can’t tolerate those “bad” emotions. People work so hard to get rid of natural feelings when it’s a fight you can’t win. You are going to have “good” and “bad” feelings as long as you live.
Instead, ACT encourages you to sit with those uncomfortable emotions and recognize them for what they are. Realize that your feelings don’t control you. You control you. You can do the things that are hard in life and while experiencing difficult feelings. ACT emphasizes approaches that helps people regulate their emotions to a more tolerable level (more on that in the future) so that they can get to the things they want to be doing. It doesn’t take away the bad feelings completely but it lets you focus on your life first.
Try thinking about that idea for yourself sometime. Maybe it’s always going to be scary to confront your father, or maybe you are always going to feel sad thinking about your deceased wife. I’m here to tell you that’s okay. Those emotions are natural and we all feel them because we need to. We experience them for a reason. Anger, fear, and sadness don’t control you (and you can’t always control them) but you can be the person you want to be while having those feelings.
Emotions are only part of the equation though. Stick around for part two where I write about your thoughts.
-Travis