Speaker 1: My vulnerability seem to me to be the enemy, and
Speaker 1: I tried ever so hard to make it go away.
Speaker 1: And when I made peace with it, it ended up
Speaker 1: being the center of my career. Welcome to the one
Speaker 1: you feed Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance
Speaker 1: of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out,
Speaker 1: or you are what you think, ring true. And yet
Speaker 1: for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us.
Speaker 1: We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We
Speaker 1: see what we don't have instead of what we do.
Speaker 1: We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.
Speaker 1: But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It
Speaker 1: takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life
Speaker 1: worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep
Speaker 1: themselves moving in the direction, how they feed their good wolf.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is
Speaker 1: Kelly Wilson, an associate professor of psychology at the University
Speaker 1: at Mississippi. He's past president of the Association for Contextual
Speaker 1: Behavioral Science and winner of the University of Mississippi's prestigious
Speaker 1: Elsie m Hood Outstanding Teacher Award. Dr Wilson is one
Speaker 1: of the co developers of acceptance and commitment therapy, also
Speaker 1: known as a c T. Today, Kelly and Eric discuss
Speaker 1: his book Things Might Go Terribly Horribly Wrong. A Guide
Speaker 1: to Life Liberated from Anxiety. Hi, Kelly, welcome to the show. Well,
Speaker 1: it's good to be here. I am glad to have
Speaker 1: you on. We're going to talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: your book, which I love. The title of called Things
Speaker 1: Might Go Terribly Horribly Wrong, A Guide to Life Liberated
Speaker 1: from Anxiety, and we certainly will be spending a fair
Speaker 1: amount of time talking about acceptance and commitment therapy also
Speaker 1: known as ACT for which you are a significant contributor.
Speaker 1: But will start like we always do, with the parable.
Speaker 1: There is a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says,
Speaker 1: in life, there are two wolves inside of us that
Speaker 1: are always a battle. One is a good wolf, which
Speaker 1: represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the
Speaker 1: other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed
Speaker 1: and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he
Speaker 1: thinks about this for a second, and he looks up
Speaker 1: at his grandfather says, well, grandfather, which one wins, and
Speaker 1: the grandfather says the one you feed. So I'd like
Speaker 1: to start off by asking you what that parable means
Speaker 1: to you in your life and in the work that
Speaker 1: you do. I'm not personally super enamored of the idea
Speaker 1: of a war inside, although it's not incomprehensible to me,
Speaker 1: you know, I know what it is like, you know,
Speaker 1: to feel as though I have a war inside of me.
Speaker 1: And I certainly remember a time in my own life
Speaker 1: when I was sure that, you know, the worst of
Speaker 1: the players were winning. You know. For me, I got peace,
Speaker 1: a measure of it, when I let go of the war.
Speaker 1: I do know. The piece of that parable that strikes
Speaker 1: me is that we're always practicing in life, and what
Speaker 1: we practice get stronger. And I practiced running away for
Speaker 1: a very very very long time, and have been practicing
Speaker 1: sitting still and moving towards things, and and it's gotten stronger,
Speaker 1: you know. So I suppose that that is what it
Speaker 1: means to me. Excellent. Well, I agree with you that
Speaker 1: the parable has its value, and certainly it's limitations. Let's
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about problems in life. And so
Speaker 1: you say that through the lens of of act problems
Speaker 1: in life, such as anxiety, look a little different than
Speaker 1: we might be used to. Instead of seeing a problem
Speaker 1: like anxiety is something we have like a virus or
Speaker 1: a broken bone. ACT describes these problems in terms of
Speaker 1: our ability to function in six process areas. So before
Speaker 1: we go into the process areas, let's talk about that
Speaker 1: view as a whole. Not that I have anxiety, but
Speaker 1: that some certain ways of functioning, uh, let's say mentally
Speaker 1: or psychologically, I may need a little tweak in a
Speaker 1: couple of areas, versus having, like you said, like a virus.
Speaker 1: You know, I suppose the idea that people with psychological struggles,
Speaker 1: in order to be legitimately understood as having struggles, you know,
Speaker 1: have to have some kind of disease label that troubles me,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of it starts with this sort of
Speaker 1: metaphor that you know, your problem in life is that
Speaker 1: you're somehow broken inside. I don't mean at all to
Speaker 1: discount that human experience is extraordinarily varied, and you know
Speaker 1: that we don't all carry certain kinds of vulnerabilities, some
Speaker 1: of which are very hard to carry, very poorly understood
Speaker 1: by people around us. And it's very easy to make
Speaker 1: an enemy of them. That is the piece that I
Speaker 1: object to in all of that. I think this is
Speaker 1: an interesting topic because sometimes a diagnosis can be liberating.
Speaker 1: Write a diagnosis could be liberating like, oh Okay, there's
Speaker 1: this thing and it provides me some context and it
Speaker 1: gives me a frame of reference and maybe now that
Speaker 1: we know what the problem is, we can work on it.
Speaker 1: And yet diagnosis is there. Ultimately then, depending on how
Speaker 1: they're interpreted, become limiting. I wouldn't take anything away from that.
Speaker 1: And I know that there are communities out there, like
Speaker 1: my good friend Lisa Coin does work and uh O
Speaker 1: c D and there's a whole kind of community around
Speaker 1: people supporting one another. You know, when I look at
Speaker 1: when people get a diagnosis and they get it kind
Speaker 1: of an experience of relief. Usually you know what I
Speaker 1: hear in that is I'm not alone. Yes, it's not
Speaker 1: just me. And you know I want to say to
Speaker 1: people like say, you're somebody who's suffering, but you don't
Speaker 1: have a diagnosable disorder, well you're also not alone. Like
Speaker 1: a diagnosis can be an instrument. It can be sometimes
Speaker 1: used usefully um engaged in people do community building around
Speaker 1: I don't have a problem with that. And more and
Speaker 1: more people I think are thinking of this kind of
Speaker 1: more in terms of things like neurodiversity and that kind
Speaker 1: of language, which I'm much more at home you know,
Speaker 1: I'm much more at home with. Yeah, like me, I'm
Speaker 1: not the anxious sort, you know. I always a sort
Speaker 1: of half joked with people that you know, I'm the
Speaker 1: more moody, depressive sort of myself. Me too. Anxious. People
Speaker 1: are afraid bad things are going to happen, you know,
Speaker 1: people like me. You know, they've already happened, you know.
Speaker 1: And and even if they do, who cares? You know? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I know for myself that, um, I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm extraordinarily easy to hurt. I mean, especially like in
Speaker 1: a social exchange. You can send me to tears with
Speaker 1: a word, you know. And as a boy growing up
Speaker 1: in the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties, oh my goodness,
Speaker 1: I'm small, I've got a girl's name, and I cried,
Speaker 1: you know, at the drop of a hat. You know,
Speaker 1: my vulnerability seemed to me to be the enemy, and
Speaker 1: I tried ever so hard to make it go away.
Speaker 1: And when I made peace with it, it ended up
Speaker 1: being the center of my career. Yeah. Yeah, you say
Speaker 1: this in the book. You say that when we look
Speaker 1: at problems with living this way, we start to see
Speaker 1: that there's actually some really common threads that run through
Speaker 1: the whole cloth of human suffering, of human experience on
Speaker 1: the whole. And I think there's a couple of values there, right.
Speaker 1: What I find interesting about that, I agree, I see
Speaker 1: that too, And I find it so interesting that we
Speaker 1: will say that one potential intervention, let's just take exercise, right.
Speaker 1: Exercise helps like a ton of different things, which tells
Speaker 1: you there's some degree of commonality running around here. The
Speaker 1: other thing that you said there that I really relate
Speaker 1: with is, you know, I'm a recovering alcoholic and heroin addict.
Speaker 1: I don't really go to twelve step a whole lot.
Speaker 1: It saved my life and it meant so much to me,
Speaker 1: but I eventually got tired of dividing the world into us.
Speaker 1: And then what they used to say all the time,
Speaker 1: normis and I went, I think that's a false distinction.
Speaker 1: I think the problems that plague me as an alcoholic,
Speaker 1: whether they be over sensitivity or a selfishness or various things,
Speaker 1: they plague everyone, and I think it helped me to
Speaker 1: feel more a part of the human community when I
Speaker 1: saw that. And one of the things you do in
Speaker 1: the book so well is you paint the idea, without
Speaker 1: being gloomy, how ubiquitous human suffering is, and how that,
Speaker 1: by certain measures, one out of every two people will
Speaker 1: have suffered some degree of deep psychological pain at some point.
Speaker 1: And that's a really interesting way. You have an exercise
Speaker 1: in the book where like, just go out to the
Speaker 1: next party, be like one to one to one too,
Speaker 1: and you all of a sudden realize that, like these
Speaker 1: barriers that we put up to distinguish ourselves from different people,
Speaker 1: Oh I have anxiety, Oh I have depression, I have alcoholism,
Speaker 1: these things start to break down a little bit. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I just find it a helpful way to look at life.
Speaker 1: They're useful when and where they're used. I mean alcoholism
Speaker 1: and heroin addiction check check, I'm there. You know. One
Speaker 1: of the things that I've heard people talk about coming
Speaker 1: out of twelve step meetings sometimes and they'll say, well,
Speaker 1: you know, that's alcoholic thinking or that's addictive thinking. And
Speaker 1: I have a theory on why people think that. It's
Speaker 1: because they go into these rooms and the people in
Speaker 1: the meetings they say the stuff that's going through their heads,
Speaker 1: you know, and people hear it and they think, oh man,
Speaker 1: that's how I think, you know, And then they leave
Speaker 1: the meeting and nobody's talking about that in their out
Speaker 1: loud voice, and they assume that it's only those people
Speaker 1: in those meetings. You know. It wasn't, you know, until
Speaker 1: I'd spent few years of clinical psychology when I, you know,
Speaker 1: and I started to listen to people who were, you know,
Speaker 1: not addicts, but they were depressed, or they were anxious,
Speaker 1: or they were whatever they were, and it's sort of like,
Speaker 1: oh no, and you know that number you pointed to
Speaker 1: um kirk stroussel sites in his book on Suicidality years back,
Speaker 1: where he talked about in some community samples something like
Speaker 1: of the people surveyed, at some point in their life
Speaker 1: experience such a level of just hopelessness that they seriously
Speaker 1: considered ending their own life, not as a fleeting thing,
Speaker 1: but spent a couple of weeks where they thought about it,
Speaker 1: maybe with a plan, maybe not, but serious. And that's
Speaker 1: where that exercise that one too. And I have literally
Speaker 1: sat with clients on a bench in a public place
Speaker 1: and just said, you know, leaned over and said, you know,
Speaker 1: like look into these people's faces, you know, and like
Speaker 1: which one you know? One too one to one to
Speaker 1: that one, and it changes you. You know, you sit
Speaker 1: on a park bench and you count those faces and
Speaker 1: you just wonder what the flavor of that hardship that
Speaker 1: they've known and they won't show it. I've asked people
Speaker 1: that in big, big workshops, you know, and I asked them,
Speaker 1: how many people did you tell? And far and away
Speaker 1: the most common number of people that anyone has told
Speaker 1: about their own suicidality is zero. That's a really great
Speaker 1: point about a and that's one of the beauty do
Speaker 1: ful things about twelve step programs is that you walk
Speaker 1: in and you're like, holy mackerel, Like people are talking
Speaker 1: about the real stuff, you know, and your point is
Speaker 1: exactly right, because you go back out into the world
Speaker 1: and nobody's talking about it and you and then it's
Speaker 1: easy to assume like, well, it's only the people in
Speaker 1: there that that that have that, And but I think
Speaker 1: that in a way of feeling less alone in the
Speaker 1: world and of having greater compassion in the world, it's
Speaker 1: important to broaden beyond our diagnosis. I think again, our
Speaker 1: diagnosis can help build community, It can help join us together,
Speaker 1: it can help us not feel so alone. But in
Speaker 1: the longer run, I find it more empowering to realize
Speaker 1: most people suffer to some degree or other. Life is life.
Speaker 1: It just delivers the blows. You know, many years ago
Speaker 1: I worked in a place for intellectual disabilities and there
Speaker 1: was a guy there who was part of an organization
Speaker 1: called People First, and it was an organization for folks
Speaker 1: with intellectual disabilities. And I remember him explaining it to me.
Speaker 1: You know, it was just this plaintive kind of we're
Speaker 1: people first, and to bring home that the people on
Speaker 1: the crew were more like you than we're not like you.
Speaker 1: And I remember at the time and still it moved
Speaker 1: me that these labels can sometimes stand in for people
Speaker 1: and they don't tell us how rich those people are.
Speaker 1: You know, sometimes the label almost obscures the person. I
Speaker 1: don't know if we'll get through all of them, but
Speaker 1: i'd like to explore the six process areas that make
Speaker 1: up acceptance and commitment therapy, and I'm just gonna read
Speaker 1: what they are real quick, just to put them all
Speaker 1: out there, and then we'll just kind of see how
Speaker 1: our discussion goes. UM. One of the things that's important
Speaker 1: to know is, you know, you guys, just say that
Speaker 1: you know. Each of these process that areas is sort
Speaker 1: of like the facets of a gem. If you peer
Speaker 1: in through one, you'll see the other five reflected. So
Speaker 1: it's not like we're going to go in order, because
Speaker 1: they're not in order, and we're just gonna see. As
Speaker 1: we start talking about one, it's going to lead us
Speaker 1: into the other, and who knows where that will take us,
Speaker 1: but at least I'll get them out there and then
Speaker 1: we'll go from there. So the first to one is
Speaker 1: just contact with the present moment. The other one is diffusion,
Speaker 1: and we've talked about diffusion on this show, but the
Speaker 1: ability to get a little bit of distance from our thoughts.
Speaker 1: The third is acceptance, the ability to sort of accept
Speaker 1: the aspects of our life as they are. The fourth
Speaker 1: is values, being able to choose what matters and what's
Speaker 1: important to us. The fifth is committed action, the ability
Speaker 1: to actually take positive action towards what our values are.
Speaker 1: And then the six, which is perhaps the most mysterious,
Speaker 1: is self as context, the ability to see ourselves as
Speaker 1: a dynamic and evolving setting in which our life unfolds.
Speaker 1: So we'll go into those, But I'd like to start
Speaker 1: with something that ACT often talks about, and it's something
Speaker 1: that I agree with when I hear it in principle,
Speaker 1: and then when I look at it into my own
Speaker 1: life and I look at it in other's lives, I go,
Speaker 1: I don't know, right, And it's this idea that the
Speaker 1: goal isn't symptom reduction the goal or so in this case,
Speaker 1: the goal is not the overcoming of anxiety. The purpose
Speaker 1: of this work is to make more room in which
Speaker 1: to live a life that matters to you. And I
Speaker 1: get that at basic level, right, And I get the
Speaker 1: idea that the goal is that I decide what's important
Speaker 1: to me and I live that way, and that these
Speaker 1: symptoms don't stop me from doing that. So, for example,
Speaker 1: if anxiety is the thing I'm mostly concerned with, right,
Speaker 1: my anxiety doesn't stand in the way of me doing
Speaker 1: things that matter to me, like going to spend time
Speaker 1: with family or getting on a plane to go to
Speaker 1: an event that I love. We don't go into experiential avoidance,
Speaker 1: we don't avoid things. So again, in principle, I'm a
Speaker 1: percent on board. What I've seen in practice is yes.
Speaker 1: And boy, when we're deep in symptoms, like I've got
Speaker 1: a client, you know, God bless him. He works hard
Speaker 1: and he does not let his issues stop him from going.
Speaker 1: So he'll describe it like I got myself to jiu
Speaker 1: jitsu class, and then the entire time I was there,
Speaker 1: I was so anxious and miserable that like, I might
Speaker 1: as well not have gone, So I'd just be interested
Speaker 1: your initial thoughts on that little riff I did there.
Speaker 1: One thing is that you know, like the word acceptance,
Speaker 1: I don't even use the word acceptance with people until
Speaker 1: they really really get to know me, you know, because
Speaker 1: when I say acceptance, what they hear is not what
Speaker 1: I mean. It's just not you know, and uh, I
Speaker 1: mean even graduate students that probably takes him a couple
Speaker 1: of years before they know before it sort of penetrates
Speaker 1: what I mean by acceptance, you know, because they think
Speaker 1: acceptance means, you know, thoughts of acceptance or feelings of
Speaker 1: acceptance or something like that, and of course that is
Speaker 1: not at all what I mean. You know, if we
Speaker 1: say things like like the way that you describe that,
Speaker 1: I don't know that it's inaccurate. But if I'd sit
Speaker 1: in here and like in the middle of the deep
Speaker 1: dark depression and you say that to me, it's just
Speaker 1: gonna feel invalidated, right, you know, I'm just gonna let say,
Speaker 1: you know, if you know what I know, you would
Speaker 1: not say that should to me, you know, make me
Speaker 1: feel better, and yeah, make me feel better. Like here's
Speaker 1: the thing. Some kinds of things are really amenable to
Speaker 1: direct action and to try and harder, you know, like
Speaker 1: you know, you choose the action, you try harder, and
Speaker 1: that forwards the action, and some things just aren't like that.
Speaker 1: And I think most people can understand that, you know.
Speaker 1: Usually like like I'll ask people like do you dance?
Speaker 1: You know, and if they dance, then I'll ask them
Speaker 1: what happens when you're dancing and you start thinking about,
Speaker 1: you know, which foot you move next, and you know,
Speaker 1: you start thinking about each dance step and and what
Speaker 1: happens is you start to look like me when I'm dancing,
Speaker 1: you know. Uh, ask like like a guitar player or
Speaker 1: something like that, who is playing they cannot think about
Speaker 1: each note because if they think about each note and
Speaker 1: you know, the picking pattern or something like that, you
Speaker 1: can't do it and think about it at the same time,
Speaker 1: and you can try harder. But I had a traumatic
Speaker 1: baseball history from when I was a kid. I played
Speaker 1: a little league baseball for four years, and I hit
Speaker 1: the ball one time in four years, you know. And
Speaker 1: I asked my dad about it, because he was our coach,
Speaker 1: you know, he was a good guy. And I said,
Speaker 1: you know, Dad, I tell people this story that I
Speaker 1: hit the ball only once in four years, but it's
Speaker 1: a long time ago, and I'm not sure if that's right,
Speaker 1: you know. And uh, And he says to me one time,
Speaker 1: he says, yeah, that's about you know, plus your minds.
Speaker 1: And it was because, you know, like I'm up there
Speaker 1: and I want to hit the ball, and I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: keep the bat up off your shoulder, you know, step
Speaker 1: into it, don't step in the bucket, keep your and
Speaker 1: all these rules are buzzing around in my head and
Speaker 1: the ball just goes whizz and by, you know. So
Speaker 1: some things just don't seem to respond to very well.
Speaker 1: To that, people can also understand the idea of openness
Speaker 1: to experience better when you ask them questions about what
Speaker 1: they care about, what matters to them, and like in
Speaker 1: a world where they could move ahead in their life,
Speaker 1: or would they move towards what swells their hearts? See,
Speaker 1: I want to ask people those kinds of questions. People
Speaker 1: can understand sacrifice for something valuable. People can understand pain
Speaker 1: in the service of valued action. So I want to
Speaker 1: have a conversation, you know, before I ever start talking
Speaker 1: about acceptance. I want to talk to people about what
Speaker 1: they lay their life down for and from that place,
Speaker 1: then I want to have a conversation with them about
Speaker 1: practices that we can cultivate, that we can try and
Speaker 1: see if those practices don't make movement possible. There's a
Speaker 1: certain informed consent at the front end of a therapy
Speaker 1: that you have to do. And so, you know, I'll
Speaker 1: just tell people they come and I've had this buzzing
Speaker 1: with difficult thoughts, and they're buzzing with all the difficult emotions,
Speaker 1: and I'll tell them there are some people who do
Speaker 1: types of therapy that directly target the reduction of these
Speaker 1: That's not the kind of work that I do. If
Speaker 1: you want someone who does that, I know people who
Speaker 1: do that, and I can make a referral. There's another
Speaker 1: approach to therapy, and it has to do with what
Speaker 1: do you love? What do you love? How would your
Speaker 1: life move in a world, you know where you could
Speaker 1: choose a direction for it, and then we start to
Speaker 1: practice and engage with all of the different parts of it.
Speaker 1: Here's what I found in my own life, and I've
Speaker 1: told a thousand clients, is that the thing that I
Speaker 1: thought was the enemy and that drove me to all
Speaker 1: kinds of action and in action that we're incredibly destructive
Speaker 1: to me and people around me. That some of those
Speaker 1: very same things that I thought or the enemy are
Speaker 1: now a central part of my ability to hear the
Speaker 1: suffering of others. Like what if there's something in some
Speaker 1: of your experiences of that are not refuse Like, yes,
Speaker 1: they heard, but maybe there's something else in there. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's how you're carrying it, you know. Like if I
Speaker 1: took a piece of a cactus and I cradled it
Speaker 1: in my hands, you know, just real gentle Like I
Speaker 1: could roll it around, I could feel those spines, but
Speaker 1: they wouldn't cause any damage. But if I grabbed ahold
Speaker 1: of it tight, you know, and squeeze my hands, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe some of what you're feeling, maybe some of the
Speaker 1: suffering that you're experiencing has to do with how it's
Speaker 1: being carried, not that it's being carried. I think that
Speaker 1: points to a phrase that you use a couple of
Speaker 1: times in book that I really love, which is that
Speaker 1: our values and vulnerabilities are poured from the same vessel.
Speaker 1: I think that's a beautiful phrase that really says that
Speaker 1: the things that we care about the most are also
Speaker 1: the places that we can suffer the most. But I
Speaker 1: think it's it's helpful when we're suffering to see that.
Speaker 1: And a lot of what you're talking about strikes me.
Speaker 1: I often say on this show, I don't know where
Speaker 1: this phrase came from, but the people don't become great
Speaker 1: in spite of their difficulties, but because of them. And
Speaker 1: just like you, a lot of the things about me
Speaker 1: that caused me so much trouble turn out to be
Speaker 1: great gifts in a context of a different way of living. Yeah,
Speaker 1: no doubt about it. I will often ask people, you know,
Speaker 1: when I'm about teaching and to think about the people
Speaker 1: in their life where they most admire, you know, people
Speaker 1: in their own families, friends, public figures they most admire
Speaker 1: and try to look are those people who have not
Speaker 1: had to drop a rainfall in their life. It's never true, right,
Speaker 1: There are always people who in fact have suffered tremendously
Speaker 1: and and persevere, you know, and persevered with purpose. That's
Speaker 1: why we admired. Yeah, it's not very admirable. You know,
Speaker 1: if if at all, you know, just came easily, well,
Speaker 1: it's sort of like, well, great for you. I think
Speaker 1: Yalum tells a story about two soldiers and I think
Speaker 1: it's World War One, and the Jewish guy is, you know,
Speaker 1: down in the trench and the bombs are flying, and
Speaker 1: the German general says, this proves the superiority of the
Speaker 1: German aristocracy. Look how brave I am. And the other
Speaker 1: guy goes, no, no, it proves our superiority, because if
Speaker 1: you were half as afraid as me, you were to
Speaker 1: run away long ago. It is in the face of
Speaker 1: these things that we understand what courage and sacrifice looks like.
Speaker 1: It sounds like you like to start, or at least
Speaker 1: an initial place to focus is with values. What do
Speaker 1: we value? Yeah, I mean I am fascile with the model,
Speaker 1: and so I can start anywhere in the model, but
Speaker 1: I'm kind of known in act circles. I'm the one
Speaker 1: who wrote the original values protocols and the book I
Speaker 1: wrote them back when I was a graduate student. I
Speaker 1: am kind of known as the guy who starts with
Speaker 1: values when I start a therapy. It's that values and
Speaker 1: vulnerabilities that interest me. So people will very often present
Speaker 1: their vulnerability, and I want to hear, you know, what
Speaker 1: is the other side of that, you know, where they
Speaker 1: would move if they could. When I start to teach,
Speaker 1: including sometimes in therapy, I start with my own vulnerability.
Speaker 1: I just take my heart out and I lay it
Speaker 1: on the table, and they know this is going to
Speaker 1: be like one of those places. So I like to
Speaker 1: start with values with a sort of light hand. You know.
Speaker 1: I don't want to force people to it, but you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, what I'll say to people is like, look,
Speaker 1: we're going to do hard things in here. That's no
Speaker 1: surprise to you that therapy this hard work. But I
Speaker 1: want to make sure that we don't do any hard
Speaker 1: work that isn't in the direction of something you care about.
Speaker 1: And it will help me to be helpful to you
Speaker 1: if you can kind of give me the taste of,
Speaker 1: you know what would just make the hardest thing worthwhile.
Speaker 1: I want to hear it, not just like a checked box,
Speaker 1: but sort of like if I were to tell you
Speaker 1: I had a conversation with my daughter this morning, who
Speaker 1: has made this sort of move where she's letting go
Speaker 1: of a very certain job and kind of stepping off
Speaker 1: into uncertainty for the next thing that she's going to do.
Speaker 1: And she's done it in the most extraordinarily adult way,
Speaker 1: and I admire her so deeply for where she's twenty
Speaker 1: five years old. My goodness, you know, see I want
Speaker 1: to hear it like that, Like my guess, is you
Speaker 1: just hearing that from me? Like you can hear how
Speaker 1: important you know, being a father is to her. I
Speaker 1: love to have a client or a student if they
Speaker 1: can sort of ring that bell for me so that
Speaker 1: I can hear it, you know, just as a clear tone,
Speaker 1: like what they'd love. Now. Sometimes people don't know, they
Speaker 1: don't know they've been so upside down for so long.
Speaker 1: And there were times in my own life when I
Speaker 1: would have said I believe in nothing. I believe in nothing.
Speaker 1: I want nothing but oblivion. But then I'll ask them,
Speaker 1: would you like to know? Did you know? Once? You know,
Speaker 1: tell me what that was? Yeah, So let's talk about
Speaker 1: this process of digging into values, because I know that
Speaker 1: in the work that I do with coaching clients, I
Speaker 1: often simplify the work we're doing. This is a vast oversimplification,
Speaker 1: but to be to think about what matters to us
Speaker 1: and then be able to bring that into the world, like,
Speaker 1: if we can do those two things, we've got a
Speaker 1: pretty good life, right. And so I'm interested in the
Speaker 1: ways in which you lead people into that work because
Speaker 1: I know a lot of our listeners they hear it
Speaker 1: and they really resonate. They go, yes, I'm want to
Speaker 1: start with my values, you know, And so I'd like
Speaker 1: to explore in general ways of doing that. And then
Speaker 1: I think it's also helpful to maybe talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about what you just said, which is that people
Speaker 1: that go, well, I don't know, I'm not sure how
Speaker 1: do I explore this topic in a useful way. Somewhat paradoxically,
Speaker 1: I suppose, you know, I said mindfulness for two and
Speaker 1: wisdom a couple of places I've said that values and
Speaker 1: vulnerabilities are poured from the same vessel. When people don't know,
Speaker 1: or they know and say you know. When I say
Speaker 1: you know, tell me what's really important to you? And
Speaker 1: you get like a not very engaged answer to that,
Speaker 1: like it might be kind of you know, like textbook
Speaker 1: true but not you know, witnessed felt experienced connection to
Speaker 1: about I'll ask them where they hurt. I'll ask them
Speaker 1: about their vulnerability like I asked him about tell me
Speaker 1: when it hurts and the and they'll usually give me
Speaker 1: abstract thinks about how they hurt. And then I'll ask
Speaker 1: them if they can tell me a specific moment you
Speaker 1: know that they can remember, you know, carrying that weight
Speaker 1: kind of slow motion like a meditation, help me see
Speaker 1: the inside of that particular moment, and if they can
Speaker 1: carry me into that, and then I can start to
Speaker 1: ask a question like and if this burden could be
Speaker 1: lifted in some way, what would you move towards? You know,
Speaker 1: what would you allow? What second chance would you give yourself?
Speaker 1: People can understand that it's not technical language. Sometimes I'll
Speaker 1: use you know, figures and things like that that have
Speaker 1: things like family, which one's of these you know matter
Speaker 1: to you? And then not just like oh family matters
Speaker 1: or parenting that or you know, work matters with each
Speaker 1: one of those things that I asked them about that
Speaker 1: they value, then I want that same kind of thing,
Speaker 1: you know, like, Eric, are you a brother or do
Speaker 1: you have siblings? And as being a brother? Is that
Speaker 1: an important thing? Do you see? I might ask you.
Speaker 1: Can you think of a moment when you like knew
Speaker 1: yourself as the brother that you want to be, Like
Speaker 1: a time in your history with your sibs when it
Speaker 1: was like, that's it, that moment I was the brother
Speaker 1: I want to be. See, and then I want you
Speaker 1: that same process. I want you to help me see it,
Speaker 1: like like, let's close our eyes for a minute and
Speaker 1: tell me who you're seeing there and tell me what
Speaker 1: the you know, describe the context and then and then
Speaker 1: like that moment, you know, walk slow walk up to
Speaker 1: the moment you know when you behave like the brother
Speaker 1: that you would be. Now, see if you can help
Speaker 1: me connect with those things. Now we have something we
Speaker 1: can kind put our hand on, so when we approach suffering,
Speaker 1: we can put our hand on that value and remember, Okay,
Speaker 1: what are we doing here? What is this about? You know,
Speaker 1: it's about being that brother. Remember that day, you know,
Speaker 1: and I'll get a few of the details of it
Speaker 1: so that we can use it as a sort of
Speaker 1: a touchstone when things get hard. It's such a great conversation.
Speaker 1: I love this conversation of just working through the different
Speaker 1: areas of a person's life. Um, some of them they're
Speaker 1: they're lost to them, but I still want to hear
Speaker 1: about it. I want to hear about them because there
Speaker 1: may be a way that those values can live in
Speaker 1: their current life. Even though sometimes there are bells you
Speaker 1: can't unring, and can you go in the other direction?
Speaker 1: You you went in from the positive. Tell me a
Speaker 1: moment that you remember being the brother you want to be.
Speaker 1: Tell me a moment where you didn't and what that
Speaker 1: brings up, Or a moment that you weren't the partner
Speaker 1: you wanted to be. Yes, but not in the kind
Speaker 1: of ruminative, categorical kind of flavor. I want to see
Speaker 1: at moment by moment. I want to know the grit
Speaker 1: and grain of that experience, the phenomenology of that experience,
Speaker 1: as a way to touch the emotion. Those conversations almost
Speaker 1: always spawn one another. You know, if I talk about
Speaker 1: you being a brother, you'll also remember the times that
Speaker 1: you were And I don't touch those these things to
Speaker 1: ruminate over. But like I'm myself. You were asking me
Speaker 1: when we were chatting before the show if there are
Speaker 1: things that I've been thinking about and uh one, and
Speaker 1: it's a long time theme for me. I'm not a
Speaker 1: religious guy at all, but the concept of redemption is
Speaker 1: uh a marvelous and under explored in psychology. A friend
Speaker 1: of mine, Pat Freeman, I saw a film that was done,
Speaker 1: a documentary thing the other day, and he was talking
Speaker 1: to this room full of brand new, fresh faced interns,
Speaker 1: you know, and Pat says, I have done bad things.
Speaker 1: I've done bad things, and so have you, and this
Speaker 1: work that we do is redemptive, you know. And I
Speaker 1: just thought I knew exactly what he was talking about,
Speaker 1: because he's right, I have done bad things. You know.
Speaker 1: I don't mean it except in the most plain way,
Speaker 1: you know, like if I mean to my wife, well,
Speaker 1: what next? What will I do now? If I've broken things?
Speaker 1: You know, how might I amend those or at least
Speaker 1: act like someone who recognizes that they broke those things.
Speaker 1: I think people can understand those kinds of conversations, not
Speaker 1: a lot of fancy language around it. It's a in
Speaker 1: some ways quite common sense. My go to when I
Speaker 1: am exhausted, tired, burnout and just need to relax is
Speaker 1: a game that I play on my iPhone or my
Speaker 1: iPad called Best Fiends. It's a challenging puzzle game that
Speaker 1: has all these fun characters that you collect and you
Speaker 1: use them in your strategy. I'm hooked, and if you're
Speaker 1: anything like me, you will be too. No WiFi, no worries,
Speaker 1: you don't even need an Internet connection to play, and
Speaker 1: it's easy to play. Even a non gamer like me
Speaker 1: understood it immediately and was able to enjoy it right away.
Speaker 1: It's a unique and excite etaing puzzle game unlike any
Speaker 1: other out there, and when I finally solve one of
Speaker 1: the puzzles, I can't tell you how deeply satisfying it
Speaker 1: really is. There's been over a hundred million downloads, so
Speaker 1: you know this is a great game. Best Fiends has
Speaker 1: thousands of levels already, with new levels, events, and characters
Speaker 1: added every month. It's hours of fun right at your fingertips.
Speaker 1: So download Best Fiends free on the Apple App Store
Speaker 1: or Google Play. That's Friends without the R Best Fiends.
Speaker 1: My siblings don't listen to this show. Actually one of
Speaker 1: them does. She does, she'll probably hear this. Um. The
Speaker 1: other one I don't think he does. If he does,
Speaker 1: give me a call. But you know, she could probably
Speaker 1: pull up better than me. I've got a terrible memory.
Speaker 1: She could probably pull up for me, some memory of
Speaker 1: me not being the brother I wanted to be. So
Speaker 1: go ahead, let me know. Um, and let's say that
Speaker 1: that brings something up. And and you said, you know,
Speaker 1: not in a ruminative way, right, So rumination is not
Speaker 1: is not useful. You know, there's a phrase that people
Speaker 1: use a lot like don't beat yourself up over that, right,
Speaker 1: which okay? And how do you balance that with I'll say,
Speaker 1: guilt in the useful sense of the word, which is
Speaker 1: when you act outside your values. You know, I think
Speaker 1: there's lots of ways guilt gets twisted, but I think
Speaker 1: a useful use of guilt, at least in my own life.
Speaker 1: As I go, I feel guilty, why oh, because I
Speaker 1: value this and I didn't act that way. Okay, That
Speaker 1: leads me to want redemption of some sort. So how
Speaker 1: do we balance using this sort of thing in a
Speaker 1: in a useful way but not a ruminative way. What's
Speaker 1: the distinction to you there? To own a regret is different,
Speaker 1: you know, to acknowledge and own a regret, like like
Speaker 1: right now, here's a very contemporary example. We are watching
Speaker 1: our country and incredible turmoil in the midst of the
Speaker 1: Black Lives Matter protests. I was academic for a career
Speaker 1: in academia, and I think that I was, you know,
Speaker 1: what I would consider generally on the right side of
Speaker 1: you know, history and this kind of thing. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, I've got students, you know, a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of them who were educating me over the trying
Speaker 1: patiently to educate me over the years. And I've seen
Speaker 1: them write things, you know, on Facebook about you know,
Speaker 1: like if you see me and you don't see color,
Speaker 1: you don't really see me. And it has caused me
Speaker 1: to sort of reflect on my own action and in action,
Speaker 1: and it's caused me to move into trying to best
Speaker 1: I can to understand that I have been a participant
Speaker 1: in a system, you know, because I have not demanded
Speaker 1: that it ends. I've complained about it, but I have
Speaker 1: not insisted, you know, at an end. Now, here's one
Speaker 1: thing I could do, is I could sit around and
Speaker 1: feel bad about all of my inaction over the years.
Speaker 1: But you know, how is the black community served by
Speaker 1: me sitting around feeling bad about myself? Or going over
Speaker 1: the times I said stupid racist things, you know, and
Speaker 1: I'm old enough that you know, prewoke, you know, Holy heavens,
Speaker 1: you know, I know where the bodies are buried. No
Speaker 1: one has served, No one has served by me, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of grinding over and over again all of the
Speaker 1: things that I didn't do or that I did do.
Speaker 1: There is something valuable about me acknowledging those things for
Speaker 1: me to say, you know, I could have done more,
Speaker 1: or my heavens, how did I not see that? So
Speaker 1: the latter of how did I not see that? And
Speaker 1: what can I do this day? What is in my
Speaker 1: power to do this day? That's a redemptive act in
Speaker 1: the way that I'm talking about, you know, It's where
Speaker 1: I reclaim what I valued all along. You know, when
Speaker 1: it hit me as I have a graduate student. She's
Speaker 1: got a daughter who's nine years old. Who is that child?
Speaker 1: Was just stated in an act seminar at my house.
Speaker 1: You know, she was my graduate student. And when she
Speaker 1: was a baby. They are all kinds of pictures of
Speaker 1: me on on Facebook when she was a baby. There
Speaker 1: are pictures of me lecturing with her sitting on my lap,
Speaker 1: you know, in lectures we took her to lab meetings.
Speaker 1: I mean, she was just like everywhere all the time,
Speaker 1: you know. And her mama is African American from Mississippi Delta,
Speaker 1: you know. And uh, I was listening and Nadia, my student,
Speaker 1: had pointed me to the numbers of you know, there's
Speaker 1: thirty eight percent of the population in Mississippi is African American,
Speaker 1: something like, um, seventy of the deaths have been African American.
Speaker 1: And I listened to the governor of the state of
Speaker 1: Mississippi talking about it, and the interviewer asked him a
Speaker 1: question about that, you know, just incredible disparity and mortality,
Speaker 1: and he says, that's just the way it is. It
Speaker 1: was right before he went to bed. And I thought
Speaker 1: about this little girl who calls me grandpa, you know,
Speaker 1: and I thought, am I going to tell her that,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm gonna go to a little eight in
Speaker 1: them and say, well, that's just how it is. No, no,
Speaker 1: you in that way. I didn't get it. And no
Speaker 1: amount of sitting around feeling guilty changes that for her.
Speaker 1: And that's what's important. How I feel that is not
Speaker 1: the most important thing, not even close. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: love that. I love that idea of redemption, because redemption
Speaker 1: points to going back to our six process areas right
Speaker 1: the value the guilt tells you what you value. Redemption
Speaker 1: is committed action towards a value. It's now, what's the
Speaker 1: next thing that I do? And I always say, you know,
Speaker 1: when I look at guilt in my own life, is
Speaker 1: like it's useful to the extent it moves me back
Speaker 1: towards the value that I, for lack of a better word,
Speaker 1: transgressed against. When it doesn't do that, it's not a
Speaker 1: particularly useful emotion. You want to know what is the
Speaker 1: next right thing, no matter how small. Acknowledging where you've
Speaker 1: been wrong, if you've been you know, in the business
Speaker 1: of denying it, it's probably a good start, you know.
Speaker 1: But you know, and I'm talking about this in terms
Speaker 1: of systemic racism and right privilege and how we play
Speaker 1: a part in it. But I don't think this is
Speaker 1: different than psychological difficulties like addiction, or like anxiety, or
Speaker 1: like depression. It's not different. You know. We get oriented
Speaker 1: away from the things that we care about that we value,
Speaker 1: and when we do, it makes us and it makes
Speaker 1: us hurt. Moving back towards what we value that also hurts. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and um, we're already out of time. But I don't
Speaker 1: want to leave it there. I'm gonna go a little
Speaker 1: bit long here because you just said something I think
Speaker 1: is really important, and you said, do the next right thing,
Speaker 1: the next little thing. And that's one of my favorite
Speaker 1: phrases of all time that I got from a a
Speaker 1: do the next right thing. And but I want to
Speaker 1: talk about committed action for a second, because committed action
Speaker 1: sounds like Okay, I commit now and forever, fourth that
Speaker 1: I will act to stamp out systemic racism. Right, I've
Speaker 1: got I mean, you gave your story. I've got my own, right,
Speaker 1: I've got my own awakenings to come up where I go. Well, no,
Speaker 1: I okay, I know more now. I didn't do enough.
Speaker 1: I could have done more, need to do more. I
Speaker 1: think that. And I see this happen a lot with
Speaker 1: coaching clients. And this is why I want to bring
Speaker 1: it up, because a lot of times when we think
Speaker 1: about committed action, we look at like, okay, I am
Speaker 1: I'm not going to do that again, and so we
Speaker 1: cast ourselves and we look out into the future and
Speaker 1: we go, oh boy, I'm not going to live up
Speaker 1: to that. Holy mackerel, I'm not going to live up
Speaker 1: to that. So I'm not sure I even want to start,
Speaker 1: because I don't think I can keep going. So let's
Speaker 1: talk about what we mean by committed action in act,
Speaker 1: because we don't mean a commitment for now and forever commitment.
Speaker 1: People seem to think that it has something to do
Speaker 1: with the future, and there may be some uh definitions
Speaker 1: of the word commitment that have to do with the future,
Speaker 1: But in act, I would say the commitment has nothing
Speaker 1: to do with the future at all, zero to do
Speaker 1: with the future. The best way, I think, kind of
Speaker 1: common sense way to understand what committed action is take
Speaker 1: the metaphor of a breathing meditation. You sit down for
Speaker 1: a breathing meditation with the intention of putting your awareness
Speaker 1: on your rise and fall of breath. And if you're
Speaker 1: like me, you can get about a breath and a
Speaker 1: half in and your and starts wandering to the groceries
Speaker 1: and to all these other kinds of things. And then
Speaker 1: there's a moment when you notice that you know you're
Speaker 1: not on your breath, you know that you're distracted, maybe
Speaker 1: your browbeating yourself about what allows you meditator, you are
Speaker 1: something You're not on your breath, right, And so there's
Speaker 1: that moment and then you can return to breath. It's
Speaker 1: in that return, in the very return, not what comes later,
Speaker 1: but in that return, that's where commitment lives in act.
Speaker 1: So if I have a value of like being a dad,
Speaker 1: or being a husband, or being a teacher, it's not
Speaker 1: a matter of if. But when I find myself engaged
Speaker 1: in a pattern behavior that is off that. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm talking to my daughter and I find myself being
Speaker 1: sarcastic or something, and I stop and I think, really,
Speaker 1: you know, is that the dad I want to be?
Speaker 1: You know? Does she need more sarcasm in her world?
Speaker 1: So there's that moment of recognizing I'm off that value, uh,
Speaker 1: And then you know there's coming back, and it's in
Speaker 1: the return. So tell a story sometimes about the same
Speaker 1: daughter who is magnificent. Um. When she was maybe sixteen,
Speaker 1: she came into the day room where I was working
Speaker 1: with a fella. Were just frustrated, and she says, I
Speaker 1: can't find my car keys. You know, I'm taking this
Speaker 1: spara keys to the Honda. And I said to her,
Speaker 1: I said, well, I won't say anything about how if
Speaker 1: you put him on the hook in the kitchen, you
Speaker 1: know exactly where they are, and she's just like, thanks, dad,
Speaker 1: you know, you just dead and she storms out of
Speaker 1: the house, you know. And it was even kind of
Speaker 1: worse than that. My friend I got to laugh at
Speaker 1: her expense, you know, he was kind of like, uh,
Speaker 1: you know kids, you know, And I just thought, really
Speaker 1: is that it? You know, And so I say into
Speaker 1: this text message, you know, dear Sarah, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know what possessed me to speak to you in
Speaker 1: that way. Please give me the chance, you know. A
Speaker 1: couple of minutes later, I get a message back from
Speaker 1: her that is I love the moon running back. Now,
Speaker 1: it's not the message I got back. It's that I
Speaker 1: went from being off who I want to be as
Speaker 1: a dad, and in that moment when I came back,
Speaker 1: that's where commitment lives in that it's in the next
Speaker 1: action that brings you back into the pattern. That's where
Speaker 1: commitment lives each one. There's there's no such thing as
Speaker 1: an action that doesn't count. It's all about direction, not distance.
Speaker 1: I love that idea and I love the meditation example,
Speaker 1: because in meditation we have generally the good sense. We
Speaker 1: do it. A few times we go, there's no way
Speaker 1: I'm sticking with this breath, right, and so we just go.
Speaker 1: When I forget, I'm going to come back. Some of
Speaker 1: us do actually often give up because we think we
Speaker 1: can't do it, but the people who succeed go, well,
Speaker 1: it's the next breath that matters. And in life sometimes
Speaker 1: what we do is I I sometimes see this hesitancy
Speaker 1: to start because we're like, well, I just know I
Speaker 1: won't be successful, and I just love coming back to
Speaker 1: That's why I love the next right thing. It's not
Speaker 1: like the next six right things. It's just the next one.
Speaker 1: And I think that's so important. We've gone long here.
Speaker 1: You and I are going to spend a couple of
Speaker 1: minutes in the post show conversation talking about selfish context,
Speaker 1: whether in acceptance and commitment therapy. Selfish context bears much
Speaker 1: resemblance to the idea of no self in Buddhism, so
Speaker 1: one of my favorite topics. So yeah, we're we're going
Speaker 1: to wander around for a while and come up with
Speaker 1: no answers, but listeners if you're interested in the post
Speaker 1: show conversation, and they're good and other benefits like many
Speaker 1: episode with me. Go to one you Feed dot Net
Speaker 1: Slash Joint and you can become a member and support
Speaker 1: the show. Kelly, thank you so much for taking the
Speaker 1: time to come on. I really enjoyed talking with you.
Speaker 1: It's my pleasure. Eric, thank you. If what you just
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