0:00

You can do positive thinking courses

0:02

and learn to think more positively, but it's

0:04

not going to stomp negative thoughts from

0:06

showing up. Like if you learn to speak

0:08

Spanish, you're not gonna forget English.

0:19

Welcome to the one you feed Throughout

0:21

time, great thinkers have recognized the

0:23

importance of the thoughts we have, quotes

0:26

like garbage in, garbage out,

0:28

or you are what you think ring

0:30

true. And yet for many of

0:32

us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower

0:35

us. We tend toward negativity, self

0:37

pity, jealousy, or fear.

0:40

We see what we don't have instead of what we

0:42

do. We think things that hold us

0:44

back and dampen our spirit. But

0:46

it's not just about thinking. Our

0:48

actions matter. It takes conscious,

0:51

consistent, and creative effort to make

0:53

a life worth living. This podcast

0:55

is about how other people keep themselves moving

0:57

in the right direction, how they fee

1:00

their good wolf. Thanks

1:14

for joining us. Our guest on this episode

1:16

is Russ Harris. This episode is

1:18

part one of a two part interview with Ross.

1:21

He's a medical practitioner, psychotherapist,

1:23

and leading expert and acceptance and commitment

1:26

therapy, also known as a c T.

1:29

His books include A CT with Love,

1:31

a CT Made Simple, The Confidence

1:34

Gap and the Happiness Trap, which

1:36

has now been translated into twenty two

1:38

languages. Russ lives in Melbourne,

1:40

Australia and travels internationally to train

1:43

mental health professionals in the A C T A

1:45

purchase And here's part one with

1:47

Russ. Harris, Hi, Russ, welcome

1:49

to the show. Thanks for inviting

1:51

me. I'm really excited to have you on. Your

1:54

the second person we've had on the show that that

1:56

writes about and practices act

1:58

acceptance and commitment therapy. And I'll

2:00

give the second shout out to our listener Paul

2:03

in Ireland, who told me that

2:05

I should really look into it because it

2:07

basically sounds like a lot of the things we

2:09

talked about on the show, and it's it's definitely true.

2:11

And then the other thing is you use the phrase to create

2:14

a life worth living, which I said to you before

2:16

is the sub theme of this show, you

2:18

know, conversations about creating a life worth living.

2:20

So I think this is gonna be a great conversation

2:23

and I'm excited to have you on. But

2:25

let's start like we always do with

2:27

the parable And it's kind of funny because

2:29

when I originally asked you to come on the show.

2:32

You wrote back and you said you may not like my response

2:34

to the parable, which is which is great,

2:36

So I'm looking forward to hearing it. So there's

2:38

a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says,

2:40

in life, there are two wolves inside

2:42

of us that are always at battle. One

2:45

is a good wolf, which represents things like

2:47

kindness and bravery and love, and

2:49

the other is a bad wolf, which represents things

2:51

like greed and hatred and fear. And

2:55

the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second.

2:57

He says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And

2:59

the grand father says, the one you

3:01

feed. So I'd like to start off by

3:03

asking you what that parable means to

3:05

you in your life and in the work that you do.

3:08

So, as I I wrote to you,

3:11

I I'm not overly happy

3:13

with the way that parable ends,

3:16

because it conveys

3:18

the idea that there's we

3:20

need to have this battle going on between

3:23

the positive thoughts and feelings

3:25

and the negative thoughts and feelings. And the

3:27

way I would love that metaphor

3:30

or story to finish is that the grandfather

3:33

says, you know, as long

3:35

as these two wolves are fighting

3:37

each other, neither side

3:39

will win. Nobody wins in a

3:41

war, both sides lose. What

3:43

we want to do is help

3:46

these wolves to live with each other,

3:48

work with each other, make peace with

3:50

each other, learn from each other,

3:52

and cooperate with each other. And

3:54

then you know they are both

3:57

much stronger than if they were fighting

3:59

with each other or if one is

4:01

trying to win, because no wolf

4:03

will win for any long period

4:05

of time. Uh. And this

4:07

is kind of what the act approach is about. It's

4:09

about embracing all of

4:11

our thoughts, feelings, emotions, memories

4:14

that even the most painful or difficult ones,

4:16

we can learn from them and use

4:19

them in effective ways. I love that

4:21

idea. And one of the things I like about

4:23

the parable, I think, is the idea that

4:26

sort of humanizes the idea that you know

4:28

what, we're going to have both these things in

4:30

us and they're gonna be there, and you

4:32

know that's just what what happens. But yeah,

4:34

I love your take on it. So let's

4:37

go into You've written several

4:39

books. The most recent one is

4:41

called The Reality Slap. You've written one called

4:43

The Happiness Trap, the Confidence

4:46

Gap, and these are all books

4:48

that are you're using act

4:51

except in the commitment therapy is a way to sort

4:53

of look at these different domains

4:55

of challenges. I really love the

4:57

reality slap and then what it produce,

5:00

This is the reality gap. So I'd like to

5:02

start off and just talk a little bit about what

5:04

that is. What is the reality slap, and

5:07

then and then what follows it is the reality

5:09

gap. Okay,

5:11

I like all my books to have rhyming titles,

5:14

So um,

5:17

the reality slap to

5:19

turn I use for any of those big

5:22

life events that knock you around, when

5:24

life slaps you in the face, turns

5:26

you upside down, shakes you around,

5:28

those kind of unexpected wake up cools.

5:31

And that can be anything from

5:33

from a really small reality slap where

5:35

you suddenly realize that you

5:39

know you've you've acted in a way that's completely

5:41

any inappropriate and it's not who you

5:43

want to be, and you're you're just kind of shocked at what you've

5:45

done. You can't believe that you just lost

5:48

your temper with the person that you love and said

5:50

something really really hurtful. That

5:52

would be like a small version to a big version

5:54

where you suddenly get diagnosed with cancer

5:57

or the person that you love die

6:00

or you know, your business goes bankrupt

6:02

overnight. So, um, any

6:04

of those kind of moments brief or great,

6:07

where basically reality slaps you in

6:09

the face and uh, and you're

6:11

not expecting it. I like that idea of

6:13

the reality slap. And one of the examples

6:16

that you use in the book is like when

6:18

we see something in life that

6:20

we wish we had, So we see somebody else who's

6:23

being more successful. So I see a podcast

6:25

that started later than ours that's taken

6:28

off and is really successful, or

6:30

you know, we see somebody who who

6:33

has the job we want, or those

6:35

different things. I was kind of curious, you

6:37

know, in your mind, what are some of the

6:39

ways to start to deal

6:41

with that reality slap? If

6:44

I can just talk about the difference between the reality

6:46

slap and the reality gap.

6:48

Yes, so the reality slap

6:51

is those moments where you just kind of get slapped

6:53

in the face by you know, they're kind

6:55

of quite shocking moments. Um, the

6:58

reality gap may not be as

7:01

dramatic as that. You know, reality gap just

7:03

me as a gap between the reality that we want

7:05

and the reality that we have. So

7:08

you know, for example, most of us have a bit of

7:10

a reality gap about our our

7:12

bodies. You know, we often don't have

7:14

quite the body and the looks and appearance

7:16

and the six pack or the

7:19

legs that we would like to have, and

7:21

that's a kind of ongoing reality gap,

7:24

or there's often a gap between the sort

7:27

of person I want to be in my relationships

7:29

and the sort of person that I am being in my relationships.

7:32

So those are kind of when

7:34

you're talking about the the successful

7:37

podcast or the person who's got the job that

7:39

you want, or the person who's got the life

7:41

that you think that you would like to have. Those

7:43

are more kind of long

7:46

term reality gaps. They're kind of in our

7:48

face a lot of the time, and

7:50

of course that gives rise to the perfectly normal

7:53

human emotion of envy, something

7:56

that we all experience, and there's

7:58

different ways of responding to envy. Might just be

8:00

worth talking about the difference between jealousy and envy.

8:03

So, so envy is, you

8:05

know, a kind of a mixture of anxiety

8:07

and resentment about

8:09

somebody has something that I really want

8:12

and I would like to have it and it's not fair

8:15

that I haven't got it and they've got it and I

8:17

want it. So there's some comes sort of kind

8:19

of grudging resentment in there, and there's there's often

8:21

underneath that a bit of kind of anxiety. It's

8:24

like, you know, how is the

8:26

world like this? And why haven't I got this? And

8:28

I need this and a kind of sense of need, Whereas

8:32

jealousy is like a possessiveness of

8:34

a person. Um So I

8:37

want this person to spend time with me

8:39

and be interested in me. And if I see

8:41

this person kind of spending time with other

8:43

people, then I get jealous about

8:45

that. So often the terms are

8:47

used interchangeably that they they actually

8:49

have this difference. So when when there's a reality

8:52

gap in the sense that they've got something

8:54

that I really want, the first thing to do

8:57

is to simply notice it become aware

8:59

of it. We are to respond to these reality

9:01

gaps on automatic pilot, and that's

9:03

when we get caught up in our envy or our

9:05

resentment, or sometimes you know,

9:07

we start judging the other person or finding

9:10

ways to discount them. Oh wow, that podcast

9:12

is allowed of rubbish compared to my podcd uh,

9:16

you know, And the

9:19

starting point is always just to simply notice

9:21

there's a reality gap here, and I'm

9:23

feeling something right now that's really painful.

9:25

And often that will be envy, but it could be

9:27

other emotions too. That's your

9:29

starting point because when you start to notice and

9:32

become aware of how you're feeling and

9:34

what you're responding to, it pulls you out of

9:36

automatic pilot mode. I agree, and I think

9:38

that becoming aware of what's happening

9:40

is such an important step. Let's

9:42

go ahead and pivot into ACT

9:45

a little bit. So acceptance and Commitment therapy.

9:48

I want to talk through what it is, and then

9:50

there are different principles that lie

9:52

through, But why don't we just start with the high level overview

9:55

from your perspective of what acceptance

9:58

and Commitment therapy or ACT is is.

10:00

So ACT is an

10:03

empirically supported model

10:05

of therapy with over a thousand

10:07

published studies, created

10:09

originally by Stephen Hayes, who

10:11

I believe you've had on the show. And it's

10:14

basically a

10:16

way to maximize human

10:19

potential for living

10:21

a rich and meaningful life. So

10:23

it started off in the field of therapy

10:25

with things like depression and anxiety, but

10:28

now it's spread to schools, to

10:30

sports teams, to businesses.

10:32

It's really applicable to

10:35

any part of human life, whatever that

10:37

human endeavor is. Whatever humans

10:39

are dealing within their day to day life, how

10:41

can we help them live richer, full and more

10:43

meaningful lives while handling

10:46

more effectively the painful

10:48

thoughts feelings that life

10:50

inevitably gives us all. Yeah, you say

10:52

that. The core philosophy of ACT

10:55

is neatly encapsulated in

10:57

the Serenity Challenge, which is your

10:59

version of well known serenity Prayer, which

11:01

I think is one of the wisest

11:03

things that's ever been written. The Serenity Prayer and your

11:06

your version of it is developed

11:08

the courage to solve those problems that can be

11:10

solved, the serenity to accept those

11:12

problems that can't be solved, and the wisdom

11:14

to know the difference. I love it because I just think

11:17

it basically sums up like the

11:19

whole kitten caboodle of how to deal with

11:21

the world. Yeah, exactly, so, you

11:23

know. I mean, that's why ACTS is cooled acceptance

11:25

and commitment therapy. So it's accept what's

11:28

out of your personal control and

11:30

commit to action that improves and

11:32

enriches your life. And unfortunately,

11:35

we're often not very good at realizing

11:37

what is out of our control, and

11:40

even when we do, we're often not very good at

11:42

accepting it. Yeah, and I found you know that

11:44

people tend to air on one side

11:46

or the other, not in all areas,

11:48

but there tends to be, you know, I know people

11:50

who cannot accept things

11:52

that are clearly out of their control and spend a lot

11:55

of energy on it. I think the area that

11:57

I have probably struggled

11:59

more with his making responsibility and

12:01

the commitment for the things that I can

12:03

change, and maybe there's more

12:05

in my power that I'm able

12:07

to change, and sometimes in the past I might

12:09

have thought so that's kind of the side that I

12:12

air on, But I see lots of other

12:14

people who are on the other side, and that's why

12:16

I love it, because it basically just you know, wherever

12:19

you are on that spectrum, it points you back

12:21

towards the middle. Yeah, exactly.

12:23

I've just earlier last

12:26

year created a protocol,

12:29

an act based protocol for the World Health

12:31

Organization which they are currently

12:33

rolling out in refugee camps around

12:36

the world, starting in Syria

12:38

and Uganda. And so

12:41

this is very important. In those refugee

12:43

camps. You can't just leave, you

12:45

know, you you may be stuck in these

12:47

camps for for months

12:49

or years or even decades before

12:51

you get out of there, So can

12:54

you recognize

12:56

that leaving is not an option. But within

12:59

the refugee camp, you still have

13:01

choices. You can stay in your tent all

13:03

day, or you can come out of your

13:05

tent and engage with the people in the tents

13:07

around you. And when you go out

13:10

and engage with the people in the tents around

13:12

you, you can be hostile unfriendly,

13:15

or you can be friendly and warm. You

13:17

can be supportive and caring and kind

13:19

to your neighbor, or you can be deceitful,

13:21

dishonest and mean to your neighbor. So

13:24

even within you know all

13:26

of the difficulties

13:28

of I mean, they're pretty dire situations.

13:31

These refugee camps are you've

13:33

probably seen on the news and your readers have probably

13:35

seen, you know, living in these tents and often

13:38

you know, lack of food and water and

13:40

sanitation and so forth. But there are still

13:43

choices available to you. So

13:45

it's about accepting what's out of your control.

13:47

What's out of your control is you're in a refugee camp.

13:49

What's out of your control is you're going to have lots

13:51

of painful thoughts and feelings you

13:53

can't expect to feel happy and joyous.

13:56

When you're stuck in a refugee camp, it's going

13:58

to be lots of anxiety and sadness and anger

14:00

and so forth. Can you accept those

14:02

and commit to action that improves your

14:04

life, Doing things that help you to get on with

14:07

your neighbors, joining in the

14:09

social activities in those camps that are

14:11

kind of life enhancing, teaching

14:13

your kids, playing with your kids, you know, and

14:16

so forth, except what's out of your control,

14:18

and commits to action that improves your line. Yeah,

14:21

And that's one of the things I love about ACT

14:23

is the real idea that, Okay,

14:25

you're gonna have thoughts and feelings, You've

14:27

got some degree of control

14:29

of those. The more intense they are, probably

14:32

the less control you have. But what really

14:34

matters are the actions that you take, and

14:36

that you can take those actions regardless

14:39

of the emotions you're having. And I think that

14:41

was one of the biggest turning points

14:44

in my life, and for me, I think the

14:46

first time I started realizing that was when I

14:48

was just starting to recover from

14:50

drug addiction, and I started

14:53

to realize all of a sudden, like, oh wait

14:55

a minute, I can feel this way,

14:57

but that doesn't mean, I have to act that way, and

15:00

that was a very fundamental shift

15:02

in the way that I saw the world, and it remains

15:05

for me one of the

15:07

really key principles I think

15:09

that that I base my life around. Like

15:12

in act, you can't really control your mood, and I

15:14

think some of us have better

15:16

or worse mood sets, right Like I

15:18

think I have a mood set that's not real

15:21

wonderful a lot of the time. Right now, I do what I can

15:23

with it. But if my actions are based

15:25

on my moods, I've seen where that leads

15:27

me. Absolutely, coming back to the

15:29

points about awareness is the starting point,

15:32

because when you consciously stop to notice

15:34

how you're feeling, and then you have more

15:37

control over your actions. Whereas

15:39

on automatic pilot, your feelings just

15:41

jerk you around like a puppet on a string.

15:44

So you know, envy shows up, and on autopilot,

15:47

we just do whatever the envy wants us to do.

15:49

But if I can start to notice I'm feeling

15:51

envious, here, here's my mind kind

15:54

of pulling me to things that I want. And I've

15:56

got this tight feeling in my chest

15:58

and knots in my stomach, and I'm

16:00

kind of noticing there's a reality gap here.

16:02

Then that moment of conscious awareness

16:06

starts to give us some choice, saying, now what

16:08

do I want to do in response to this

16:10

reality gap? What do I do want to do? How do

16:12

I want to respond to these feelings? How do I want to respond

16:14

to this situation? Purchase

16:46

And here's the rest of the interview with Russ

16:48

Harris. In a minute, we're going to go

16:51

into the six core principles in

16:53

ACT, but I want to start with one

16:55

of the things that ACT says that

16:57

it will help provide you or a goal, which

17:00

is psychological flexibility. Can

17:02

you talk a little bit about what that is. Yeah,

17:04

it's the ability to be present,

17:07

open up, and do what matters.

17:09

So to be in the present moment, right

17:11

here, right now, paying attention,

17:14

to have focusing on and engaging

17:16

in what's happening here and now, to be

17:18

present, to open up. That means to kind

17:20

of open up and make room for all

17:22

the thoughts and feelings that are showing up

17:24

for you in this moment, not fighting with

17:27

them, not running away from them, but just opening

17:29

up and making room, allowing your thoughts

17:31

and feelings to flow through

17:33

you without getting into a fight with them and

17:35

without getting swept away by them, and

17:38

to do what matters. That means to act in a line

17:40

with your values, your your heart's deepest

17:43

desires for the sort of human being that

17:45

you want to be, what you want to be

17:47

about, and let your values guide

17:49

your actions. So to be present, open

17:52

up, and do what matters. And the greater your

17:54

capacity to do that, the greater your quality

17:56

of life. Lots of research. Well, let's move into

17:59

the first principle

18:01

of act, which is diffusion.

18:04

So can you talk a little bit about what diffusion

18:07

is and then I'd like to maybe talk about some techniques

18:09

that we can use to help us

18:12

defuse. So basically, if you think

18:14

of two sheets of metal

18:16

that are fused together, there's

18:19

no separation. They're kind of completely

18:21

stuck and meshed with each other. And

18:24

so that's where the term diffusion

18:27

comes from. When we're fused

18:29

with our thoughts, we're all caught up into

18:31

our thoughts. Basically they dominate

18:34

our awareness. So example,

18:36

if we're really worrying or stressing or

18:39

kind of getting into revenge fantasies,

18:41

our thoughts are just completely dominating

18:43

our awareness or they dominate

18:45

our actions. You know, our thoughts kind

18:47

of tell us what to do, and they jerk us around

18:50

like a puppet on a string, you

18:52

know, and either

18:54

of these represents fusion. Basically, when

18:56

our thoughts control our behavior

18:58

in self defeating ways or

19:01

dominate our awareness in self defeating

19:03

ways, we would cool that fusion. So

19:06

diffusion is a way of kind

19:08

of unhooking from those difficult thoughts,

19:11

stepping back, noticing our thought

19:13

processes and taking the power

19:15

out of them so that they don't control

19:18

us, so that they don't dominate us. Another

19:20

way of saying that might be to say that we

19:22

recognize our thoughts as being

19:26

thoughts and not the truth. Well, they

19:28

may or may not be true. What

19:30

happens is, but your first part of your point

19:33

is absolutely right. Yeah, you know. We we recognize

19:35

our thoughts as thoughts. These are words and

19:37

pictures that are popping up in my head to

19:39

convey a story or a message. And

19:41

the question in the app model is not whether

19:44

they're true or false, or positive or

19:46

negative, or optimistic or pessimistic.

19:48

The question that we're interested in is if

19:51

I let these thoughts, if I let these

19:53

words and pictures in my head guide

19:55

my actions, is that going to take

19:58

me towards the sort of life that I to

20:00

live or away from the life I want

20:02

to live. You know, my mind says

20:04

I ain't gonna get you, you son of

20:06

a gun, right? And if

20:08

I let that thought control my actions,

20:11

Am I going to be behaving like the sort of person I

20:13

really want to be? Am I going to be doing the things

20:15

that I would be proud of when I look back in retrospect?

20:18

Or is it going to pull me into some sort of mean

20:21

type revenge thing that I'm later

20:23

going to regret? I've heard you also

20:25

refer to that in a slightly different way,

20:27

which is is this thought useful or not?

20:29

And you know, to your point useful in taking

20:32

my life in the direction we wanted to go? Yeah?

20:34

Is it useful? Is it helpful? Where

20:36

is it going to lead me? Where's it going to guide me?

20:39

You know? And the thing is, if we can come

20:41

back to the idea of of of the two wolves,

20:43

you know, even the most negative,

20:45

unhelpful thoughts can in

20:48

some way be useful for us because

20:51

they're at least pointing us to something that

20:53

we need to address or deal with or

20:55

that was struggling with, you

20:58

know. So like if we get lots of anger,

21:00

revengeful thoughts.

21:02

Then if we start to explore what's

21:04

underneath all of that, we usually get to another

21:06

important part of the app model, which is values. There's

21:08

something important, there's something that matters.

21:11

So what are some strategies

21:13

for practicing diffusion?

21:15

It's a it's a concept that's relatively

21:17

easy to understand and a whole lot

21:19

more challenging to do

21:22

without. At least in might experience a lot of practice.

21:25

I mean, that's a fair cool. Um. The two

21:27

simpler strategies to use, or what

21:29

we might call noticing and naming, so

21:32

that the first step in diffusing

21:34

is to notice your thoughts or notice

21:36

what your mind is telling you. You know, when you're

21:38

completely refused, you don't even realize

21:41

that you're thinking, You're just so caught up in

21:43

your thoughts. Um, so just stopping

21:45

to notice noticed, you

21:47

know, what is my mind saying right now? Or

21:49

what am I thinking right now? What kind of thoughts

21:51

are showing up? And the second strategy that usually

21:54

goes hand in hand with the first one

21:56

is naming. So let's find a

21:58

non judgment a way of

22:01

actually labeling these thoughts

22:03

as thoughts. So, ah,

22:06

here's my mind speaking to

22:08

me again. Ah, there's a

22:10

thought popping up, or ah,

22:12

there's the I'm not good enough story. Oh,

22:15

there's my mind worrying, or you

22:18

know, here's revenge fantasies popping

22:20

up again. Just kind of a non judgmental

22:22

way of naming that cognitive

22:25

process, that thought or thinking

22:28

pattern. Probably, um

22:30

some of the more playful ways of doing

22:32

that may often be more useful, So

22:36

you know, it's it's quite often if there's a if

22:38

there's a recurrent theme that your

22:40

mind keeps pulling you back to again and again,

22:43

it's nice to kind of label that theme in a

22:45

playful way so that the most

22:47

common one that people struggle with is

22:49

the I'm not good enough story. Our mind's

22:51

got so many ways of telling us that

22:54

we're not good enough, and if we can

22:56

each time a thought linked to that pop

22:58

up, we can go, okay, there's the not good enough

23:00

story. Well, you might make it more specific, there's

23:02

the old and lonely story. Or there's the allousy

23:05

podcast story. You know, there's

23:08

the there's the allousy interviewee story.

23:11

Whatever. So just that kind

23:13

of noticing and naming the thinking

23:15

process immediately starts to give us a little

23:18

bit of diffusion. Another one of them

23:20

that you guys talk about is the I

23:22

like this, I'm having the thought that so instead

23:24

of saying I'm a stupid terrible

23:26

person, I think I'm having the thought

23:29

that I'm a stupid terrible person.

23:31

And for me, that's one that actually is

23:33

semi helpful in giving me a

23:36

little bit of distance in those ways. I encourage

23:38

your listeners to try that right now. So

23:41

let's all do it together. Bring to mind a kind

23:44

of worrying or difficult

23:47

thought, just kind of for

23:49

five seconds by into it, get

23:52

caught up in that thought, then

23:54

replay it with these words in front.

23:57

I'm having the thought that

24:00

I'm having the thought that my podcast

24:02

is not very good. I'm

24:04

having the thought that I'm not giving a

24:06

great interview to Eric. And then

24:08

they go a stage further. If you're doing this, if

24:10

you're participating in this, go a stage further.

24:12

The next thing is put the words noticing,

24:15

I notice I'm having the thought

24:18

that I notice I'm having

24:20

the thought that I'm

24:22

boring. If your viewers have actually tried

24:24

this, most people will find

24:26

that there's a kind of progressive sense of unhooking

24:30

or separating or detaching or distancing

24:32

from the thought. The first phrase

24:35

gives you a little bit of distance, and the second phrase

24:37

gives you a little bit more. And you know, this

24:40

is a very different

24:42

approach to most models of therapy.

24:44

We're not debating whether the thought is true

24:47

or false, which is starting to see it for

24:49

for what it is. It's a thought may or

24:51

may not be true or false. That's a secondary issue,

24:54

and I think that's a really important distinction

24:56

in act, which is that the goal

24:58

of this is not to make those thoughts go

25:00

away. These are you refer to them as control

25:03

strategies. These are not control strategies.

25:06

It's about getting a little bit of distance and allowing

25:08

yourself sort of like you said about the good and

25:10

the bad wolf to coexist. Yeah,

25:13

exactly. It's you know, so

25:15

we often enact talk away talk about

25:17

how that the default setting

25:19

of the normal human mind is

25:22

to is to think negatively. Your

25:25

mind basically wants to protect

25:27

you from things that can hurt or harm

25:29

you, and the minds of your ancestors

25:31

were the same. Your ancestors survived

25:34

longer if they were good at predicting

25:36

and anticipating and staying away from

25:38

things that could hurt or harm them. So

25:41

our modern mind today is constantly

25:43

on the lookout for things that could hurt or harm

25:45

us, constantly telling

25:48

us, you know, don't do this and don't do

25:50

that, and trying to you know, a lot

25:52

of beating ourselves up is our minds

25:54

actually trying to help us be better people,

25:56

just not using a very good strategy.

26:00

A lot of our worrying and catastrophizing

26:02

and predicting the worst is our minds trying

26:04

to save us from getting hurt if

26:07

we opt out of difficult challenges.

26:09

It's our mind trying to save us from the pain

26:11

of failure. And so,

26:14

you know, you can do positive thinking

26:16

courses and learn to think more positively,

26:19

but it's not going to stop negative thoughts

26:21

from showing up. Um. Just

26:23

like if you learn to speak Spanish, you're

26:25

you're not gonna forget English.

26:28

So the point I'm making

26:30

here is that you know your mind

26:33

will keep generating these kinds

26:35

of unhelpful thinking processes over

26:37

and over and over again. And

26:39

in this approach, we don't want to try to get into

26:42

fighting and battling with those thoughts and

26:44

trying to prove them false and trying to get rid

26:46

of them. What you want to do is learn to

26:48

have a new relationship with so that we

26:50

can just kind of let them come and go. Are

26:53

you familiar, Eric with the kind

26:55

of radio doom and gloom metaphor

26:57

from act? I am? Yeah. I think you use

26:59

that in one of your books. I love that one. What you

27:02

expanded a little bit for people, Well, yeah, the

27:04

idea is because our minds are like this, and they

27:06

just, you know, naturally tend to worry

27:08

and judge and criticize and so forth.

27:11

You know, radio doom and gloom is just often

27:13

broadcasting kind of doom and globe

27:15

stuff about the past, about

27:17

the future, about what's wrong with

27:20

life, what's wrong with me, about all the things

27:22

that I'm not doing, what other people aren't

27:24

doing right, or what's wrong with the world, and so

27:26

forth. That's it's it's natural setting.

27:29

Have you ever had the experience of doing some

27:31

sort of activity that you really

27:34

enjoy or you're passionate about, and there was a radio

27:37

playing in the background and you

27:39

were so absorbed in the activity that you're

27:41

hardly even modus

27:44

the radio was there. If you had

27:46

that experience, very absolutely, yep,

27:48

And I'm sure that your listeners have too. So

27:51

and then suddenly one of your favorite songs

27:53

came on the radio, and so then

27:55

you were maybe singing along with the radio or listening

27:58

to the song really tuning into it. Then the song

28:00

changed and the radio faded into the background,

28:03

and you were able to kind of refocus your attention

28:05

fully on what you were doing. And this is

28:07

what we're aiming to do with our

28:09

own minds in the act approach. Focus

28:11

our attention on here and now activities

28:14

that are important and meaningful, guided

28:16

by our values, doing the stuff that builds richer

28:19

lives, and just kind of let our our mind

28:21

play on like a radio in the background, and if

28:23

it happens to be broadcasting something

28:25

useful and helpful, then let's kind of use

28:28

that. But if not, just let it play

28:30

on in the background. And this is very different

28:32

to trying to ignore a radio.

28:35

Eric, What what happens If you try to ignore

28:37

a radio playing in the background, you're probably

28:40

likely to hear it more. Exactly,

28:42

We've all tried not to hear that loud

28:45

voice in the restaurant or that car alarm

28:47

going off in the street outside. You know, the

28:49

more you try to ignore it or not hear it,

28:51

the more it bothers you and it's radically

28:54

different to bringing in a second radio.

28:56

Oh, let's bring in radio positive

28:58

and optimistic to try to drown

29:01

out radio doom and glue. Let's bring in

29:03

radio logical and rational. And if

29:05

we turn the volume of that one up enough, then it li'll

29:07

drown our radio doom and gloom. It's pretty hard

29:09

to focus on what you're doing while you've got

29:11

two radios in your head, playing two different

29:14

channels. The

29:47

next principle is called expansion,

29:49

but I think that diffusion is more about

29:52

thoughts. Expansion is more about

29:54

dealing with emotions. But before we

29:56

go all the way there, can you talk about

29:58

the difference between what thought and emotion

30:01

is. That's a great question because it's

30:03

it's often an artificial distinction.

30:05

The convention is that thoughts are

30:07

words and pictures pictures that pop

30:10

up in our heads that tell us stories, and

30:12

emotions are more things that we

30:15

feel in our body. But it's a largely

30:17

artificial distinction. You know that people would often

30:19

say sadness or anger or

30:22

guilt those emotions, but if

30:24

you explore those emotions, you'll

30:27

find lots and lots of thoughts. No one's

30:29

ever felt sad or guilty

30:31

or angry without lots of thoughts as

30:34

a part of that process. So

30:37

in some sense, it's an artificial distinction.

30:40

Thoughts create feelings, and your

30:42

feelings are full of thoughts. But

30:44

if you want to kind of go with convention

30:47

that the simplest way to think about it is

30:49

thoughts of words and pictures in your head, and emotions

30:52

are largely feelings in your body. I

30:54

like that that. It's it's largely an artificial

30:56

distinction because after spending a lot of time

30:59

thinking through that,

31:01

I've realized, like, Okay, there

31:03

is a little bit of difference, but boy, you usually don't

31:05

get one without the other. Yeah, exactly.

31:07

You certainly don't get emotions without thoughts.

31:10

The cerebral cortex, the

31:13

kind of thinking cap of your brain that's involved

31:15

in thinking, is also involved in all

31:17

emotions. You know, all parts of

31:19

the brain are activated. You you

31:21

may get thoughts without kind of

31:24

strong emotional responses, but you

31:26

certainly always have thoughts as part

31:28

of feelings and emotions. Let's

31:31

move into the second principle

31:33

of act, which is called expansion. Can

31:36

you tell us a little bit about what expansion is.

31:38

The official name in acts is actually

31:40

acceptance, but in my books, I changed

31:43

it to expansion because people

31:45

misunderstand the term acceptance.

31:47

People often think acceptance means

31:50

liking it, wanting it, approving

31:52

of it, or tolerating

31:54

it, sucking it up, putting up with

31:56

it, or resigning yourself to it. And

31:58

none of those are what we mean. So

32:00

I changed it in my books to expansion.

32:02

This idea of opening up, making

32:05

space, making room

32:07

for all our kind of difficult,

32:09

unwanted painful thoughts, feelings,

32:11

emotions, and memories. So an

32:13

idea of opening up and making space for this

32:16

stuff so that it can freely

32:18

flow through us in its own good

32:20

time. Sometimes these painful thoughts

32:23

feelings flow through us very rapidly.

32:25

Other times they hang around for a while.

32:27

Sometimes they kind of get bigger before

32:30

they get smaller. And so it's this idea of kind

32:32

of expanding, opening up, making lots of space

32:34

for my thoughts and feelings to do

32:37

what they're doing in this moment, to come and

32:39

go in their own good time. What are some

32:41

steps to do that I've had a you know, I had a listener

32:43

asked me that you know, this idea of

32:45

being with your thoughts and emotions,

32:48

it sounds great, and then you go to do

32:50

it, and it's kind of like, well, now, what what am

32:53

I? What am I doing here? So is there are

32:55

there steps towards being able to practice

32:57

this effectively? Yeah? I think probably.

33:01

Again, the first two steps of diffusion

33:04

are also the first two steps of expansion,

33:07

so there's this huge overlap here noticing

33:10

and naming. So let's

33:12

start by noticing the difficult thoughts

33:14

and feelings that are present and naming them

33:16

in a non judgmental way. So anxiety

33:19

is probably the single most common emotion

33:21

that people struggle with, So start

33:23

by kind of noticing, Okay, here's

33:26

anxiety showing up. I am noticing

33:28

anxiety. I'm noticing tightness

33:30

in my chest, i am noticing

33:32

knots in my stomach, I'm noticing

33:35

my mind telling me scary stories

33:37

right now. And it's interesting

33:40

if we step aside from act and just look at

33:42

terms of neuro anatomy, that what's

33:44

happening in the brain as you do this is

33:46

that you're starting to activate pathways

33:49

in the cerebral cortex, the thinking cap

33:51

of the brain that connect to the

33:54

kind of fight or flight response parts

33:57

of the brain that kind of trigger these strong

33:59

emotions such as fear and anger. And anxiety,

34:01

and it starts to help you

34:03

again switch off automatic pilots

34:06

and start to regain more control

34:08

over your actions and what you're doing. So

34:11

noticing and naming it would be your

34:13

first steps, and then the next

34:16

step would be to see if you can allow

34:19

allow the Let's stick with

34:21

feelings for the time being. It applies to any kind

34:24

of private experience with thoughts,

34:26

feelings, emotions, memories, but we'll stick with

34:28

feelings. See if you can get a sense of just allowing

34:30

the feeling to be there, and probably

34:33

so not liking it, not wanting it, not

34:36

proving approving of it, but just allowing

34:39

it to be there. And for about

34:42

nine of people, the an

34:44

effective way of doing that, say

34:47

nineteenth cent. So you know some people hate this,

34:49

but but a lot of people find it's useful

34:51

to kind of notice where in

34:53

your body you're feeling it most intensely.

34:55

It's likely to be your chest, or your tummy,

34:57

or your jaws, or your your throat um,

35:00

but it could be anywhere in your body were wide

35:03

a bit differently, pick the area

35:05

in your body where you're feeling it most intensely, and

35:07

see if you can just breathe slowly

35:10

into and around that part of your body,

35:12

and as you breathe into and around it, see if

35:14

you can just kind of imagine a

35:17

sense of space opening up making

35:20

around that feeling. Rather than trying

35:22

to do what we normally do it she's trying to push it

35:24

away or squash it down, so kind of breathing

35:27

in, opening up making. We had Tara

35:29

Brock on the show and she's I've heard her use a phrase

35:31

like can I be with this, which is just to kind

35:34

of open yourself to like, Okay, you

35:36

know, I'm able to sit with this emotion,

35:38

and I you know, I talked earlier about you

35:41

know, the big revelation for me as

35:43

an addict was that I didn't have to follow my

35:46

emotions or my actions. And that was kind of a big

35:48

one for me too, was realizing like, Okay,

35:50

this emotion is not going to kill me, Like

35:53

I can be here with it, it can exist. And

35:56

doing that for me at least took what felt

35:58

like the enormity of them.

36:00

It put them in a little bit better perspective

36:02

for me. Yeah, I think that kind of self

36:05

talk is often very helpful. You know, A

36:07

phrase that that I often recommend

36:09

is, you know, for people that are really struggling

36:11

with this is is to kind of say,

36:14

you know, I don't like it, I

36:16

don't want it, but I'll allow

36:19

it, you know, I'll allow it. And

36:21

then the question that I often get asked is, well,

36:23

why would I allow it? You know, why

36:25

why would I allow these painful

36:27

feelings to be here? And

36:30

so, you know, part of the ACT model is we

36:33

you know, we would never ask anybody to accept

36:35

painful thoughts and feelings unless that

36:38

was going to help them to live a richer, full

36:40

and more meaningful life, unless it was going to

36:42

help them to live their values and do what's important.

36:44

Do we want to go into this some of the problems that occur

36:47

when when people start trying to get rid of

36:49

unwanted feelings. Yep,

36:51

I've heard you refer to it as you know, when you flip on

36:53

the struggle switch. So that's one of my

36:55

favorite metaphors. So

36:58

the idea that at the back of your mind there's

37:00

a struggle switch, and as soon as

37:02

a painful emotion shows up, the struggle

37:04

switch goes on and you start struggling

37:07

with it. So let's suppose anxiety

37:09

shows up, struggle switch goes

37:11

on. Oh, here's anxiety.

37:13

I hate this feeling. Oh why is it

37:15

coming back again? Now I've got anxiety

37:17

about my anxiety. It's getting bigger. Oh

37:20

no, my anxiety is getting bigger. What's going on? What's

37:22

going on? Now? I've got anxiety about my anxiety,

37:24

about my anxiety. So so it acts

37:26

as an emotional amplifier, and I have to

37:28

keep that struggle switch on. Then I may start to

37:30

get angry about my anxiety. Oh

37:33

why does this keep happening to me? This is not fair. Now

37:35

I've got anger about my anxiety. Then

37:37

I may get sad about that. It's like, oh, is

37:39

this my life, for my doom to this anxiety

37:42

so now? And then I may even

37:44

start getting angry with myself for

37:47

for for my own reaction. Oh

37:49

how pathetic am I to kind of be reacting

37:51

this way to my own anxiety. And so as

37:53

long as this struggle switch stays

37:55

on, it amplifies our emotions.

37:57

They get bigger and bigger and messier and stick

38:00

here. Uh. And I can

38:02

relate to that myself very strongly. I

38:04

talk a lot, and I've done a couple of mini episodes

38:07

on the Buddhist concept of the second Arrow,

38:09

which is essentially the same thing. You know, the first

38:11

arrow is the emotion or the feeling

38:13

that we have, and then the second arrow

38:15

is or the third, or the fourth or the fifth arrow,

38:18

or all the ones that we then turn around and

38:20

shooted ourselves, which is exactly kind of

38:22

like you're saying, it's all the stories that come

38:24

after that I can't handle it or why am I like

38:27

this? Or why do I feel like this? And

38:29

and I also now, in addition

38:31

to the second earrow, I love the idea of the struggle switch

38:33

because I think that's a very good metaphor. Also, what

38:36

we want to do then is learn how to turn

38:38

off the struggle switch. So let's let's run through it again.

38:40

But this time anxiety shows up,

38:42

and I switch off the struggle switch. So I don't

38:44

like the anxiety. I don't want

38:47

it, I don't approve of it, but I am

38:49

not going to invest any energy

38:51

in struggling with it. I'm just gonna let

38:53

it be there, let it flow through

38:55

me in its own good time. So now anxieties

38:57

there, I've still got tight chest, knots in my stomach,

39:00

But instead of struggling with it, I'm going to put

39:02

all my energy and all my attention into

39:05

doing some meaningful, life enhancing

39:07

activity guided by my values,

39:09

behaving like the person I want to be, doing something

39:12

that's important to me. And I'll just let that

39:14

anxiety do its own things. So

39:16

now it doesn't get amplified. You don't get

39:18

all of this anxiety about anxiety and the anger

39:21

and the sadness and all the other stuff that goes with

39:23

it. Um And it

39:25

may get higher if I'm in a really challenging,

39:27

anxiety provoking situation facing

39:29

one of my greatest fears. It

39:31

may hang around for a long time, it may

39:34

move on very rapidly. But the point

39:36

is it's free to come and go, whereas

39:38

with the switch on, it's kind of it's definitely going to hang

39:41

around, and it doesn't get amplified

39:43

with all of this secondary stuff, and it doesn't

39:45

eat up all our energy and our attention struggling

39:48

with it. We can now put that instead

39:50

into other more meaningful activities.

39:52

Wonderful. Well, you and I talked before.

39:54

We're going to make this a two part series,

39:56

and so we're going to come back in

39:59

the next episode and we're going to talk about

40:01

some of the other act principles. We're gonna

40:03

talk about connection the observing

40:05

self. And we're also going to talk about what you've said

40:08

several times, which is knowing what your

40:10

values are and then taking committed actions.

40:12

So I'm having this emotion, but here's

40:14

what I value and here's how I take committed

40:16

action. And I think that's such an important part that

40:19

I want to spend more time focusing on, is

40:21

how do we do that even in spite

40:23

of these emotions that we're having. So

40:25

UM Part two will be coming out next

40:28

week. So Russ, thank you for this and

40:31

uh listeners. Part two will be out next

40:33

week. Thank you. If

40:51

what you just heard was helpful to you, please

40:53

consider making a donation to the one you Feed

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