5 Life Lessons From Taylor Swift’s Miss Americana and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

By Annabelle Parr

In her new documentary, Miss Americana, Taylor Swift not only gives her fans a whole new window into her life, she also beautifully exemplifies a way of being that is remarkably consistent with the principles of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).

The documentary takes us through Taylor’s life and her rise to fame. She shares how for the first part of her career, she was consumed with a hunger for approval from others. Her entire persona was built on the premise of being a “good” girl: sweet, agreeable, likeable, pretty, thin, reserved, perfect.

A nice girl doesn’t force their opinions on people. A nice girl smiles and waves and says ‘thank you.’ A nice girl doesn’t make people feel uncomfortable with her views. I was so obsessed with not getting in trouble, I’m just not going to do anything that anyone can say anything about.

In ACT, we would say that Taylor was caught in “self-as-content” mode. She viewed herself as equivalent to the content of her thoughts and the content of others’ opinions about her. She was fused to an idea about who and how she was and had to be. And for good reason. She was and is constantly bombarded with both positive and negative messages about herself from millions of people.

1. We are designed to crave acceptance and connection.

For Taylor, just like for every one of us, there are very good reasons for why we come to view ourselves in a particular way: we exist in a context in which we pick up messages about who we are or how we should be, and our minds latch on to those ideas to try to protect us. Back in our hunter-gatherer days, our literal survival was tied directly to social acceptance and cohesion with the group. So we are hard wired to need connection and acceptance.

2. Often we seek that acceptance out by trying to make ourselves into who we think we are supposed to be.

Taylor, like so many of us, tried to fit herself into the mold of what others wanted from her. However, as Taylor found, this strategy often comes at a high price.

First, it cuts us off from parts of ourselves that are absolutely integral to who we are.

Our wholeness suffers when we are required to squeeze into a box of who we think we “should” be. We lose touch with who we truly are as we seek approval and try endlessly to please others. Taylor notes, “I became the person who everyone wanted me to be.” She literally stopped feeding herself in an effort to make herself small enough to fit into the mold of what was expected of her. 

Second, no matter how desperately we try, we will never please everyone.

Approval from others is a fragile foundation on which to lay our self-worth, because inevitably we will disappoint some people sometimes. Even as Taylor was starving herself, she saw that “there’s always some standard of beauty that you’re not meeting.” There are a number of double binds that are particularly present for women, and they include more than just paradoxical beauty requirements (e.g. be skinny, but also have a big butt). As Dr. Jill Stoddard noted in Be Mighty: A Woman’s Guide to Liberation from Anxiety, Worry & Stress Using Mindfulness and Acceptance Strategies, “we are evaluated as less competent when we are seen as likeable; when we are considered competent, we are more likely to be labeled unlikeable (Heilman et al., 2004; Rudman and Glick, 1999)”. This likability bind is another that Taylor is intimately familiar with. As Taylor states so poignantly,

When you’re living for the approval of strangers, and that is where you derive all of your joy and fulfillment, one bad thing can cause everything to crumble…When people decided I was wicked and evil and conniving and not a good person, that was the one I couldn’t bounce back from because my whole life was centered around it.

Most of us are not mega-famous like Taylor, but her words are incredibly relatable for anyone who has ever relied on approval from others to feel okay.

3. The thing is, we cannot avoid discomfort.

It might seem like if we just make ourselves perfect enough, we could avoid rejection or criticism or failure. But even if we could be perfect and avoid all of those things, we then would have to wrestle with the pain of making ourselves smaller to be more acceptable. ACT teaches us that pain is inevitable, and that the problem is not the pain itself but the rigid and inflexible ways we respond to it and the ways we restrict our lives to try to avoid it. 

4. It’s not your fault, and it is your responsibility to do something different if you want to see change.

Taylor describes feeling muzzled for most of her career. She says that it was her own doing, which is true to an extent in that she discovered that she could choose to speak up and be true to who she really is. However, it’s also important to note that she was muzzled by a culture and a context that told her in order to be liked, accepted, successful, and safe, she was not allowed to have an authentic voice. It was not her fault that she was muzzled, but it was up to her to break free. And in doing so, she is setting a powerful example for other women, pop star and otherwise, that authenticity and success are not mutually exclusive. She is helping to shift a culture that has muzzled women for centuries.

I want to wear pink and tell you how I feel about politics. And I don’t think that those things have to cancel each other out.

5. Our values can help set us free.

As viewers watch Taylor descend into isolation and depression resulting from others’ negative opinions of her, we also see her begin to change and grow in really powerful ways. She transforms from the stereotypical picture of a “good girl” into a bold, strong, mighty, authentic woman. She is no longer driven by the opinions of others, but grounded in what is important to her: being present with her family and her partner, and using her voice to stand up for what she believes in. She displays a willingness to risk rejection and discomfort in the service of speaking up for women, the LGBTQ+ community, sexual assault survivors, and minorities. She is often advised to stay small and quiet, but chooses instead to be true to who she is.

ACT in ACTion.

In cultivating a willingness to risk pain and rejection, getting present to who and what matters most, and recognizing she is far more than the stories told about her, Taylor is able to make choices in line with her own authentic, personally held values. The documentary finishes with Taylor saying,            

I want to still have a sharp pen and a thin skin and an open heart.

This last piece of wisdom is important: the key is not to stop caring, but rather to get grounded in who you are and what you care about. Our pain points us toward our values. It hurts precisely because we care. Vulnerability is a strength, and it is only when we are willing to risk discomfort that we are truly able to connect with what matters.

Rather than let her experiences and her pain harden her, Taylor allowed herself to feel her feelings and to use them as fuel to get clear on who she wants to be in the world. Her thin skin and open heart are not only the things that give her songwriting such power, but also the things that empower her to stand strong in herself even when it isn’t easy or comfortable.

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

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