Speaker 1: You can do positive thinking courses and learn to think
Speaker 1: more positively, but it's not going to stomp negative thoughts
Speaker 1: from showing up. Like if you learn to speak Spanish,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna forget English. Welcome to the one you
Speaker 1: feed Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of
Speaker 1: 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 right direction, how they fee their
Speaker 1: good wolf. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this
Speaker 1: episode is Russ Harris. This episode is part one of
Speaker 1: a two part interview with Ross. He's a medical practitioner, psychotherapist,
Speaker 1: and leading expert and acceptance and commitment therapy, also known
Speaker 1: as a c T. His books include A CT with Love,
Speaker 1: a CT Made Simple, The Confidence Gap and the Happiness Trap,
Speaker 1: which has now been translated into twenty two languages. Russ
Speaker 1: lives in Melbourne, Australia and travels internationally to train mental
Speaker 1: health professionals in the A C T A purchase And
Speaker 1: here's part one with Russ. Harris, Hi, Russ, welcome to
Speaker 1: the show. Thanks for inviting me. I'm really excited to
Speaker 1: have you on. Your the second person we've had on
Speaker 1: the show that that writes about and practices act acceptance
Speaker 1: and commitment therapy. And I'll give the second shout out
Speaker 1: to our listener Paul in Ireland, who told me that
Speaker 1: I should really look into it because it basically sounds
Speaker 1: like a lot of the things we talked about on
Speaker 1: the show, and it's it's definitely true. And then the
Speaker 1: other thing is you use the phrase to create a
Speaker 1: life worth living, which I said to you before is
Speaker 1: the sub theme of this show, you know, conversations about
Speaker 1: creating a life worth living. So I think this is
Speaker 1: gonna be a great conversation and I'm excited to have
Speaker 1: you on. But let's start like we always do with
Speaker 1: the parable And it's kind of funny because when I
Speaker 1: originally asked you to come on the show. You wrote
Speaker 1: back and you said you may not like my response
Speaker 1: to the parable, which is which is great, So I'm
Speaker 1: looking forward to hearing it. So there's a grandfather who's
Speaker 1: talking with his grandson. He says, in life, there are
Speaker 1: two wolves inside of us that are always at battle.
Speaker 1: One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness
Speaker 1: and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And
Speaker 1: the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second.
Speaker 1: He says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grand
Speaker 1: father says, the one you feed. So I'd like to
Speaker 1: start off by asking you what that parable means to
Speaker 1: you in your life and in the work that you do. So,
Speaker 1: as I I wrote to you, I I'm not overly
Speaker 1: happy with the way that parable ends, because it conveys
Speaker 1: the idea that there's we need to have this battle
Speaker 1: going on between the positive thoughts and feelings and the
Speaker 1: negative thoughts and feelings. And the way I would love
Speaker 1: that metaphor or story to finish is that the grandfather says,
Speaker 1: you know, as long as these two wolves are fighting
Speaker 1: each other, neither side will win. Nobody wins in a war,
Speaker 1: both sides lose. What we want to do is help
Speaker 1: these wolves to live with each other, work with each other,
Speaker 1: make peace with each other, learn from each other, and
Speaker 1: cooperate with each other. And then you know they are
Speaker 1: both much stronger than if they were fighting with each
Speaker 1: other or if one is trying to win, because no
Speaker 1: wolf will win for any long period of time. Uh.
Speaker 1: And this is kind of what the act approach is about.
Speaker 1: It's about embracing all of our thoughts, feelings, emotions, memories
Speaker 1: that even the most painful or difficult ones, we can
Speaker 1: learn from them and use them in effective ways. I
Speaker 1: love that idea. And one of the things I like
Speaker 1: about the parable, I think, is the idea that sort
Speaker 1: of humanizes the idea that you know what, we're going
Speaker 1: to have both these things in us and they're gonna
Speaker 1: be there, and you know that's just what what happens.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I love your take on it. So let's
Speaker 1: go into You've written several books. The most recent one
Speaker 1: is called The Reality Slap. You've written one called The
Speaker 1: Happiness Trap, the Confidence Gap, and these are all books
Speaker 1: that are you're using act except in the commitment therapy
Speaker 1: is a way to sort of look at these different
Speaker 1: domains of challenges. I really love the reality slap and
Speaker 1: then what it produce, This is the reality gap. So
Speaker 1: I'd like to start off and just talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about what that is. What is the reality slap,
Speaker 1: and then and then what follows it is the reality gap. Okay,
Speaker 1: I like all my books to have rhyming titles, So um,
Speaker 1: the reality slap to turn I use for any of
Speaker 1: those big life events that knock you around, when life
Speaker 1: slaps you in the face, turns you upside down, shakes
Speaker 1: you around, those kind of unexpected wake up cools. And
Speaker 1: that can be anything from from a really small reality
Speaker 1: slap where you suddenly realize that you know you've you've
Speaker 1: acted in a way that's completely any inappropriate and it's
Speaker 1: not who you want to be, and you're you're just
Speaker 1: kind of shocked at what you've done. You can't believe
Speaker 1: that you just lost your temper with the person that
Speaker 1: you love and said something really really hurtful. That would
Speaker 1: be like a small version to a big version where
Speaker 1: you suddenly get diagnosed with cancer or the person that
Speaker 1: you love die or you know, your business goes bankrupt overnight. So, um,
Speaker 1: any of those kind of moments brief or great, where
Speaker 1: basically reality slaps you in the face and uh, and
Speaker 1: you're not expecting it. I like that idea of the
Speaker 1: reality slap. And one of the examples that you use
Speaker 1: in the book is like when we see something in
Speaker 1: life that we wish we had, So we see somebody
Speaker 1: else who's being more successful. So I see a podcast
Speaker 1: that started later than ours that's taken off and is
Speaker 1: really successful, or you know, we see somebody who who
Speaker 1: has the job we want, or those different things. I
Speaker 1: was kind of curious, you know, in your mind, what
Speaker 1: are some of the ways to start to deal with
Speaker 1: that reality slap? If I can just talk about the
Speaker 1: difference between the reality slap and the reality gap. Yes,
Speaker 1: so the reality slap is those moments where you just
Speaker 1: kind of get slapped in the face by you know,
Speaker 1: they're kind of quite shocking moments. Um, the reality gap
Speaker 1: may not be as dramatic as that. You know, reality
Speaker 1: gap just me as a gap between the reality that
Speaker 1: we want and the reality that we have. So you know,
Speaker 1: for example, most of us have a bit of a
Speaker 1: reality gap about our our bodies. You know, we often
Speaker 1: don't have quite the body and the looks and appearance
Speaker 1: and the six pack or the legs that we would
Speaker 1: like to have, and that's a kind of ongoing reality gap,
Speaker 1: or there's often a gap between the sort of person
Speaker 1: I want to be in my relationships and the sort
Speaker 1: of person that I am being in my relationships. So
Speaker 1: those are kind of when you're talking about the the
Speaker 1: successful podcast or the person who's got the job that
Speaker 1: you want, or the person who's got the life that
Speaker 1: you think that you would like to have. Those are
Speaker 1: more kind of long term reality gaps. They're kind of
Speaker 1: in our face a lot of the time, and of
Speaker 1: course that gives rise to the perfectly normal human emotion
Speaker 1: of envy, something that we all experience, and there's different
Speaker 1: ways of responding to envy. Might just be worth talking
Speaker 1: about the difference between jealousy and envy. So, so envy is,
Speaker 1: you know, a kind of a mixture of anxiety and
Speaker 1: resentment about somebody has something that I really want and
Speaker 1: I would like to have it and it's not fair
Speaker 1: that I haven't got it and they've got it and
Speaker 1: I want it. So there's some comes sort of kind
Speaker 1: of grudging resentment in there, and there's there's often underneath
Speaker 1: that a bit of kind of anxiety. It's like, you know,
Speaker 1: how is the world like this? And why haven't I
Speaker 1: got this? And I need this and a kind of
Speaker 1: sense of need, Whereas jealousy is like a possessiveness of
Speaker 1: a person. Um So I want this person to spend
Speaker 1: time with me and be interested in me. And if
Speaker 1: I see this person kind of spending time with other people,
Speaker 1: then I get jealous about that. So often the terms
Speaker 1: are used interchangeably that they they actually have this difference.
Speaker 1: So when when there's a reality gap in the sense
Speaker 1: that they've got something that I really want, the first
Speaker 1: thing to do is to simply notice it become aware
Speaker 1: of it. We are to respond to these reality gaps
Speaker 1: on automatic pilot, and that's when we get caught up
Speaker 1: in our envy or our resentment, or sometimes you know,
Speaker 1: we start judging the other person or finding ways to
Speaker 1: discount them. Oh wow, that podcast is allowed of rubbish
Speaker 1: compared to my podcd uh, you know, And the starting
Speaker 1: point is always just to simply notice there's a reality
Speaker 1: gap here, and I'm feeling something right now that's really painful.
Speaker 1: And often that will be envy, but it could be
Speaker 1: other emotions too. That's your starting point because when you
Speaker 1: start to notice and become aware of how you're feeling
Speaker 1: and what you're responding to, it pulls you out of
Speaker 1: automatic pilot mode. I agree, and I think that becoming
Speaker 1: aware of what's happening is such an important step. Let's
Speaker 1: go ahead and pivot into ACT a little bit. So
Speaker 1: acceptance and Commitment therapy. I want to talk through what
Speaker 1: it is, and then there are different principles that lie through,
Speaker 1: But why don't we just start with the high level
Speaker 1: overview from your perspective of what acceptance and Commitment therapy
Speaker 1: or ACT is is. So ACT is an empirically supported
Speaker 1: model of therapy with over a thousand published studies, created
Speaker 1: originally by Stephen Hayes, who I believe you've had on
Speaker 1: the show. And it's basically a way to maximize human
Speaker 1: potential for living a rich and meaningful life. So it
Speaker 1: started off in the field of therapy with things like
Speaker 1: depression and anxiety, but now it's spread to schools, to
Speaker 1: sports teams, to businesses. It's really applicable to any part
Speaker 1: of human life, whatever that human endeavor is. Whatever humans
Speaker 1: are dealing within their day to day life, how can
Speaker 1: we help them live richer, full and more meaningful lives
Speaker 1: while handling more effectively the painful thoughts feelings that life
Speaker 1: inevitably gives us all. Yeah, you say that. The core
Speaker 1: philosophy of ACT is neatly encapsulated in the Serenity Challenge,
Speaker 1: which is your version of well known serenity Prayer, which
Speaker 1: I think is one of the wisest things that's ever
Speaker 1: been written. The Serenity Prayer and your your version of
Speaker 1: it is developed the courage to solve those problems that
Speaker 1: can be solved, the serenity to accept those problems that
Speaker 1: can't be solved, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Speaker 1: I love it because I just think it basically sums
Speaker 1: up like the whole kitten caboodle of how to deal
Speaker 1: with the world. Yeah, exactly, so, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's why ACTS is cooled acceptance and commitment therapy. So
Speaker 1: it's accept what's out of your personal control and commit
Speaker 1: to action that improves and enriches your life. And unfortunately,
Speaker 1: we're often not very good at realizing what is out
Speaker 1: of our control, and even when we do, we're often
Speaker 1: not very good at accepting it. Yeah, and I found
Speaker 1: you know that people tend to air on one side
Speaker 1: or the other, not in all areas, but there tends
Speaker 1: to be, you know, I know people who cannot accept
Speaker 1: things that are clearly out of their control and spend
Speaker 1: a lot of energy on it. I think the area
Speaker 1: that I have probably struggled more with his making responsibility
Speaker 1: and the commitment for the things that I can change,
Speaker 1: and maybe there's more in my power that I'm able
Speaker 1: to change, and sometimes in the past I might have
Speaker 1: thought so that's kind of the side that I air on,
Speaker 1: But I see lots of other people who are on
Speaker 1: the other side, and that's why I love it, because
Speaker 1: it basically just you know, wherever you are on that spectrum,
Speaker 1: it points you back towards the middle. Yeah, exactly. I've
Speaker 1: just earlier last year created a protocol, an act based
Speaker 1: protocol for the World Health Organization which they are currently
Speaker 1: rolling out in refugee camps around the world, starting in
Speaker 1: Syria and Uganda. And so this is very important. In
Speaker 1: those refugee camps. You can't just leave, you know, you
Speaker 1: you may be stuck in these camps for for months
Speaker 1: or years or even decades before you get out of there,
Speaker 1: So can you recognize that leaving is not an option.
Speaker 1: But within the refugee camp, you still have choices. You
Speaker 1: can stay in your tent all day, or you can
Speaker 1: come out of your tent and engage with the people
Speaker 1: in the tents around you. And when you go out
Speaker 1: and engage with the people in the tents around you,
Speaker 1: you can be hostile unfriendly, or you can be friendly
Speaker 1: and warm. You can be supportive and caring and kind
Speaker 1: to your neighbor, or you can be deceitful, dishonest and
Speaker 1: mean to your neighbor. So even within you know all
Speaker 1: of the difficulties of I mean, they're pretty dire situations.
Speaker 1: These refugee camps are you've probably seen on the news
Speaker 1: and your readers have probably seen, you know, living in
Speaker 1: these tents and often you know, lack of food and
Speaker 1: water and sanitation and so forth. But there are still
Speaker 1: choices available to you. So it's about accepting what's out
Speaker 1: of your control. What's out of your control is you're
Speaker 1: in a refugee camp. What's out of your control is
Speaker 1: you're going to have lots of painful thoughts and feelings
Speaker 1: you can't expect to feel happy and joyous. When you're
Speaker 1: stuck in a refugee camp, it's going to be lots
Speaker 1: of anxiety and sadness and anger and so forth. Can
Speaker 1: you accept those and commit to action that improves your life,
Speaker 1: Doing things that help you to get on with your neighbors,
Speaker 1: joining in the social activities in those camps that are
Speaker 1: kind of life enhancing, teaching your kids, playing with your kids,
Speaker 1: you know, and so forth, except what's out of your control,
Speaker 1: and commits to action that improves your line. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: that's one of the things I love about ACT is
Speaker 1: the real idea that, Okay, you're gonna have thoughts and feelings,
Speaker 1: You've got some degree of control of those. The more
Speaker 1: intense they are, probably the less control you have. But
Speaker 1: what really matters are the actions that you take, and
Speaker 1: that you can take those actions regardless of the emotions
Speaker 1: you're having. And I think that was one of the
Speaker 1: biggest turning points in my life, and for me, I
Speaker 1: think the first time I started realizing that was when
Speaker 1: I was just starting to recover from drug addiction, and
Speaker 1: I started to realize all of a sudden, like, oh
Speaker 1: wait a minute, I can feel this way, but that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean, I have to act that way, and that
Speaker 1: was a very fundamental shift in the way that I
Speaker 1: saw the world, and it remains for me one of
Speaker 1: the really key principles I think that that I base
Speaker 1: my life around. Like in act, you can't really control
Speaker 1: your mood, and I think some of us have better
Speaker 1: or worse mood sets, right Like I think I have
Speaker 1: a mood set that's not real wonderful a lot of
Speaker 1: the time. Right now, I do what I can with it.
Speaker 1: But if my actions are based on my moods, I've
Speaker 1: seen where that leads me. Absolutely, coming back to the
Speaker 1: points about awareness is the starting point, because when you
Speaker 1: consciously stop to notice how you're feeling, and then you
Speaker 1: have more control over your actions. Whereas on automatic pilot,
Speaker 1: your feelings just jerk you around like a puppet on
Speaker 1: a string. So you know, envy shows up, and on autopilot,
Speaker 1: we just do whatever the envy wants us to do.
Speaker 1: But if I can start to notice I'm feeling envious, here,
Speaker 1: here's my mind kind of pulling me to things that
Speaker 1: I want. And I've got this tight feeling in my
Speaker 1: chest and knots in my stomach, and I'm kind of
Speaker 1: noticing there's a reality gap here. Then that moment of
Speaker 1: conscious awareness starts to give us some choice, saying, now
Speaker 1: what do I want to do in response to this
Speaker 1: reality gap? What do I do want to do? How
Speaker 1: do I want to respond to these feelings? How do
Speaker 1: I want to respond to this situation? Purchase And here's
Speaker 1: the rest of the interview with Russ Harris. In a minute,
Speaker 1: we're going to go into the six core principles in ACT,
Speaker 1: but I want to start with one of the things
Speaker 1: that ACT says that it will help provide you or
Speaker 1: a goal, which is psychological flexibility. Can you talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about what that is. Yeah, it's the ability
Speaker 1: to be present, open up, and do what matters. So
Speaker 1: to be in the present moment, right here, right now,
Speaker 1: paying attention, to have focusing on and engaging in what's
Speaker 1: happening here and now, to be present, to open up.
Speaker 1: That means to kind of open up and make room
Speaker 1: for all the thoughts and feelings that are showing up
Speaker 1: for you in this moment, not fighting with them, not
Speaker 1: running away from them, but just opening up and making room,
Speaker 1: allowing your thoughts and feelings to flow through you without
Speaker 1: getting into a fight with them and without getting swept
Speaker 1: away by them, and to do what matters. That means
Speaker 1: to act in a line with your values, your your
Speaker 1: heart's deepest desires for the sort of human being that
Speaker 1: you want to be, what you want to be about,
Speaker 1: and let your values guide your actions. So to be present,
Speaker 1: open up, and do what matters. And the greater your
Speaker 1: capacity to do that, the greater your quality of life.
Speaker 1: Lots of research. Well, let's move into the first principle
Speaker 1: of act, which is diffusion. So can you talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about what diffusion is and then I'd like
Speaker 1: to maybe talk about some techniques that we can use
Speaker 1: to help us defuse. So basically, if you think of
Speaker 1: two sheets of metal that are fused together, there's no separation.
Speaker 1: They're kind of completely stuck and meshed with each other.
Speaker 1: And so that's where the term diffusion comes from. When
Speaker 1: we're fused with our thoughts, we're all caught up into
Speaker 1: our thoughts. Basically they dominate our awareness. So example, if
Speaker 1: we're really worrying or stressing or kind of getting into
Speaker 1: revenge fantasies, our thoughts are just completely dominating our awareness
Speaker 1: or they dominate our actions. You know, our thoughts kind
Speaker 1: of tell us what to do, and they jerk us
Speaker 1: around like a puppet on a string, you know, and
Speaker 1: either of these represents fusion. Basically, when our thoughts control
Speaker 1: our behavior in self defeating ways or dominate our awareness
Speaker 1: in self defeating ways, we would cool that fusion. So
Speaker 1: diffusion is a way of kind of unhooking from those
Speaker 1: difficult thoughts, stepping back, noticing our thought processes and taking
Speaker 1: the power out of them so that they don't control us,
Speaker 1: so that they don't dominate us. Another way of saying
Speaker 1: that might be to say that we recognize our thoughts
Speaker 1: as being thoughts and not the truth. Well, they may
Speaker 1: or may not be true. What happens is, but your
Speaker 1: first part of your point is absolutely right. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: We we recognize our thoughts as thoughts. These are words
Speaker 1: and pictures that are popping up in my head to
Speaker 1: convey a story or a message. And the question in
Speaker 1: the app model is not whether they're true or false,
Speaker 1: or positive or negative, or optimistic or pessimistic. The question
Speaker 1: that we're interested in is if I let these thoughts,
Speaker 1: if I let these words and pictures in my head
Speaker 1: guide my actions, is that going to take me towards
Speaker 1: the sort of life that I to live or away
Speaker 1: from the life I want to live. You know, my
Speaker 1: mind says I ain't gonna get you, you son of
Speaker 1: a gun, right? And if I let that thought control
Speaker 1: my actions, Am I going to be behaving like the
Speaker 1: sort of person I really want to be? Am I
Speaker 1: going to be doing the things that I would be
Speaker 1: proud of when I look back in retrospect? Or is
Speaker 1: it going to pull me into some sort of mean
Speaker 1: type revenge thing that I'm later going to regret? I've
Speaker 1: heard you also refer to that in a slightly different way,
Speaker 1: which is is this thought useful or not? And you know,
Speaker 1: to your point useful in taking my life in the
Speaker 1: direction we wanted to go? Yeah? Is it useful? Is
Speaker 1: it helpful? Where is it going to lead me? Where's
Speaker 1: it going to guide me? You know? And the thing is,
Speaker 1: if we can come back to the idea of of
Speaker 1: of the two wolves, you know, even the most negative,
Speaker 1: unhelpful thoughts can in some way be useful for us
Speaker 1: because they're at least pointing us to something that we
Speaker 1: need to address or deal with or that was struggling with,
Speaker 1: you know. So like if we get lots of anger,
Speaker 1: revengeful thoughts. Then if we start to explore what's underneath
Speaker 1: all of that, we usually get to another important part
Speaker 1: of the app model, which is values. There's something important,
Speaker 1: there's something that matters. So what are some strategies for
Speaker 1: practicing diffusion? It's a it's a concept that's relatively easy
Speaker 1: to understand and a whole lot more challenging to do without.
Speaker 1: At least in might experience a lot of practice. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's a fair cool. Um. The two simpler strategies to use,
Speaker 1: or what we might call noticing and naming, so that
Speaker 1: the first step in diffusing is to notice your thoughts
Speaker 1: or notice what your mind is telling you. You know,
Speaker 1: when you're completely refused, you don't even realize that you're thinking,
Speaker 1: You're just so caught up in your thoughts. Um, so
Speaker 1: just stopping to notice noticed, you know, what is my
Speaker 1: mind saying right now? Or what am I thinking right now?
Speaker 1: What kind of thoughts are showing up? And the second
Speaker 1: strategy that usually goes hand in hand with the first
Speaker 1: one is naming. So let's find a non judgment a
Speaker 1: way of actually labeling these thoughts as thoughts. So, ah,
Speaker 1: here's my mind speaking to me again. Ah, there's a
Speaker 1: thought popping up, or ah, there's the I'm not good
Speaker 1: enough story. Oh, there's my mind worrying, or you know,
Speaker 1: here's revenge fantasies popping up again. Just kind of a
Speaker 1: non judgmental way of naming that cognitive process, that thought
Speaker 1: or thinking pattern. Probably, um some of the more playful
Speaker 1: ways of doing that may often be more useful, So
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's quite often if there's a if
Speaker 1: there's a recurrent theme that your mind keeps pulling you
Speaker 1: back to again and again, it's nice to kind of
Speaker 1: label that theme in a playful way so that the
Speaker 1: most common one that people struggle with is the I'm
Speaker 1: not good enough story. Our mind's got so many ways
Speaker 1: of telling us that we're not good enough, and if
Speaker 1: we can each time a thought linked to that pop up,
Speaker 1: we can go, okay, there's the not good enough story. Well,
Speaker 1: you might make it more specific, there's the old and
Speaker 1: lonely story. Or there's the allousy podcast story. You know,
Speaker 1: there's the there's the allousy interviewee story. Whatever. So just
Speaker 1: that kind of noticing and naming the thinking process immediately
Speaker 1: starts to give us a little bit of diffusion. Another
Speaker 1: one of them that you guys talk about is the
Speaker 1: I like this, I'm having the thought that so instead
Speaker 1: of saying I'm a stupid terrible person, I think I'm
Speaker 1: having the thought that I'm a stupid terrible person. And
Speaker 1: for me, that's one that actually is semi helpful in
Speaker 1: giving me a little bit of distance in those ways.
Speaker 1: I encourage your listeners to try that right now. So
Speaker 1: let's all do it together. Bring to mind a kind
Speaker 1: of worrying or difficult thought, just kind of for five
Speaker 1: seconds by into it, get caught up in that thought,
Speaker 1: then replay it with these words in front. I'm having
Speaker 1: the thought that I'm having the thought that my podcast
Speaker 1: is not very good. I'm having the thought that I'm
Speaker 1: not giving a great interview to Eric. And then they
Speaker 1: go a stage further. If you're doing this, if you're
Speaker 1: participating in this, go a stage further. The next thing
Speaker 1: is put the words noticing, I notice I'm having the
Speaker 1: thought that I notice I'm having the thought that I'm boring.
Speaker 1: If your viewers have actually tried this, most people will
Speaker 1: find that there's a kind of progressive sense of unhooking
Speaker 1: or separating or detaching or distancing from the thought. The
Speaker 1: first phrase gives you a little bit of distance, and
Speaker 1: the second phrase gives you a little bit more. And
Speaker 1: you know, this is a very different approach to most
Speaker 1: models of therapy. We're not debating whether the thought is
Speaker 1: true or false, which is starting to see it for
Speaker 1: for what it is. It's a thought may or may
Speaker 1: not be true or false. That's a secondary issue, and
Speaker 1: I think that's a really important distinction in act, which
Speaker 1: is that the goal of this is not to make
Speaker 1: those thoughts go away. These are you refer to them
Speaker 1: as control strategies. These are not control strategies. It's about
Speaker 1: getting a little bit of distance and allowing yourself sort
Speaker 1: of like you said about the good and the bad
Speaker 1: wolf to coexist. Yeah, exactly. It's you know, so we
Speaker 1: often enact talk away talk about how that the default
Speaker 1: setting of the normal human mind is to is to
Speaker 1: think negatively. Your mind basically wants to protect you from
Speaker 1: things that can hurt or harm you, and the minds
Speaker 1: of your ancestors were the same. Your ancestors survived longer
Speaker 1: if they were good at predicting and anticipating and staying
Speaker 1: away from things that could hurt or harm them. So
Speaker 1: our modern mind today is constantly on the lookout for
Speaker 1: things that could hurt or harm us, constantly telling us,
Speaker 1: you know, don't do this and don't do that, and
Speaker 1: trying to you know, a lot of beating ourselves up
Speaker 1: is our minds actually trying to help us be better people,
Speaker 1: just not using a very good strategy. A lot of
Speaker 1: our worrying and catastrophizing and predicting the worst is our
Speaker 1: minds trying to save us from getting hurt if we
Speaker 1: opt out of difficult challenges. It's our mind trying to
Speaker 1: save us from the pain of failure. And so, you know,
Speaker 1: you can do positive thinking courses and learn to think
Speaker 1: more positively, but it's not going to stop negative thoughts
Speaker 1: from showing up. Um. Just like if you learn to
Speaker 1: speak Spanish, you're you're not gonna forget English. So the
Speaker 1: point I'm making here is that you know your mind
Speaker 1: will keep generating these kinds of unhelpful thinking processes over
Speaker 1: and over and over again. And in this approach, we
Speaker 1: don't want to try to get into fighting and battling
Speaker 1: with those thoughts and trying to prove them false and
Speaker 1: trying to get rid of them. What you want to
Speaker 1: do is learn to have a new relationship with so
Speaker 1: that we can just kind of let them come and go.
Speaker 1: Are you familiar, Eric with the kind of radio doom
Speaker 1: and gloom metaphor from act? I am? Yeah. I think
Speaker 1: you use that in one of your books. I love
Speaker 1: that one. What you expanded a little bit for people, Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: the idea is because our minds are like this, and
Speaker 1: they just, you know, naturally tend to worry and judge
Speaker 1: and criticize and so forth. You know, radio doom and
Speaker 1: gloom is just often broadcasting kind of doom and globe
Speaker 1: stuff about the past, about the future, about what's wrong
Speaker 1: with life, what's wrong with me, about all the things
Speaker 1: that I'm not doing, what other people aren't doing right,
Speaker 1: or what's wrong with the world, and so forth. That's
Speaker 1: it's it's natural setting. Have you ever had the experience
Speaker 1: of doing some sort of activity that you really enjoy
Speaker 1: or you're passionate about, and there was a radio playing
Speaker 1: in the background and you were so absorbed in the
Speaker 1: activity that you're hardly even modus the radio was there.
Speaker 1: If you had that experience, very absolutely, yep, And I'm
Speaker 1: sure that your listeners have too. So and then suddenly
Speaker 1: one of your favorite songs came on the radio, and
Speaker 1: so then you were maybe singing along with the radio
Speaker 1: or listening to the song really tuning into it. Then
Speaker 1: the song changed and the radio faded into the background,
Speaker 1: and you were able to kind of refocus your attention
Speaker 1: fully on what you were doing. And this is what
Speaker 1: we're aiming to do with our own minds in the
Speaker 1: act approach. Focus our attention on here and now activities
Speaker 1: that are important and meaningful, guided by our values, doing
Speaker 1: the stuff that builds richer lives, and just kind of
Speaker 1: let our our mind play on like a radio in
Speaker 1: the background, and if it happens to be broadcasting something
Speaker 1: useful and helpful, then let's kind of use that. But
Speaker 1: if not, just let it play on in the background.
Speaker 1: And this is very different to trying to ignore a radio. Eric,
Speaker 1: What what happens If you try to ignore a radio
Speaker 1: playing in the background, you're probably likely to hear it more. Exactly,
Speaker 1: We've all tried not to hear that loud voice in
Speaker 1: the restaurant or that car alarm going off in the
Speaker 1: street outside. You know, the more you try to ignore
Speaker 1: it or not hear it, the more it bothers you
Speaker 1: and it's radically different to bringing in a second radio. Oh,
Speaker 1: let's bring in radio positive and optimistic to try to
Speaker 1: drown out radio doom and glue. Let's bring in radio
Speaker 1: logical and rational. And if we turn the volume of
Speaker 1: that one up enough, then it li'll drown our radio
Speaker 1: doom and gloom. It's pretty hard to focus on what
Speaker 1: you're doing while you've got two radios in your head,
Speaker 1: playing two different channels. The next principle is called expansion,
Speaker 1: but I think that diffusion is more about thoughts. Expansion
Speaker 1: is more about dealing with emotions. But before we go
Speaker 1: all the way there, can you talk about the difference
Speaker 1: between what thought and emotion is. That's a great question
Speaker 1: because it's it's often an artificial distinction. The convention is
Speaker 1: that thoughts are words and pictures pictures that pop up
Speaker 1: in our heads that tell us stories, and emotions are
Speaker 1: more things that we feel in our body. But it's
Speaker 1: a largely artificial distinction. You know that people would often
Speaker 1: say sadness or anger or guilt those emotions, but if
Speaker 1: you explore those emotions, you'll find lots and lots of thoughts.
Speaker 1: No one's ever felt sad or guilty or angry without
Speaker 1: lots of thoughts as a part of that process. So
Speaker 1: in some sense, it's an artificial distinction. Thoughts create feelings,
Speaker 1: and your feelings are full of thoughts. But if you
Speaker 1: want to kind of go with convention that the simplest
Speaker 1: way to think about it is thoughts of words and
Speaker 1: pictures in your head, and emotions are largely feelings in
Speaker 1: your body. I like that that. It's it's largely an
Speaker 1: artificial distinction because after spending a lot of time thinking
Speaker 1: through that, I've realized, like, Okay, there is a little
Speaker 1: bit of difference, but boy, you usually don't get one
Speaker 1: without the other. Yeah, exactly. You certainly don't get emotions
Speaker 1: without thoughts. The cerebral cortex, the kind of thinking cap
Speaker 1: of your brain that's involved in thinking, is also involved
Speaker 1: in all emotions. You know, all parts of the brain
Speaker 1: are activated. You you may get thoughts without kind of
Speaker 1: strong emotional responses, but you certainly always have thoughts as
Speaker 1: part of feelings and emotions. Let's move into the second
Speaker 1: principle of act, which is called expansion. Can you tell
Speaker 1: us a little bit about what expansion is. The official
Speaker 1: name in acts is actually acceptance, but in my books,
Speaker 1: I changed it to expansion because people misunderstand the term acceptance.
Speaker 1: People often think acceptance means liking it, wanting it, approving
Speaker 1: of it, or tolerating it, sucking it up, putting up
Speaker 1: with it, or resigning yourself to it. And none of
Speaker 1: those are what we mean. So I changed it in
Speaker 1: my books to expansion. This idea of opening up, making space,
Speaker 1: making room for all our kind of difficult, unwanted painful thoughts, feelings, emotions,
Speaker 1: and memories. So an idea of opening up and making
Speaker 1: space for this stuff so that it can freely flow
Speaker 1: through us in its own good time. Sometimes these painful
Speaker 1: thoughts feelings flow through us very rapidly. Other times they
Speaker 1: hang around for a while. Sometimes they kind of get
Speaker 1: bigger before they get smaller. And so it's this idea
Speaker 1: of kind of expanding, opening up, making lots of space
Speaker 1: for my thoughts and feelings to do what they're doing
Speaker 1: in this moment, to come and go in their own
Speaker 1: good time. What are some steps to do that I've
Speaker 1: had a you know, I had a listener asked me
Speaker 1: that you know, this idea of being with your thoughts
Speaker 1: and emotions, it sounds great, and then you go to
Speaker 1: do it, and it's kind of like, well, now, what
Speaker 1: what am I? What am I doing here? So is
Speaker 1: there are there steps towards being able to practice this effectively? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think probably. Again, the first two steps of diffusion
Speaker 1: are also the first two steps of expansion, so there's
Speaker 1: this huge overlap here noticing and naming. So let's start
Speaker 1: by noticing the difficult thoughts and feelings that are present
Speaker 1: and naming them in a non judgmental way. So anxiety
Speaker 1: is probably the single most common emotion that people struggle with,
Speaker 1: So start by kind of noticing, Okay, here's anxiety showing up.
Speaker 1: I am noticing anxiety. I'm noticing tightness in my chest,
Speaker 1: i am noticing knots in my stomach, I'm noticing my
Speaker 1: mind telling me scary stories right now. And it's interesting
Speaker 1: if we step aside from act and just look at
Speaker 1: terms of neuro anatomy, that what's happening in the brain
Speaker 1: as you do this is that you're starting to activate
Speaker 1: pathways in the cerebral cortex, the thinking cap of the
Speaker 1: brain that connect to the kind of fight or flight
Speaker 1: response parts of the brain that kind of trigger these
Speaker 1: strong emotions such as fear and anger. And anxiety, and
Speaker 1: it starts to help you again switch off automatic pilots
Speaker 1: and start to regain more control over your actions and
Speaker 1: what you're doing. So noticing and naming it would be
Speaker 1: your first steps, and then the next step would be
Speaker 1: to see if you can allow allow the Let's stick
Speaker 1: with feelings for the time being. It applies to any
Speaker 1: kind of private experience with thoughts, feelings, emotions, memories, but
Speaker 1: we'll stick with feelings. See if you can get a
Speaker 1: sense of just allowing the feeling to be there, and
Speaker 1: probably so not liking it, not wanting it, not proving
Speaker 1: approving of it, but just allowing it to be there.
Speaker 1: And for about nine of people, the an effective way
Speaker 1: of doing that, say nineteenth cent. So you know some
Speaker 1: people hate this, but but a lot of people find
Speaker 1: it's useful to kind of notice where in your body
Speaker 1: you're feeling it most intensely. It's likely to be your chest,
Speaker 1: or your tummy, or your jaws, or your your throat um,
Speaker 1: but it could be anywhere in your body were wide
Speaker 1: a bit differently, pick the area in your body where
Speaker 1: you're feeling it most intensely, and see if you can
Speaker 1: just breathe slowly into and around that part of your body,
Speaker 1: and as you breathe into and around it, see if
Speaker 1: you can just kind of imagine a sense of space
Speaker 1: opening up making around that feeling. Rather than trying to
Speaker 1: do what we normally do it she's trying to push
Speaker 1: it away or squash it down, so kind of breathing in,
Speaker 1: opening up making. We had Tara Brock on the show
Speaker 1: and she's I've heard her use a phrase like can
Speaker 1: I be with this, which is just to kind of
Speaker 1: open yourself to like, Okay, you know, I'm able to
Speaker 1: sit with this emotion, and I you know, I talked
Speaker 1: earlier about you know, the big revelation for me as
Speaker 1: an addict was that I didn't have to follow my
Speaker 1: emotions or my actions. And that was kind of a
Speaker 1: big one for me too, was realizing like, Okay, this
Speaker 1: emotion is not going to kill me, Like I can
Speaker 1: be here with it, it can exist. And doing that
Speaker 1: for me at least took what felt like the enormity
Speaker 1: of them. It put them in a little bit better
Speaker 1: perspective for me. Yeah, I think that kind of self
Speaker 1: talk is often very helpful. You know, A phrase that
Speaker 1: that I often recommend is, you know, for people that
Speaker 1: are really struggling with this is is to kind of say,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't like it, I don't want it,
Speaker 1: but I'll allow it, you know, I'll allow it. And
Speaker 1: then the question that I often get asked is, well,
Speaker 1: why would I allow it? You know, why why would
Speaker 1: I allow these painful feelings to be here? And so,
Speaker 1: you know, part of the ACT model is we you know,
Speaker 1: we would never ask anybody to accept painful thoughts and
Speaker 1: feelings unless that was going to help them to live
Speaker 1: a richer, full and more meaningful life, unless it was
Speaker 1: going to help them to live their values and do
Speaker 1: what's important. Do we want to go into this some
Speaker 1: of the problems that occur when when people start trying
Speaker 1: to get rid of unwanted feelings. Yep, I've heard you
Speaker 1: refer to it as you know, when you flip on
Speaker 1: the struggle switch. So that's one of my favorite metaphors.
Speaker 1: So the idea that at the back of your mind
Speaker 1: there's a struggle switch, and as soon as a painful
Speaker 1: emotion shows up, the struggle switch goes on and you
Speaker 1: start struggling with it. So let's suppose anxiety shows up,
Speaker 1: struggle switch goes on. Oh, here's anxiety. I hate this feeling.
Speaker 1: Oh why is it coming back again? Now I've got
Speaker 1: anxiety about my anxiety. It's getting bigger. Oh no, my
Speaker 1: anxiety is getting bigger. What's going on? What's going on? Now?
Speaker 1: I've got anxiety about my anxiety, about my anxiety. So
Speaker 1: so it acts as an emotional amplifier, and I have
Speaker 1: to keep that struggle switch on. Then I may start
Speaker 1: to get angry about my anxiety. Oh why does this
Speaker 1: keep happening to me? This is not fair. Now I've
Speaker 1: got anger about my anxiety. Then I may get sad
Speaker 1: about that. It's like, oh, is this my life, for
Speaker 1: my doom to this anxiety so now? And then I
Speaker 1: may even start getting angry with myself for for for
Speaker 1: my own reaction. Oh how pathetic am I to kind
Speaker 1: of be reacting this way to my own anxiety. And
Speaker 1: so as long as this struggle switch stays on, it
Speaker 1: amplifies our emotions. They get bigger and bigger and messier
Speaker 1: and stick here. Uh. And I can relate to that
Speaker 1: myself very strongly. I talk a lot, and I've done
Speaker 1: a couple of mini episodes on the Buddhist concept of
Speaker 1: the second Arrow, which is essentially the same thing. You know,
Speaker 1: the first arrow is the emotion or the feeling that
Speaker 1: we have, and then the second arrow is or the third,
Speaker 1: or the fourth or the fifth arrow, or all the
Speaker 1: ones that we then turn around and shooted ourselves, which
Speaker 1: is exactly kind of like you're saying, it's all the
Speaker 1: stories that come after that I can't handle it or
Speaker 1: why am I like this? Or why do I feel
Speaker 1: like this? And and I also now, in addition to
Speaker 1: the second earrow, I love the idea of the struggle
Speaker 1: switch because I think that's a very good metaphor. Also,
Speaker 1: what we want to do then is learn how to
Speaker 1: turn off the struggle switch. So let's let's run through
Speaker 1: it again. But this time anxiety shows up, and I
Speaker 1: switch off the struggle switch. So I don't like the anxiety.
Speaker 1: I don't want it, I don't approve of it, but
Speaker 1: I am not going to invest any energy in struggling
Speaker 1: with it. I'm just gonna let it be there, let
Speaker 1: it flow through me in its own good time. So
Speaker 1: now anxieties there, I've still got tight chest, knots in
Speaker 1: my stomach, But instead of struggling with it, I'm going
Speaker 1: to put all my energy and all my attention into
Speaker 1: doing some meaningful, life enhancing activity guided by my values,
Speaker 1: behaving like the person I want to be, doing something
Speaker 1: that's important to me. And I'll just let that anxiety
Speaker 1: do its own things. So now it doesn't get amplified.
Speaker 1: You don't get all of this anxiety about anxiety and
Speaker 1: the anger and the sadness and all the other stuff
Speaker 1: that goes with it. Um And it may get higher
Speaker 1: if I'm in a really challenging, anxiety provoking situation facing
Speaker 1: one of my greatest fears. It may hang around for
Speaker 1: a long time, it may move on very rapidly. But
Speaker 1: the point is it's free to come and go, whereas
Speaker 1: with the switch on, it's kind of it's definitely going
Speaker 1: to hang around, and it doesn't get amplified with all
Speaker 1: of this secondary stuff, and it doesn't eat up all
Speaker 1: our energy and our attention struggling with it. We can
Speaker 1: now put that instead into other more meaningful activities. Wonderful. Well,
Speaker 1: you and I talked before. We're going to make this
Speaker 1: a two part series, and so we're going to come
Speaker 1: back in the next episode and we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about some of the other act principles. We're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about connection the observing self. And we're also going to
Speaker 1: talk about what you've said several times, which is knowing
Speaker 1: what your values are and then taking committed actions. So
Speaker 1: I'm having this emotion, but here's what I value and
Speaker 1: here's how I take committed action. And I think that's
Speaker 1: such an important part that I want to spend more
Speaker 1: time focusing on, is how do we do that even
Speaker 1: in spite of these emotions that we're having. So UM
Speaker 1: Part two will be coming out next week. So Russ,
Speaker 1: thank you for this and uh listeners. Part two will
Speaker 1: be out next week. Thank you. If what you just
Speaker 1: heard was helpful to you, please consider making a donation
Speaker 1: to the one you Feed podcast. Head over to one
Speaker 1: you Feed dot net slash support