Exercising Your Willingness Muscles

by Annabelle Mebane, MA, AMFT

When you’re someone who experiences a lot of anxiety, it’s easy to end up internalizing unhelpful messages like “you’re too sensitive,” or to think that any time you are having any big feelings, it’s “just anxiety” and that you need to push through or get over those feelings. But a crucial component of learning to respond to anxiety more effectively involves learning to respond more flexibly.

The goal of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) – an evidence based transdiagnostic treatment model – is to increase what we call psychological flexibility:

the ability to do what matters most to you no matter what uncomfortable thoughts, feelings, memories, or sensations arise in the process. It’s to accept painful feelings, notice painful thoughts as thoughts rather than always buying into them, and choose to move toward your values even when it’s uncomfortable. Without a solid understanding of values, it might be easy to confuse accepting painful feelings and getting distance from painful thoughts with needing to push through all discomfort no matter what.

But acceptance is not about white knuckling your way through pain,

and defusing from your thoughts is not about writing off all uncomfortable thoughts as “just anxiety.” Yes, anxious thoughts can be unhelpful. Yes, they can get you stuck. But rigidly pushing through all anxiety without getting curious about your pain can be just as unhelpful as rigidly buying into every anxious thought and avoiding anything that brings up those anxious feelings.

Here is the thing: your pain is full of really important information.

Sometimes the way your mind tries to deliver that information is not helpful or accurate. But the pain shows up for a reason. And usually that reason is linked to your values. Sometimes, the reason is that you care so much about something that it hurts. When you care deeply, you risk feeling the pain of failure, loss, rejection, grief, etc. Other times, painful feelings show up to alert you that there is something untenable about a situation, relationship, or context, and to compel you to take actions to protect, advocate for, and take care of yourself.

Acceptance allows you to make space for your feelings, to notice your experience with curiosity and compassion, and to choose how to respond in a way that moves you toward your values.

Sometimes that response involves persisting and acknowledging that the discomfort is likely to come along for the ride as the price of growth and vitality. Sometimes the response involves setting a boundary, saying no, speaking up for yourself, or removing yourself from a situation that is unsafe or out of alignment with what you want or need.

Think of acceptance in the context of working out.

If you want your muscles to grow, you will be required to experience and allow for some discomfort. But there is discomfort that feels like pushing yourself in service of growth, and then there is discomfort that feels like you may be injuring yourself and to persist would actually impede your growth. When we are mindful of our feelings and willing to experience and notice them, we are empowered with important information about how to proceed in a way that ultimately moves us toward our values.

IF YOU OR SOMEONE YOU LOVE NEEDS SUPPORT AND MIGHT BENEFIT FROM COGNITIVE BEHAVIORAL THERAPY (CBT) OR ACCEPTANCE AND COMMITMENT THERAPY (ACT) FOR ANXIETY, PANIC, PHOBIAS, STRESS, PTSD, OCD, OR STRESS RELATED TO COVID-19, OR IF YOU WOULD LIKE MORE INFORMATION ABOUT OUR TELEHEALTH SERVICES, PLEASE CONTACT US AT (858) 354-4077 OR AT INFO@CSAMSANDIEGO.COM

Getting Comfortable Being Uncomfortable

By Annabelle Parr, MA, AMFT

One of the main goals in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is to help clients get comfortable being uncomfortable. This may sound strange at first, after all isn’t therapy meant to help alleviate suffering? So why would an evidence-based treatment model suggest that we get comfortable being uncomfortable?

Because the struggle to get rid of pain often comes at a cost.

When our energy and attention are wrapped up in trying to move us away from discomfort, several things typically happen:

1. First, the attempt to avoid discomfort or anxiety works. We get an instant sense of relief. This is really rewarding to our brains and our bodies, and because it is so rewarding it can make us more likely to choose that avoidance again in the future.

2. But relief is usually only temporary. In the long run, anxiety finds a way of returning. And when it comes back, it is sometimes even stronger than before. When we avoid the things that make us feel anxious, we reinforce the story our minds tell us that anxiety is unmanageable and that we are in danger.

3. Third, and possibly most importantly, in the fight to try to make anxiety go away it’s easy to lose sight of what is most meaningful and important to us in our lives. Our behavior becomes about trying to get rid of discomfort rather than about being present to and doing the things that matter to us.

There is a Buddhist saying that helps explain the high price of avoidance:

Pain x Resistance = Suffering 

Anxiety and other painful emotions are really uncomfortable, and they are an inescapable part of the human experience. When we try to resist or avoid that pain, instead of allowing it to be as it is and continuing to engage in valued actions, our discomfort escalates into suffering. Maybe that suffering looks like worrying about the fact that we are anxious. Maybe it involves our minds beating us up for the fact that what we are experiencing is not easy, the way it seems to be for others. Maybe that suffering involves feeling unable to connect with something important to us. When we choose a different response and drop the resistance to our pain, we can reduce that suffering.

The alternative to resistance is willingness.

Willingness is getting comfortable being uncomfortable and allowing our internal experience to be as it is without trying to control or change it. When we are no longer caught trying to wrestle with and get rid of our anxiety, we get to choose what we do instead.

• We can decide to be brave and take a flight to go visit family we haven’t seen in years.

• We can decide to be vulnerable and go out on a first date.

• We can decide to be bold and ask for a raise.

• We can decide to take care of ourselves and schedule that check up, or take care of others and go donate blood.

• We can love more deeply, fully, and wholeheartedly when we are willing to allow the possibility or even the probability that we may one day lose those we love.

When we are comfortable being uncomfortable, our life expands. We can allow ourselves to care deeply about what matters most in our lives. We get to make a choice about who and how we want to be in the world, and about what actions are important enough to us to allow ourselves to feel the pounding heart, sweaty palms, shaky legs, racing mind that comes with anxiety.

CSAM IS HERE TO HELP

If you or someone you love needs support and might benefit from cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) or acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) for anxiety, panic, phobias, stress, PTSD, OCD, uncertainty or stress related to COVID-19, or if you would like more information about our telehealth services, please contact us at (858) 354-4077 or at info@csamsandiego.com

Mental Wellness Month: How Do We Define Wellness?

By Annabelle Parr

According to the internet, January is Mental Wellness Month. Sounds like a good cause, right? Absolutely! But pausing to consider our definition of mental wellness is important. Because if you spend much time on the internet, it might have you believing that wellness and self-care are defined by bubble baths, weighted blankets, and being perpetually Zenned out. And bubble baths, weighted blankets, and being in touch with your inner Zen are great! But mental wellness and caring for ourselves are not quite that simple.

So from a therapeutic perspective, what exactly is mental wellness? If we define illness based on a list of symptoms, do we define wellness simply as a lack of said symptomology? Or does wellness have its own particular set of characteristics equally worth defining?

If illness is a sense of dis-ease, is wellness a perpetual state of ease?

Psychiatry and psychotherapy developed based on a model which was focused primarily on pathology and illness or “dis-ease.” Beginning with Sigmund Freud’s exploration of the unconscious mind and evolving toward a medical model of treatment centered around the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), psychotherapy has historically been centered around identifying and diagnosing a problem and working to treat it. And of course, this is a worthy mission, but it is an incomplete picture of the larger whole of life. Life is not simply about absence of illness, dis-ease, or discomfort. It is about engaging in life in a way that brings us meaning, purpose, and hopefully some joy as well.

Wellness is not about the absence of discomfort, but rather the presence of meaning.

From an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) perspective, mental wellness is defined by our ability to engage in life in ways that bring us a sense of meaning, purpose, and vitality. Mental wellness is characterized by our ability to, moment by moment, make choices and take action in the service of our personally chosen values. And this might be surprising, but it is actually deliberately NOT defined by a lack of painful emotions, such as anxiety, fear, worry, and stress. Not only are these feelings and experiences an unavoidable part of being human, but they are directly and inextricably linked to our values.

“We hurt where we care.”

Steven Hayes, one of the ACT co-founders, noted that we hurt where we care. As Dr. Jill Stoddard pointed out in her book, Be Mighty: A Woman’s Guide to Liberation from Anxiety, Worry & Stress Using Mindfulness & Acceptance, when we look at the things that keep us up at night, the ones that weigh heavy on our minds and hearts, they probably do not include the fate of Netflix. We might enjoy a good Netflix binge, but whether Netflix will continue to thrive is probably not on our list of worries. Instead, the things that we worry about tend to be the things that matter to us on a deep level, such as our family, friends, work, home, etc.

Pain and values are two sides of the same coin.

In other words, when we look closely, the emotional pain we experience tends to point directly to what’s important to us. If we want a life that is full of wellness – full of those things that truly matter to us, that bring us joy, connection, passion, and purpose – we have to be willing to risk having difficult and painful feelings. We cannot have one without the other because it wouldn’t hurt if we didn’t care and vice versa. When we try to rid ourselves of all painful feelings, we also restrict our ability to engage with the things that we really care about. As much as we might wish otherwise, we cannot have joy without also risking pain. As Brené Brown said so well, we cannot selectively numb emotion. When we are unwilling to have pain, we will also be less able to experience joy.

Our emotions are not problems to be solved; the problem is when our behavior prevents us from engaging in life in functional and fulfilling ways.

From a diagnostic perspective, it is not simply the presence of anxiety that warrants a diagnosis; rather it is the functional impairment that the anxiety creates that helps determine whether someone meets criteria for diagnosis. Said otherwise, a diagnosis includes consideration of whether your experience of your emotions, thoughts, and sensations causes you to limit your behavior such that your life is restricted in significant areas, like work, school, and relationships.

Wellness is about how we respond to pain when it shows up.

Therefore, wellness is not defined by the absence of stress, anxiety, grief, worry, anger, or frankly any other emotion. Instead it is all about how you are able to manage difficult thoughts, feelings, and experiences and still continue to engage in life in a way that is fulfilling, meaningful, and guided by what is important to you. And ACT, beyond emphasizing the importance of values-based actions, has plenty of wisdom regarding how to increase psychological flexibility such that you are able to respond more effectively when discomfort arises.

If you find that your thoughts and feelings are holding you back from living your life in the way that you might want, ACT can help. For some excellent resources, check out our suggested reading and our suggested podcasts. For professional support, an ACT therapist can help guide you on your journey.

CSAM IS HERE TO HELP

If you or someone you love needs support and might benefit from cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) or acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) for anxiety, panic, phobias, stress, PTSD, OCD, or insomnia, or if you would like more information about our therapy services, please contact us at (858) 354-4077 or at info@csamsandiego.com

Empowering Women with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

by Annabelle Parr

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), women are twice as likely to be diagnosed with anxiety and depression as men. Women are also the largest group diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Some argue that rather than some innate, biological predisposition to these disorders, the context in which women exist may be the cause of the gender disparity (see Dr. Robyn Walser’s article and Dr. Jill Stoddard’s upcoming book Be Mighty). The WHO states, “gender specific risk factors for common mental disorders that disproportionately affect women include gender based violence, socioeconomic disadvantage, low income and income inequality, low or subordinate social status and rank and unremitting responsibility for the care of others.” When gender intersects with other facets of identity, such as race, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status, risk factors and inequities are further compounded. 

As Dr. Stoddard discusses in Be Mighty, women are paid less for equal work (Bishu & Alkandry, 2017), are largely responsible for household and caretaking tasks even when working outside the home (Pew Research Center, 2015), are less likely than men to be introduced by our professional title (Files et al., 2017), are evaluated as either likeable or competent as if the two were mutually exclusive (Heilman et al., 2004; Rudman & Glick, 1999), and are seen as less desirable when we outperform men (Park, Young, & Eastwick, 2015). Women are also taught that there is a narrow and rigid standard of beauty to which we must conform. Not only is our inherent worth devalued in all the ways above, but 1 in 3 women experience sexual violence in their lifetime (and little girls are twice as likely as little boys to be sexually abused). And 1 in 3 women have experienced some form of intimate partner violence (domestic violence). On top of the violence women are subjected to, we watch as victims are blamed when they come forward. They are asked to provide extensive hard evidence for the injuries perpetrated against them, questioned on their authority to be the expert on their own experience. Meanwhile, the perpetrator’s word that he didn’t do it is sufficient evidence for so-called justice to take his side, and the victim is demonized for having the audacity to speak up.

Things are changing. In the past few years we have seen a dramatic shift with women everywhere speaking up and sharing their stories, both leading up to and following the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements. But there is still a long way to go. When we really let in awareness of the injustice present in our culture, it can trigger enormous anger – an emotion women are taught we are not allowed to have. Though anger can drive productive action against injustice, it can also become overwhelming and a barrier to movement. And particularly when we are not allowed to have it, it can easily turn to depression.

Some argue that in boiling the problem down to individual mental health problems, we do women a disservice and we miss the bigger problem. What if we had an alternative? What if instead of suggesting she is the one with a problem, we saw her pain as a result of a system that tells her she is worth less?

Yeah, what if? But what now? What do we do with all of this information? Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) has some suggestions to help empower women in a context of inequality.

First, we get present. We attune to our experience in the here and now. We do our best to cultivate a willingness to feel it, to not turn away from it, despite the larger messages designed to silence us, our experiences, and our pain. This allows us to turn toward doing what matters, rather than focusing all of our energy on turning away from our pain.

Next, we cultivate an observer self. We begin to hold ourselves with compassion, like we might hold our 5-year-old selves. No matter how many negative messages we have absorbed about who we are, what we deserve, and how we have to be, there is a self underneath all of that. We are much more complex and greater than those stories we have been taught to believe. When we are able to take a new perspective on how we see ourselves and our pain –holding ourselves with the compassion we would have for a child or a friend – we become our own ally rather than our own worst enemy. In connecting to a sense of ourselves that is more nuanced and complex than any one story, we are no longer defined as unidimensional. We are free to do what matters, to live life according to our values rather than confined by messages designed to keep us boxed in.

With this observer self awareness, we can learn to examine our thoughts, such as those that tell us we have nothing of value to say, that we can’t make a difference, that we are alone, or that we are to blame. And we can learn to see those thoughts for what they are: words. When we can stop taking our thoughts as literal truths, we can choose to take action that deliberately defies them when they do not serve us. We can think “my voice and my actions don’t matter” and still choose to stand up for what we believe in. 

We show up to our pain because it deserves to be acknowledged and seen. And because within pain is valuable information. Behind our pain lies our values – they are two sides of the same coin. We wouldn’t hurt if it didn’t matter. Pain and values are inseparable and both are vital; we can’t have one without the other. Pain can feel overwhelming, but when we listen to the message it is communicating, we can identify those things that are important to us. And when we connect to our personally chosen, deeply held values, we have a compass pointing toward the direction we want to move. When we know what is important to us, we are also afforded the opportunity to connect with others who share our values. The connection to what is important to us and to others who share our values are the fuel that keeps us going when it gets hard. When our minds tell us we can’t keep going, our values remind us why we will try anyway.

Once we know our values and we are able to show up willingly to our experience in the present, we are able to commit to specific actions that are connected to what matters to us. All those thoughts that we can’t make a difference or that our voice is not loud enough are suddenly not quite so significant, because now what matters in this moment is that we act in service of what is important to us. We don’t get to control the outcome, but we do get to know that we are engaging in life in a way that is empowered by our values rather than dictated by systems determined to keep us silent and small.

Just as research shows us the ways that women are treated as “less than,” it also shows us what happens when women are empowered and are present in spaces that were traditionally not open to us. In Be Mighty, Dr. Stoddard notes that patients show health benefits when they are treated by female physicians – including lower mortality rates and fewer hospital readmissions (Tsugawa et al., 2017); corporate finances improve when women are present in leadership (Hunt, Layton, & Prince, 2015) and boards become more effective when women bring our skills to the table (Daehyun & Starks, 2016). Women’s presence in decision making improves the environment (Cook, Grillos, & Anderson, 2019) and helps facilitate more effective and enduring peace agreements (Paffenholz, Kew, & Wanis-St. John, 2006; O’Reilly, Súilleabháin, & Paffenholz, 2015). And when women are involved in politics, the lives of all women and mothers improve as their interests are represented and advocated for (Swers, 2005; Anzia & Berry, 2011).  

The world is a better place when women are represented in positions of power and leadership. And just as it is important to acknowledge that things improve for everyone when women are empowered, it is also important to acknowledge that women deserve equality and empowerment as individuals whose worth is not gauged based on the collective value we offer, but is based on our individual humanity and inherent worth. Our worth is not defined by what we can give to others, but is instead based on the fact that our existence alone is enough to mean we matter. 

So how do we move toward empowerment? We start by holding our pain the way we might hold something precious. It deserves our attention and our care. Once you know your pain, you can begin to consider what it says about what is important to you. And then you can start to take actions, large or small, toward what matters.

For more information on using ACT to empower women, check out Praxis trainings, particularly the upcoming Fierce, Fabulous, and Female online training. Also, check out Dr. Jill Stoddard’s book, to be released January 2020: Be Mighty: A Woman's Guide to Liberation from Anxiety, Worry, and Stress Using Mindfulness and Acceptance and Dr. Janina Scarlet’s upcoming book, release date TBD: Super-Women: Superhero Therapy for Women Battling Anxiety, Depression, and Trauma.

CSAM IS HERE TO HELP

If you or someone you love might benefit from cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) or acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) for anxiety, panic, phobias, stress, PTSD, OCD, or insomnia, or if you would like more information about our therapy services, please contact us at (858) 354-4077 or at info@csamsandiego.com

References

Anzia, S. F., and C. R. Berry. 2011. “The Jackie (and Jill) Robinson Effect: Why Do Congresswomen Outperform Congressmen?” American Journal of Political Science 55: 478–493.

Bishu, S. G., and M. G. Alkadry. 2017. “A Systematic Review of the Gender Pay Gap and Factors That Predict It.” Administration & Society, 49: 65-104.

Cook, N. J., T. Grillos, and K. P. Anderson. 2019. “Gender quotas increase the Equality and Effectiveness of Climate Policy Interventions.” Nature Climate Change 9: 330–334.

Daehyun, K., and L. T. Starks. 2016. “Gender Diversity on Corporate Boards: Do Women Contribute Unique Skills?” American Economic Review 106: 267–71.

Files, J. A., A. P. Mayer, M. G. Ko, P. Friedrich, M. Jenkins, M. J. Bryan, S. Vegunta, C. M. Wittich, M. A. Lyle, R. Melikian, T. Duston, Y. H. Chang, and S. N. Hayes. 2017. “Speaker Introductions at Internal Medicine Grand Rounds: Forms of Address Reveal Gender Bias.” Journal of Women’s Health 26: 413–419.

Heilman, M. E., A. S. Wallen, D. Fuchs, and M. M. Tamkins. 2004. “Penalties for Success: Reactions to Women Who Succeed at Male Gender-Typed Tasks.” Journal of Applied Psychology 89: 416–427.

Hunt, V., D. Layton, and S. Prince. 2015. “Why Diversity Matters.” McKinsey and Company Annual Report. https://www.mckinsey. com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/why-diversity- matters. Accessed March 24, 2019.

O’Reilly, M., A. S illeabh in, and T. Paffenholz. 2015. “Reimagining Peacemaking: Women’s Roles in Peace Processes,” New York: International Peace Institute.

Paffenholz, T., D. Kew, and A. Wanis-St. John. 2006. Civil Society and Peace Negotiations: Why, Whether and How They Could be Involved. Paper presented at the International Studies Association Conference, March, San Diego, CA.

Park, L. E., A. F. Young, and P. W. Eastwick. 2015. “Psychological Distance Makes the Heart Grow Fonder: Effects of Psychological Distance and Relative Intelligence on Men’s Attraction to Women.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 4: 1,459–1,473.

Pew Research Center. 2015. “Raising Kids and Running a Household: How Working Parents Share the Load.” Accessed November 10, 2018. http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/11/04/ raising-kids-and-running-a-household-how-working-parents- share-the-load/.

Rudman, L. A., and P. Glick. 1999. “Feminized Management and Backlash Toward Agentic Women: The Hidden Costs to Women of a Kinder, Gentler Image of Middle Managers.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 77: 1,004–1,010.

Stoddard, J. A. (2020). Be mighty: A woman’s guide to liberation from anxiety, worry, & stress using mindfulness and acceptance. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger.

Swers, M. L. 2005. “Connecting Descriptive and Substantive Representation: An Analysis of Sex Differences in Cosponsorship Activity.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 30 (3): 407–433.

Tsugawa Y., A. B. Jena, J. F. Figueroa, E. J. Orav, D. M. Blumenthal, and A. K. Jha. 2017. “Comparison of Hospital Mortality and Readmission Rates for Medicare Patients Treated by Male vs Female Physicians.” JAMA Internal Medicine 177: 206–213.

Redefining Passion with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

by Annabelle Parr

Passion is supposedly a value touted by our culture: you should be passionate about your work, your partner, your children, your major, the things you fill your free time with, etc. But what does this actually mean? The way it is framed, it seems that passion is synonymous with happiness. It’s just one more layer of the larger societal message – fed and sold to us in myriad ways – that we should be happy on an ongoing basis, and that discomfort (anxiety, sadness, fear, stress, grief, etc.) is a sign that something is wrong and we need to fix it.

This colloquial use of the word passion seems to suggest that happiness is not a fleeting emotion like any other, but rather a superior, potentially permanent state of being to be achieved. After all, if you are passionate about something, it means you love it. All. The. Time. Right? 

Plot twist: passion literally translated actually means suffering—it comes from the Latin pati meaning to suffer

The true meaning of passion flips our happiness-obsessed culture on its head. If passion means to suffer, then saying follow your passion does not mean that you will be perpetually stoked to go to work. When we promote the value of passion with our partners, it doesn’t mean you will be forever on cloud-nine-oxytocin (a.k.a. love hormone)-high. When we advocate for passion when it comes to parenting, that doesn’t mean that you will think your kids are the cutest thing on the planet, incapable of doing any wrong, 24/7. When we say choose a major you are passionate about, it doesn’t mean every lecture is going to be life changing.

Okay, then what does it mean? Because surely we are not advocating for actively pursuing suffering?!

Passion, far from being about permanent happiness, is about choosing to commit in big and small ways, over and over again, to something that you have personally chosen to care about, so much so that you are willing to encounter not only joy and happiness, but also pain and suffering in its pursuit. After all, we hurt most in the areas that matter to us; if we didn’t care, it wouldn’t hurt. A life filled with passion is not a perfect life, but it is a full, juicy one.

Enter Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). 

This radical new view on passion is remarkably consistent with the goal of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which is to foster psychological flexibility: the ability to be open, aware, and engaged in our experience such that we are able to hold our experience gently, contact what is important to us, and choose to take action in the direction of our values even when we encounter discomfort.

The ACT perspective holds that pain is not the problem. Instead, problems arise in our lives when we are not willing to experience pain – suffering is magnified by our efforts to avoid it. Paradoxically, that first distorted definition of passion is likely to lead us further and further away not only from moment-to-moment happiness, but also away from a life guided by what matters to us, as we become increasingly restricted by our mission to try to avoid discomfort.

On the other hand, when we live our lives with real passion – a willingness to suffer as we pursue our personally chosen values – life opens up to us. When we are willing to feel anxiety, grief, sadness, fear, stress, pain, and anger (all those supposedly “negative” emotions), we are also more able to experience joy, love, connection, and yes, happiness. When we cut ourselves off from feeling half of our heart, we end up numbing the whole thing. When we are willing to feel the difficult and painful feelings, we gain access to a much deeper layer of the “positive” feelings as a result.

Obviously, all of this is a lot easier said than done. Our minds are wired to problem solve, and our culture tells us that emotions other than happiness are problems. But we do not have to stay small, stuck in a life graded solely based on the percentage of moments defined by happiness. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy can give us the tools we need to be more flexible in the face of pain so that we can go about pursuing a life rich with passion, in its truest sense.

CSAM IS HERE TO HELP

If you or someone you love might benefit from cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) or acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) for anxiety, panic, phobias, stress, PTSD, OCD, or insomnia, or if you would like more information about our therapy services, please contact us at (858) 354-4077 or at info@csamsandiego.com

My Horcrux Diary

guest blog post by Dr. Nic Hooper

Have you read the quote below by T.E. Lawrence?

"All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake up in the day to find it was vanity, but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.”  

I’m a dreamer. Always have been. Ever since I could remember, I wanted to do remarkable things that would make the world a better place. Over the years, I’ve had lots of ideas for how to do this but often I would ‘wake up in the day to find it was vanity’. In other words, the ideas remained just that; ideas. On a recent project, I became a ‘dreamer of the day’.

I research an approach to human suffering named Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). The pitch of ACT goes something like this: if we can be willing to experience all of our thoughts and feelings, both positive and negative, whilst continuing to move in valued directions, then we will do a decent job at this game of life. One night, after delivering an ACT intervention to teachers, I had this thought: “It is really easy to forget our values; I need to create something that will remind people of what is important to them.” In the following weeks I came up with the idea of an annual diary. For the most part, this diary would be like any other diary i.e. it would have days and dates and spaces to record meetings. However, it would also provide an opportunity for the user to record what is important to them at the beginning of each week.

Ok, so there was the idea. Now I had to do something with it. The first step was easy; I loaded Microsoft Word and spent hours and hours and hours (with my co-author Dr. Freddy Jackson Brown) shaping the words and lines that would make up the inside of the diary. The second step was more difficult. I had to figure out how to take that file and turn it into a product. First question: a publisher or a printing house? No publisher was interested so we went with a printing house. Then, more questions. What sort of spine to go for? How thick should the paper be? How many copies should we buy? How should we sell it? What are the best postage and packaging options? How should we advertise it? How should we accept payment for it? How do we pay tax? Who is going to post them? How should we grow the product over time?

During the first and second steps I faced a fair bit of discomfort (i.e. seemingly powerful negative thoughts often crossed my mind: “this is a waste of time”, “nobody will like it” or “you should be spending this time with Max”). However, the third step of making my idea a reality brought the most discomfort: once I had the completed product, I sent it out there into the scary world. And given that success or failure has implications for how I feel about myself, my diary is a bit like a Horcrux in the Harry Potter story. In that story, the bad guy (Voldemort) poured his soul into a number of items and placed them out there in the world. Those items were called ‘Horcruxes’. His thinking was that this strategy would make him more difficult to kill.

Like Voldemort, I poured my soul into this Horcrux. And like Voldemort, any attack on the Horcrux feels like it kills a part of my soul (‘attack’ is an extreme word that is possibly misplaced here. By ‘attack’, what I mean is any evidence I see that the diary is not worthy, whether it be a lack of sales, little interest on social media or negative feedback). My Horcrux diary is now out there in the world fending not just for itself but, in some ways, for me also. A bit of my soul is unprotected; it can be scrutinized, criticized or ignored. It can fail. And if it fails then it will hurt like hell.

The feeling of vulnerability that comes with trying to do something remarkable is tiring, and it often makes me question whether it would have been better to stay a ‘dreamer of the night’. If my Horcrux is inside my mind then nobody can see it; nobody can hurt me. However, every time I think about this I come to the same conclusion. Although being a ‘dreamer of the night’ comes with built-in safety, if I didn’t do something with my dreams then I’d be living a life out of step with my value of making the world a better place, and consequently, I’d feel empty.

Why am I telling you all this? For two reasons. Firstly, I want you to see how ACT is in my blood. Just in this blog you will spot how I used important ACT processes (willingness, defusion, self-as-context, values). Secondly, and more importantly, I want you to see that having ACT in my blood helped me to chase my dreams, and that it can help you to do the same. Chasing dreams will bring vulnerability but if you know what to do with vulnerability then you will be free.

Interested in checking out Dr. Hooper’s Annual Diary for Valued Action? Check it out here.

CSAM IS HERE TO HELP

If you or someone you love might benefit from cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) or acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) for anxiety, stress, PTSD, insomnia, or chronic illness, or if you would like more information about our therapy services, please contact us at (858) 354-4077 or at info@csamsandiego.com