The Art of Manliness - July 31, 2025


#614： Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life


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Summary

Stephen Hayes is a professor of psychology and the founder of ACT, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. He s also the author of The Liberated Mind, How to Pivot Toward What Matters. In this episode, we talk about why traditional interventions for depression and anxiety aren t very effective, and how ACT s approach is different.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here, and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.
00:00:11.060 When most of us run into obstacles with how we think and approach the world, whether in
00:00:14.620 terms of dealing with mental health issues like depression and anxiety, or simply making
00:00:18.260 progress with our relationships and work, we typically try to focus in on solving the
00:00:21.960 perceived problem or run away from it.
00:00:24.120 In either case, instead of feeling better, we often feel more stuck.
00:00:27.240 My guest today says we need to free ourselves from these instincts and our default mental
00:00:30.920 programming and learn to just sit with our thoughts and even turn towards those which
00:00:34.500 hurt us the most.
00:00:35.340 His name is Stephen Hayes.
00:00:36.440 He's a professor of psychology and the founder of ACT, it's ACT, Acceptance, and Commitment
00:00:40.660 Therapy.
00:00:41.240 He's also the author of over 40 books, including his latest, The Liberated Mind, How to Pivot
00:00:45.280 Toward What Matters.
00:00:46.600 Stephen and I spend the first part of our conversation in a very interesting discussion as to why
00:00:50.320 traditional interventions for depression and anxiety, drugs and talk therapy, aren't very
00:00:54.360 effective in helping people get their minds right, and how ACT takes a different approach
00:00:57.640 to achieving mental health.
00:00:58.880 We then discuss the six skills of psychological flexibility that undergird ACT, and how these
00:01:02.980 skills can not only be used by those dealing with depression and anxiety, but by anyone
00:01:06.740 who wants to get out of their own way and show up and move forward in every area of their
00:01:10.380 life.
00:01:10.860 After the show's over, check out our show notes at awim.is slash liberatedmind.
00:01:14.420 Stephen joins me now via clearcast.io.
00:01:24.360 All right, Stephen Hayes, welcome to the show.
00:01:28.180 Well, thanks for having me.
00:01:29.500 So you are the originator of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, an author of the book,
00:01:34.520 A Liberated Mind, How to Pivot Towards What Matters.
00:01:37.560 And Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is a way that people can use to manage what we call
00:01:43.060 mental illness, depression, anxiety, but also can be used for performance enhancement in
00:01:46.740 various aspects of their life.
00:01:49.180 And before we dig into Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, I think it'd be useful to do sort of
00:01:54.240 a short history of how we've gone about managing and treating depression and anxiety in the
00:02:00.340 West, because I think that'll show how ACT is different, ACD is different.
00:02:04.560 So in your book, you talk about broadly in the West, there's been two major ways we've
00:02:09.840 gone about treating depression, anxiety.
00:02:12.500 One is with pharmaceuticals or drugs, and the other is with talk therapy.
00:02:16.640 And people are probably familiar with cognitive behavioral therapy or psychoanalysis.
00:02:21.160 So let's talk about pharmaceuticals first.
00:02:22.880 When a doctor or psychiatrist prescribes a drug to help someone manage their anxiety or
00:02:29.640 depression, what's the underlying assumption about what is the cause of that mental illness
00:02:35.360 so that the drug can work?
00:02:38.340 Well, really, we've gone through about 40 years as though of biomedicalizing human suffering.
00:02:43.200 And the idea was that if we define these things, you know, signs and symptoms, we'd find the
00:02:49.140 underlying disease.
00:02:50.920 And the presumption was it had something to do with the genes and gene systems and brain
00:02:55.360 circuits, and that you could probably move them around by specific drugs that would move
00:03:00.300 specific problems.
00:03:01.520 Instead, what's happened over time is that the medications are more and more general.
00:03:05.700 There's almost nothing out there that people suffer with that you can't use.
00:03:09.520 There's so-called antidepressants, for example, SSRIs, selectors serotonin, reuptake inhibitors.
00:03:15.460 It's a way of moving around how your body handles serotonin.
00:03:20.220 And there's other ones, different neurotransmitters.
00:03:23.880 They've got more and more general use for more and more things, and they have side effects.
00:03:27.700 They have your body immediately starts reacting to it.
00:03:30.820 And there's no real evidence.
00:03:32.240 It's just not there.
00:03:33.420 I mean, don't take it from me.
00:03:34.860 Take it from the folks who've organized the psychiatric diagnostic system, the DSM, Diagnostic
00:03:41.220 and Statistical Manual.
00:03:42.820 When they did the latest version, they had a little kind of a work group, and they concluded
00:03:47.280 there was no evidence of any specific biological problem that was targeted by these drugs that
00:03:53.620 were there before the intervention.
00:03:57.580 And so we've kind of got into a weird space where like one out of four women last year were
00:04:03.780 on antidepressants, and that just doesn't make any sense at all.
00:04:08.100 Sixty percent of the people who are struggling with anxiety, depression, or other things are
00:04:12.220 on only medications, less than 10 percent on only psychosocial interventions, which is
00:04:17.900 upside down.
00:04:19.520 And so the original hope was that we'd get better and better at detecting the underlying
00:04:23.560 disease.
00:04:24.480 In fact, there's not a single case of an underlying disease being discovered since untreated syphilis
00:04:32.020 was the last one.
00:04:33.060 Nobody has that anymore.
00:04:34.380 We just treat it with antibiotics.
00:04:36.460 So I'm not against medications.
00:04:38.960 I've actually done research helping people get over barriers to using it, but it should
00:04:42.880 be more limited to severe cases and more limited in terms of how long you're on them.
00:04:48.920 And instead, we've created this thing where many people are on a high level of meds for
00:04:53.920 a long period of time.
00:04:55.180 Your body reacts to it and produces even permanent changes in your body.
00:04:58.860 You probably see on the television, you can now get the medications being sold on regular
00:05:03.960 commercial television to control the side effects of the medications that are being sold to control
00:05:10.060 the behavioral health problems.
00:05:12.320 So everywhere in the world where that model has come in, a train wreck has fallen.
00:05:17.320 If you take developing countries and you put that model in, everything gets worse.
00:05:21.920 And in the United States, we're more than a standard deviation in a statistical measure from how
00:05:28.960 things are normally distributed over the last 30 years, worse with young people than we were.
00:05:35.000 And so something's going in the wrong direction.
00:05:37.500 So it sounds like, so, I mean, it sounds like the underlying, what the assumption is that
00:05:41.160 anxiety, depression, it's a physiological issue that you can manipulate with a drug.
00:05:45.760 Yeah, and you can for sure dampen down your system for detecting anxiety and feeling anxious,
00:05:53.180 for example.
00:05:54.480 And you can mess around with major neurotransmitters that have multiple functions and have some
00:05:59.900 effects in terms of the lows, but also the highs, by the way.
00:06:04.380 If you wanted to do it, you could market antidepressants as anti-joy drugs because they bring the top
00:06:09.420 down too, not just the bottom up.
00:06:11.180 And we've gone through, you know, it makes sense, but it, superficially it makes sense,
00:06:18.760 but long run, I'm not sure it does make sense.
00:06:21.520 It must, it should be more limited because some of these emotions are signs of things that
00:06:25.980 are going on in your life and you need to step up to that.
00:06:29.040 I mean, if you're feeling anxious all the time, what's up with that?
00:06:31.180 And yeah, there is a genetic loading, but what you then do with that is really what determines
00:06:37.340 how it's going to play out in your life.
00:06:38.900 And I think the evidence on that is pretty substantial.
00:06:43.200 Okay.
00:06:43.480 So pharmaceuticals, the research, I mean, we've been doing this since the forties, fifties.
00:06:48.340 Yeah.
00:06:48.580 Research says it's effective for some people.
00:06:51.660 It sounds like for severe anxiety, depression, it can be useful, but for most people, not,
00:06:56.360 not that effective.
00:06:57.580 And for, and for a more limited period of time, because here's what happens.
00:07:00.860 As soon as you say you have something and you listen to the commercials, they say it
00:07:05.900 may be based on an underlying neurological problem.
00:07:10.240 Well, it may be based on monkeys flying out of your ear.
00:07:14.120 You can say that and you can sell it that way, but they can't say it is based because
00:07:19.140 there's no evidence on that.
00:07:20.780 People who get depressed don't have differences in their underlying level of serotonin before
00:07:25.240 you give them the drug.
00:07:26.320 And after you give them drug for long periods of time, high levels than they do because your
00:07:30.240 body's down regulates it, it fights it off.
00:07:32.680 And now there's a very long lasting effect of not responding normally to that neurotransmitters.
00:07:40.200 But for normal people, once you start saying you have something and it's built into your
00:07:46.360 body, of course, you're going to turn to meds, but you're also going to bring your horizon
00:07:51.860 close, you're going to aspire less.
00:07:54.980 It looked like destigmatizing, but it ends up being kind of walking you into a cul-de-sac.
00:08:00.500 People around you start treating you differently.
00:08:02.560 The research on all that is really clear.
00:08:04.880 So you're setting something loose inside the minds of people that are not necessarily empowering
00:08:11.800 to step up, move forward.
00:08:13.560 What can you actually do?
00:08:15.460 But why don't we focus on that first and use the meds?
00:08:19.280 Absolutely, but more limited, taper them off, keep them shorter, and use a rationale that
00:08:24.980 empowers people to change their lives, not just sort of hammer down their physiology.
00:08:31.560 So the other approach to treating anxiety, depression has been talk therapy.
00:08:35.980 And the grandfather of talk therapy was Sigmund Freud.
00:08:39.420 What was his approach to talk therapy?
00:08:41.400 And what does the research say?
00:08:42.600 Does that work?
00:08:43.900 There's elements of it that work.
00:08:45.460 But one of the problems that happened, because we're going back 100 years, and Freud didn't
00:08:51.160 really have scientific principles of behavior, psychology, and so forth to rely on.
00:08:55.500 So he had kind of a pseudo-neurology metaphor.
00:08:59.080 He was interested in function, what's going on underneath the surface, and that's good.
00:09:03.320 But he wasn't guided by experimental science because it wasn't there.
00:09:07.300 And so some of the ideas are truly goofy, you know, that you really have a secret desire
00:09:13.120 to have sex with your mother, and that's really producing a conf, oh, please.
00:09:17.620 You know, and so parts of it, like defense mechanisms, you know, that you'll, for example,
00:09:23.020 sometimes put on others, things that you see in yourself that are painful and difficult,
00:09:27.520 projection, that's real.
00:09:29.120 But it wasn't linked to science well enough to move forward.
00:09:35.940 And soon enough, there was a rebellion against it, mostly by the humanistic folks who thought,
00:09:40.800 you know, we should be a little more practical, focus on meaning, purpose.
00:09:43.980 That's what I cut my eye teeth on, and I still kind of like that.
00:09:47.840 But again, without good, clear science on what do we mean by meaning and purpose and all the
00:09:54.780 rest.
00:09:55.040 So it wasn't until the behavioral folks came along with scientific principles out of
00:10:00.120 the animal lab that we got out of that era, but then they had problems too.
00:10:04.780 But talk therapy, you know, has been on an arc in the culture.
00:10:10.080 We've been learning how to do it, and I think we're able to do it better.
00:10:12.920 I kind of like calling it do therapy, not talk therapy, because I only want to talk enough
00:10:17.580 to get people to do something different.
00:10:20.000 If it's just blah, blah, blah, you know, I'm not sure that's going to really change anybody's
00:10:24.720 life.
00:10:25.500 Well, I mean, so I think one of the things with Freudianism, psychoanalysis, like their
00:10:30.940 goal is like, if you can figure out what's causing the underlying issue, then somehow
00:10:36.240 the issue is going to resolve itself, right?
00:10:38.060 If you can figure out, oh, if you had something that happened in your past, and you bring that
00:10:42.160 to surface, then somehow that's going to be able to allow you to move forward.
00:10:46.140 And as you said, the humanistic, and then the behavioralist, and then later cognitive behavioral
00:10:49.920 therapy said, well, maybe not.
00:10:52.260 Maybe we need to instead try to figure out how to help people in the moment so they can
00:10:55.660 move forward instead of just looking back.
00:10:58.680 Yeah, going off, if, you know, we are historical beings.
00:11:02.700 So our childhood does influence us for absolute certain, sure.
00:11:06.500 But it's the past that's in the present that we really need to focus on.
00:11:10.480 And the past that's then gone, not so much.
00:11:14.360 And without really good scientific principles to sort through that, you know, psychoanalysis
00:11:20.960 was pretty darn wild is how you would kind of look at your own history.
00:11:25.960 I think the more practical focus of the humanistic and behavioral and cognitive behavioral wing of
00:11:31.700 what shows up here and now pretty much has won the day just in terms of evidence for doing
00:11:39.220 good with people.
00:11:41.020 But then when you do that, you still need principles.
00:11:44.240 You need a way to figure out what's really going on here.
00:11:49.180 And, you know, science has an arc to it.
00:11:52.320 You know, at one time, you know, physicists were talking about phlogiston.
00:11:56.860 They don't talk about it anymore.
00:11:59.200 Psychologists still are talking about Freud, and it doesn't make a lot of sense to me because
00:12:03.000 we've moved so far.
00:12:04.680 We have so much more knowledge about how psychology works, how are, you know, biopsychosocial processes,
00:12:12.460 you know, the things going on in your mind, the things going on in your culture, the things
00:12:15.440 going on in your body come together to either produce problems or promote your prosperity.
00:12:20.780 So let's use that best available evidence.
00:12:24.940 So the most recent iteration, the most widely used form of talk therapy is cognitive behavioral
00:12:29.860 therapy or CBT, and this is, you know, you got your start when you started working with
00:12:34.000 patients.
00:12:34.240 You used CBT.
00:12:35.960 So let's talk about like what CBT does, and then I think it'll be a good way to, a springboard
00:12:41.000 to talk about ACT.
00:12:42.780 Yeah, it's a good way.
00:12:44.460 CBT came out of the behavior therapy tradition where we were trying to apply the principles
00:12:49.720 that came out of the animal learning lab, like reward and punishment, for example, or
00:12:55.700 classical conditioning, like Pavlov's dogs, and good things happen there, but the thing
00:13:01.500 is, is that what you and I are doing, and non-human animals don't do.
00:13:05.620 They communicate, but they don't talk symbolically, and so that, we call them mental health problems
00:13:11.040 for a reason.
00:13:11.680 I mean, our chatter, our minds, our analysis, problem-solving symbols, reasoning, thinking
00:13:18.280 has a huge effect on our lives, and that's pretty new on the planet.
00:13:23.240 You need principles for it.
00:13:24.440 And when the, and I'm old enough to see this whole arc, because I was a behavior therapist
00:13:29.900 before I was a cognitive behavior therapist, and I've been president of the CBT Society
00:13:35.100 here in the U.S., et cetera, so this is my family.
00:13:38.620 But when people realize the limits of just conditioning principles out of the animal lab, they needed
00:13:46.940 to go into, like, what are you and I doing right now, and how does that change how we interact
00:13:50.900 with the world?
00:13:51.400 How does cognition alter how we interact with the current situation in our own history?
00:13:58.040 But again, we didn't have good principles, and so the, but these are good scientists, and
00:14:03.360 so they started trying to figure out, kind of on the fly, what a theory, good theory of
00:14:09.240 cognition might be.
00:14:10.280 And so rational and irrational cognitions, logical errors, those kinds of things that are out
00:14:18.280 there now in the culture, those emerged by just talking to clients and trying to measure
00:14:23.880 carefully how they thought, and then categorize them into ways of thinking that were helpful
00:14:28.520 or hurtful.
00:14:29.180 And what CBT tries to do, in addition to using behavioral things, such as exposure, training
00:14:35.640 and skills, conditioning, that we're going to go in there and try to detect and challenge
00:14:40.860 and dispute and change ways of thinking that are illogical or maladaptive.
00:14:48.380 And some examples of, like, maladaptive thinking would be, like, black or white thinking, all
00:14:52.220 or nothing thinking.
00:14:53.300 Sure.
00:14:54.620 Catastrophizing.
00:14:55.100 Yeah, exactly.
00:14:57.160 Like, I'm never going to be able to function again because my blah, blah, blah, my girlfriend
00:15:04.240 broke up with me, or I was fired from this job, or, well, that's not how life actually unfolds.
00:15:12.040 You're going to probably figure out some other way forward, but your mind will catastrophize
00:15:17.080 and give you an absolute all or none, black and white, horrifying kind of image if you're
00:15:23.320 prone to that way of thinking.
00:15:25.100 The problem with it is doing what's logical thought doesn't mean that we're doing what's
00:15:31.940 actually helpful.
00:15:33.080 So, for example, if you have an odd thought that came from your family of origin, let's
00:15:38.740 say you're very self-critical of yourself, but when you really slow down and listen to
00:15:42.340 it, eh, that's mom's voice.
00:15:45.520 And so you came by it honestly.
00:15:47.860 Yeah, but you'll go to grave with that memory.
00:15:49.760 You'll probably, it's a well-grooved track.
00:15:52.000 You're going to be able to think those kind of negative thoughts.
00:15:54.800 If I'm asking you to detect challenge, dispute, and change, it's going to, thoughts, I'm first
00:15:59.940 going to say focus on the thought.
00:16:02.980 Well, these are goofy thoughts already.
00:16:04.740 Maybe that's the last place you want to focus.
00:16:06.800 Maybe you want to focus on your purpose, on what you can actually do at behavior to do
00:16:11.100 a better job of succeeding, et cetera.
00:16:13.000 So, what's happened in CBT over time is that the core assumptions of the cognitive change
00:16:22.500 methods that are inside classic CBT have been weakened because the data don't suggest that
00:16:30.920 they're the critical part of those collections.
00:16:34.460 And so along comes people like myself and the ACT work, acceptance and commitment therapy work
00:16:40.280 with a really different perspective than that classic idea that we have to catch our bad
00:16:46.220 thoughts and get rid of them.
00:16:48.660 Maybe not.
00:16:49.680 Maybe we need to relate to them in a very different way.
00:16:52.920 So that's the big, like from a big picture point of view, that's what makes ACT different
00:16:56.820 from CBT.
00:16:57.640 CBT is you're focused on those negative thoughts so you can challenge them.
00:17:02.140 And then by challenging them, you'll overcome them.
00:17:06.060 ACT says, no, actually that might actually make things worse.
00:17:08.520 And you just need to learn how to accept and move on and like live more forward looking
00:17:15.240 type of life.
00:17:17.200 Yeah.
00:17:17.640 And it, you know, accept, but also sort of change their function.
00:17:21.420 How you relate to your own experience is what really determines how it plays out in your
00:17:26.500 life.
00:17:27.660 You know, a lot of this stuff is conditioned.
00:17:29.420 If I said Mary had a little and you grew up in this society, there's only one thing you're
00:17:34.620 going to think.
00:17:35.200 Like, if I demanded, did you think differently?
00:17:37.980 Suppose lamb was a horrible word.
00:17:40.520 You could do it.
00:17:41.660 But what you actually do is say you thought a cup, you know, Mary had a little cup, not
00:17:49.160 a lamb.
00:17:49.920 Well, you're right back to lamb again, because it's, it's kind of like a bad cell phone commercial.
00:17:55.100 Am I there yet?
00:17:55.720 Am I there yet?
00:17:56.300 Every time you ask it, you're coming right back and re-grooving a connection to parts
00:18:02.360 of the things that you want to change.
00:18:04.920 And what happened in the work that I did, you know, when I realized the, because of my
00:18:11.280 own personal struggles initially, and then my clients, the limits of behavior therapy
00:18:16.060 and cognitive behavior therapy, as it was back in the eighties, I spent about 15 years
00:18:21.400 essentially trying to hack the human mind.
00:18:23.400 We're going to take a quick break for your word from our sponsors.
00:18:27.420 And now back to the show.
00:18:29.640 And what you discovered through many years of research that there are six processes or
00:18:33.540 skills that lead to greater cognitive, emotional, and attentional flexibility.
00:18:39.000 And the first one is noticing your thoughts.
00:18:41.000 And what gets in the way of that process is something you called the dictator within.
00:18:46.140 Who is this dictator?
00:18:47.480 And what does he sound like?
00:18:48.820 Well, it sounds like what you're, what goes on in your mind when you're quiet and you've
00:18:53.640 just had an argument with your spouse or your girlfriend or something, you know, it, or when
00:18:59.340 you're thinking about the, you know, some great plan you're going to have or whether you're
00:19:02.920 going to succeed at something.
00:19:04.000 It's that voice that tells you what to do, how to solve the problem.
00:19:07.620 And by the way, who you are and what's wrong with you, you know, and it's the problem solving
00:19:14.340 voice, the figure out the problem, but the, and that's great in the external world, figure
00:19:20.760 out how to do your taxes, fix your car.
00:19:22.560 It's great.
00:19:23.800 Figure out how to have peace of mind or purpose.
00:19:26.460 Not so great.
00:19:27.480 Figure out who you are, what you really care about.
00:19:29.600 Not so great.
00:19:30.420 Uh, because this, you are not a problem to be solved there.
00:19:34.560 I mean, there's vastly more to you than just that one part of you.
00:19:37.960 Number one, number two, as soon as you're in that mindset, whole great portions of you
00:19:43.080 are your own enemy, because you've got lots of things that you don't like about yourself.
00:19:46.880 You always will.
00:19:47.780 If you make that pros and cons list and strengths and weaknesses list, that's going to show up.
00:19:53.580 But the question is, what can you do from here to move in a direction that you really
00:19:57.800 care about?
00:19:58.480 And sometimes that requires first getting your feet on the ground, kind of more the
00:20:03.800 way you would, uh, if you saw a sunset tonight, you wouldn't try to solve the problem of the
00:20:09.380 fact that it was a particular color.
00:20:11.260 You just say, wow, you probably wouldn't say, God, a little bit too much pink over there.
00:20:15.640 You know, it just wouldn't occur to you.
00:20:17.140 Well, when you come into your own life, you want to have that kind of wow, appreciation of
00:20:23.140 the wholeness of your life.
00:20:24.800 And then what, what can I do to move forward?
00:20:27.080 Okay, I want some problem solving language in there, but the dictator within has been
00:20:33.300 so fed by modern media and by the, just the way that we are told to try to deal with our
00:20:40.840 problems that, you know, we get entangled with it.
00:20:43.960 We disappear into it sometimes for months, years at a time.
00:20:47.360 And meanwhile, you know, eventually you get to the point where you need like mindfulness
00:20:52.880 classes just to show up in the present moment.
00:20:55.680 You're so used to disappearing off into woulda, shoulda, couldas, or I should have, you know,
00:21:01.960 rumination, worry, et cetera.
00:21:04.060 And so we need to learn how to rein in the human mind and not have it just run us around
00:21:10.060 like a leash, you know, throw a ring in our nose.
00:21:13.540 And if you don't, you're going to suffer a lot because there's a lot of programming in
00:21:18.580 your head that is not wise.
00:21:20.840 You know, it's not wise and yet you can't resist just almost immediately reacting to
00:21:29.140 it when it shows up.
00:21:30.380 And next thing you know, you're arguing when you don't want to, you're defending when you
00:21:35.100 don't need to, you're forgetting when you need to remember you've lost direction and
00:21:39.940 purpose, getting your feet on the ground, showing up, being more mindful, notice what's
00:21:44.440 going on requires a different mode of mind than that dictator voice.
00:21:48.820 And so examples of the dictator voice is like, if you're feeling down, it's like be positive,
00:21:52.720 don't be negative.
00:21:54.160 If you're feeling anxious, like the dictator is like, there's nothing really here for you
00:21:57.140 to be afraid of.
00:21:58.820 You're, you're, you're, that's, that's, that's probably what it sounds like.
00:22:02.720 Yeah.
00:22:03.160 You know, and the thing is, is that superficially soothing, it might even be a little helpful
00:22:07.040 in the moment.
00:22:07.980 Sometimes if you have something really to do.
00:22:09.940 But you get into a chronic mode like that.
00:22:12.800 And next thing you know, the side effects of that and the dumbing down of that, for
00:22:16.580 example, let's just be positive, let's just be positive.
00:22:18.860 You've probably been around people who are just relentless in that.
00:22:22.480 And frankly, sometimes it's irritating, you know, bad things are going on, you know, or
00:22:28.040 reactions are having that you really need to read.
00:22:30.840 You need to notice that you feel uncomfortable right now.
00:22:33.460 You're feeling anxious right now.
00:22:35.260 Well, you know, maybe that person you're about to date is not for you.
00:22:39.940 Or maybe that job you're about to take is not really what your gut tells you to do.
00:22:45.400 You can close off your access to the whole of your history by just putting these kind
00:22:51.840 of meta rules down.
00:22:52.980 Like, I'm only going to think positive thoughts.
00:22:55.980 Well, that's nonsense.
00:22:56.860 I mean, negative thoughts have a role.
00:22:59.860 Getting entangled with them, disappearing into them.
00:23:02.560 Okay.
00:23:03.160 But, you know, you can get entangled and disappear into positive thoughts.
00:23:07.480 Have you ever been around a narcissist?
00:23:09.480 You've ever been around somebody who thinks they're the greatest of the great and the grandest
00:23:13.080 of the grand no matter what happens?
00:23:15.320 Do you enjoy that experience?
00:23:17.720 Now, of course, you don't want to be around folks who are going to go, woe is me.
00:23:20.940 I'm polypathetic, you know, help me, help me.
00:23:24.440 Now, you don't want to be around that either.
00:23:26.520 But both of them are the same deal of us disappearing into our minds and not showing up as the whole
00:23:32.440 persons that we are.
00:23:34.640 And learning how to do that is something that we've, some of that's in our spiritual and
00:23:39.280 wisdom traditions.
00:23:40.020 But it's now in our psychotherapy traditions.
00:23:43.440 And some of the methods, some of the methods we've invented, you know, you can see the benefit
00:23:47.940 in 30 seconds.
00:23:49.340 You can do things that you can put onto the factory floor or into a business meeting or
00:23:53.660 into your workout.
00:23:55.120 That's why it doesn't just go to anxiety and depression.
00:23:58.340 These processes are central to leadership, running a business, doing this podcast.
00:24:03.320 They're central to everything.
00:24:04.300 And so, take advantage of your pain and struggle to learn skills that you can use across the
00:24:13.860 range of things that challenge you in life.
00:24:15.900 That's a lot wiser way forward.
00:24:17.600 And that's, I think, where all of the evidence-based therapies are trying to go, at least the newer
00:24:22.640 ones that act as sort of had a leadership role in creating.
00:24:27.840 So, the first skill of psychological flexibility is to notice your thoughts.
00:24:30.760 Just witness them, observe them, just be curious about them.
00:24:33.800 Instead of trying to fix and change them, which gets you even more tangled up in them.
00:24:39.080 And another part of this, another skill of cognitive flexibility is opening to your emotions,
00:24:43.760 which can mean instead of trying to escape from painful feelings and the hurts you've
00:24:47.100 had in the past, sometimes you just need to turn towards them.
00:24:50.200 You can't run away from your doubts, your difficult memories, past betrayals.
00:24:55.440 Good luck doing that.
00:24:56.460 I mean, you can maybe, the old joke is, you know, sort of a bottle in front of me or frontal
00:25:03.740 lobotomy, neither of which are good, you know, so brain injury or being drunk, you know, maybe
00:25:10.580 you could get away with that.
00:25:11.820 But then you can't get away, you know, then that has a cost.
00:25:14.420 So, grow up.
00:25:16.340 You've got to figure out a way to show up to your history as it is, not as what your
00:25:21.400 mind says it is, and do something healthy with it other than run away, run away, run
00:25:26.180 away, which makes it more central and in a way more perverse in its impact because you
00:25:33.340 get stupider, not smarter.
00:25:35.780 You stop being able to read what's going on.
00:25:38.700 There's really good evidence of this.
00:25:40.080 People who are suppressive of emotions and thoughts create self-stupidity.
00:25:46.820 They make bad choices.
00:25:48.740 They put themselves in dangerous situations.
00:25:51.600 Why?
00:25:52.540 Well, it would be just like what would happen if I eliminated the feeling in your fingers.
00:25:57.180 What's going to happen to your hands?
00:25:59.020 Well, there's lots of things feeling in your fingers are useful for.
00:26:02.400 Yeah, okay, if you're putting your hands on sandpaper, that might feel painful.
00:26:06.900 But, you know, lepers lose the feeling in their hands, and they do things like accidentally
00:26:12.220 put their fingers in the fire.
00:26:15.360 And that's metaphorically what goes on when we create stupidity in order to avoid pain.
00:26:24.140 Better to show up to the pain and learn how to inhale it, get with it, and then refocus it.
00:26:30.800 And you'll find inside some of these self-doubts, painful memories, are the seeds of what you
00:26:37.340 really care about.
00:26:39.120 In part, that's why you care about it.
00:26:41.720 If you think back over the things that are really important in your life, like the big
00:26:44.620 lessons, the big ones, I bet you there's really painful ones on that list.
00:26:49.140 So don't take advantage, you know, just don't, the siren song of less pain is always better.
00:26:58.320 It's just not true.
00:27:00.100 We learn from our mistakes, and we learn from our painful times.
00:27:05.060 So we've got to keep our feelers out.
00:27:07.800 Okay, so act, you're not trying to quiet or silence those negative feelings.
00:27:12.220 Instead, you're trying, you're just, you're trying to relate to them differently.
00:27:16.520 Yeah.
00:27:16.900 And so let's talk about some principles that you found in your research and your work that
00:27:21.280 allow people to do that.
00:27:23.460 Yeah.
00:27:24.220 So relating to them differently, it turns out there's lots of ways of doing that.
00:27:29.340 And it's not to diminish, it's not to eliminate, it's to put how central it is in your behavior
00:27:36.200 under your control.
00:27:37.160 So that, let's say you have a thought that is painful, but, and self-critical, but it
00:27:45.920 doesn't have much utility in the moment.
00:27:48.400 Let me give you an example.
00:27:49.540 I was, I was given a talk at Stanford and I was talking about how much sleeping medications
00:27:53.640 had gone up and it had gone up over a few years, $3 billion.
00:27:57.340 And I, you know, in a talk at Stanford, you don't want to do this.
00:28:01.260 I said, and it's gone up $3 trillion.
00:28:05.200 Well, I didn't catch it at the time, but I'm sleeping.
00:28:07.800 Suddenly I sit boat upright in my bed from a dead sleep.
00:28:11.720 And I realized how idiotic that is.
00:28:14.320 That's off by a thousand times.
00:28:15.880 And I say out loud, $3 trillion, you idiot, you idiot, you did it at Stanford, they were
00:28:23.160 recording the talk.
00:28:24.620 So I'm into that, right?
00:28:27.040 Well, A, I want to sleep, you know, I don't really want to sit here and convince myself
00:28:32.040 what an idiot I am.
00:28:33.440 B, the talk is already done, I'm not going back and redoing it, right?
00:28:37.980 Well, I catch this and I use a classic ACMETA method, which is to take a dominant thought that's
00:28:45.600 not helpful to you, distill it down to a word and repeat it out loud, at least once per
00:28:53.040 second, fast, out loud for 30 seconds.
00:28:56.760 We've done the research on all the parameters, 30 seconds is a sweet spot, at least once per
00:29:01.380 second.
00:29:01.820 All this stuff has been researched in a lab, that's how geeky we are.
00:29:05.180 So I sit there on the edge of my bed down there in Palo Alto and I say, idiot, idiot,
00:29:10.280 idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot, for 30 seconds, and then I go back to sleep.
00:29:15.600 You know, if you just try that, take something that really just pounds you, you know, I'm
00:29:21.760 unlovable, you know, I'm stupid, whatever, something that, the kind of thing that wakes
00:29:28.040 you up at two in the morning that, you know, sticky, probably old, just try it.
00:29:32.580 It can only take 30 seconds.
00:29:34.660 Do it when nobody's watching, you know, they probably don't want to do it in front of anybody
00:29:38.180 who think you're pretty loony toony, but distill it down to words, say it out loud fast for
00:29:43.740 30 seconds, just watch what happens.
00:29:46.200 By the end of that time, the word's losing its meaning.
00:29:49.380 You're noticing that you're thinking.
00:29:51.500 Your jaw's getting tired.
00:29:53.540 You realize at one level, I'm just talking.
00:29:56.360 You can hear the sound of the word.
00:29:58.040 It sounds differently.
00:29:59.900 And the distress produced by the word goes down very substantially.
00:30:05.080 It's all been researched.
00:30:06.380 There's probably a hundred studies on that now.
00:30:08.940 We were the first to do it.
00:30:10.380 It was invented by a guy named Titcher, who was the father of American psychology.
00:30:14.420 He wrote about it in 1907.
00:30:16.140 We were the first to ever use it clinically.
00:30:19.260 We call this myth, this diffusion, which is a made up word that means,
00:30:24.640 fusion means to pour together like lemonade, three things, but it tastes like one thing.
00:30:29.440 You don't really taste the sugar separate from the lime, the lemon separate from the water.
00:30:33.240 Well, if you use 30 seconds of it, you'll defuse a thought.
00:30:39.040 It's kind of like pulling it out of its joints.
00:30:42.100 And then the next time you have that thought, you'll have a little bit of a sense of,
00:30:46.840 I could just notice it.
00:30:48.500 Notice that I had that thought.
00:30:50.500 I'm stupid.
00:30:51.780 Okay, thank your mind very much for that thought.
00:30:53.840 I got some work to do, though.
00:30:56.140 Thanks for trying to help me out.
00:30:57.440 And there I'm into another diffusion method.
00:31:02.280 Thank your mind.
00:31:03.660 Give your mind a name.
00:31:05.300 Thanks, George.
00:31:06.420 Trying to help me here.
00:31:08.060 But frankly, I've got that covered.
00:31:11.200 It's not to diss your mind.
00:31:12.860 It's not like you're trying to just turn off your mind.
00:31:15.640 You're just trying to do what you would normally do if you had kids in the backseat of the car quarreling.
00:31:21.600 You'd know how to turn it off mentally.
00:31:23.840 You can do the same thing, not in a way that's avoidant, but in a way that's, okay, I've listened.
00:31:29.960 I've taken what's useful here.
00:31:32.220 I'm going to leave the rest and change your relationship to your thoughts, feelings, memories, and bodily sensations.
00:31:39.780 Put it under your conscious control.
00:31:42.660 That way you can allocate attention to what's important.
00:31:45.960 You don't have to waste attention on what's not.
00:31:48.640 But you still have a channel open.
00:31:51.620 You're not suppressing.
00:31:52.540 You're open.
00:31:55.880 And diffusion will help you learn how to do that.
00:31:58.660 And it sounds like the goal of diffusion is to help people be more cognitively flexible.
00:32:03.680 Like instead of trying to put order and trying to quelch everything, you're just like, okay, I've got that thing, but I can still act in a way I want to act, even though that emotion or feeling or thought is there.
00:32:16.260 Yeah, you can bring it along with you.
00:32:18.860 In fact, right inside the, oh, you stupid idiot, is I do want to do well.
00:32:23.820 Okay, well, let's use my mind to focus on how to do well and groove things, et cetera.
00:32:27.440 What's right inside that anxiety about an upcoming date, let's say, is I do want to have relationships that work.
00:32:34.300 Okay, well, let's focus on that.
00:32:36.160 And your feelings are not your enemy.
00:32:38.860 They're an echo of your history and what's showing up in the present moment.
00:32:42.560 Your thoughts, your memories have a role, have a place, but they're not your boss.
00:32:48.560 They're not, you don't turn your life over to them.
00:32:52.300 They're part of you.
00:32:53.860 They're in you and with you and part of you, and you're bigger than all of that.
00:32:58.220 So can you create room for your whole history, allow it to inform what you do, but don't let it dictate to you what to do.
00:33:07.740 And if you learn these kind of cognitive and emotional and attentional flexibility skills, well, then you can have a history that has painful things in it.
00:33:15.940 We've all got that, but you don't have to get stuck on it, wrapped around it.
00:33:19.900 It's not like a, you know, cord wrapped around an axle.
00:33:22.900 It's knotted up.
00:33:24.300 You know, you can't, you know, you can't proceed until you, you know, untie the knot.
00:33:29.100 We can untie this knot by relating to our minds and our emotions and our history in a different way.
00:33:36.360 That's more flexible.
00:33:37.840 So the fourth act skill is learning to see the perspective of others.
00:33:41.580 And the other skills can lead to it because as you get better in touch with your own sense of self, you can get better in touch with other people.
00:33:48.660 There's a part of you that will connect you to others.
00:33:51.440 I'm here.
00:33:52.080 You're here.
00:33:52.800 We're here.
00:33:53.840 There's a we inside this me of awareness.
00:33:57.000 So that's what's in the wisdom traditions, the spiritual traditions, the mindfulness traditions.
00:34:02.460 And that's why meditation is everywhere.
00:34:04.500 You can hardly open a magazine without seeing meditation as a word.
00:34:07.880 And people are learning in the cacophony of Western culture.
00:34:12.100 We better find a way to put our feet on the ground and show up in consciousness and connect in consciousness to others.
00:34:18.740 So that diffusing from the self story is step one.
00:34:22.520 Catching that there's this awareness part of you that from which you can have difficult emotions and carry them without domination.
00:34:33.240 Difficult thoughts from which you can allocate attention flexibly.
00:34:38.040 So the act work consists of backing out of the conceptualized self, the ego, if you want to use that word, and showing up to this more transcending observer, witnessing person behind your eyes sense of self.
00:34:54.380 Not alone and disconnected, but connected in consciousness to others.
00:34:58.740 And from there, a lot of things are possible, and there's a reason why you dumped endorphins when your mama looked in your eyes.
00:35:07.680 There's a reason why you have whites around your eyes so that you can see from across the room where others are looking.
00:35:12.900 We're very in touch with the consciousness of others.
00:35:17.440 And from there, we can do wonderful things in our communities and businesses and teams.
00:35:23.320 And, you know, we're not solitary creatures.
00:35:26.720 We're connected through language and consciousness and our underlying biology to the troop, the tribe, the band, the community.
00:35:37.040 And that's the place we can do spectacularly great things.
00:35:41.940 And I think it's important for people that we reiterate this point.
00:35:45.020 I think when people hear, oh, it's acceptance therapy, it just means I'm resigning myself to my current situation.
00:35:50.620 That's not what you're talking about, acceptance.
00:35:52.480 Acceptance is basically accepting reality as it is, accepting those emotions that you have, and not having to, like, judge it right away.
00:36:03.600 It's a dangerous word, acceptance.
00:36:05.420 And sometimes I think it made a great acronym, acceptance and commitment therapy, ACT.
00:36:09.340 I mean, how can you get better than that?
00:36:10.940 As I say, if you really want to do therapy instead of talk therapy, ACT is perfect.
00:36:15.360 Let's get about acting.
00:36:16.940 But the word acceptance, it's true, has some connotations that aren't helpful.
00:36:21.800 It's still in English, though, what we meant by it.
00:36:25.400 If you had a precious gift, a really precious one, and you gave it to somebody that you love,
00:36:30.100 I bet you you might say, here, would you accept this?
00:36:33.580 You don't mean, will you tolerate it?
00:36:35.920 Can you resign yourself to it?
00:36:37.900 Will you put up with it?
00:36:39.020 You mean, will you take this gift that I'm offering you and take it willingly by choice, okay?
00:36:49.400 So, what your capacity for emotion and thought and memory and bodily sensations, that's a tremendous gift.
00:37:00.820 And life is offering you a gift, a precious gift.
00:37:04.100 Yeah, I know your mind doesn't like it, but let's take something like, okay, I'll take one.
00:37:09.920 If you were to Google my name for a TED talk, you'll find I've done a couple.
00:37:14.540 And one of them, I walk through the ACT work and my turning away from the dictator within on a night on the carpet,
00:37:23.300 when I think I'm having a heart attack, and it turns out I'm having another panic attack all the way back in 1981, almost 40 years ago.
00:37:30.360 And I tell the story of, you know, catching, you know, that meaning and purpose is in there too.
00:37:40.600 That right inside my anxiety and so forth, I caught was the memory of my dad threatening violence to my mother and coming home drunk.
00:37:51.760 By the way, a loving, wonderful person, don't judge him.
00:37:54.580 Just, you know, he had problems, and so did my mom.
00:37:56.960 But I'm a little dude, I'm underneath the bed crying, and, you know, and saying under the bed, I'm going to do something.
00:38:09.460 Well, I had so forgotten it, it wasn't even until the ACT journey that it showed up.
00:38:14.600 I mean, I knew there was domestic violence in my home, I knew that.
00:38:17.460 But I just didn't know how deep the wound went.
00:38:21.000 And when I found it, it was like, oh, of course I'm a psychologist.
00:38:27.300 Oh, of course I'm interested in helping people who are suffering.
00:38:31.900 Because, you know, these early traumatic things are there in many, many, many people's lives.
00:38:38.520 My point being, there's a precious gift that's offered.
00:38:43.240 The anxiety I was feeling linked me over to the gift of my own history.
00:38:51.980 And, yeah, I'm feeling nervous.
00:38:54.580 You know, my first panic attack happened when I was in a department meeting with, as I say, on the TEDx talk,
00:39:02.220 watching full professors fight in a way that only wild animals and full professors are capable of.
00:39:08.680 And the reason it was so anxiety-provoking for me, I didn't find out until years later.
00:39:15.420 It was reminding me of hiding under the bed and hearing my dad shout at my mother and threaten her with violence.
00:39:24.260 And so, knowing that, it makes sense of why I'm working so hard to help people with trauma and anxiety and depression.
00:39:34.600 Because I couldn't do that at eight years old with my parents, but I can do it now.
00:39:41.640 And so, inside your pain are the things you most care about.
00:39:47.280 Think about it.
00:39:48.240 The things that you are moved emotionally in a, quote, negative way.
00:39:54.280 Pick anything.
00:39:56.180 Now, flip it over.
00:39:57.660 What does that suggest you care about deeply?
00:39:59.740 If you're terrified of intimacy, I bet you you've been through betrayals.
00:40:06.100 And inside the betrayal is yearning for loyalty and trust and intimacy.
00:40:11.040 Isn't it?
00:40:11.700 That's why I cut you through the heart.
00:40:15.060 And the same thing.
00:40:16.200 Go over and over again.
00:40:17.460 If you're really anxious around people, I bet you you really care about being with people.
00:40:21.860 If you're really struggling with depression, I bet you you really would like to feel again in a way that's whole and free.
00:40:30.400 Not be like a metaphor of a divot in the road, depressed, you know, squeezed down, like life squeezed out of you.
00:40:37.680 Just go through the list.
00:40:39.160 And so, acceptance is from the original Latin root, meaning to receive as if to receive a gift, Septarium in Latin.
00:40:48.160 And it's still in English, and we're not interested in wallowing.
00:40:54.000 I have, like, zero interest in rolling around in your pain for no point.
00:40:58.460 But showing up to the whole of your history so that you can be empowered to be all of what you could be, that's awesome.
00:41:07.500 And being able to use your history to help you be an ally, even the painful parts, that's wonderful.
00:41:12.760 You can learn to do that, and it'll be more effective in every area of your life.
00:41:16.500 That's what the data shows.
00:41:18.080 So, stop running away, plant your feet, show up, open your eyes, learn the skills to do that without being overwhelmed or wallowing.
00:41:27.320 And now focus on what you really want to create in your life and get about the do therapy part of an act.
00:41:33.620 What are you going to do with that?
00:41:35.860 I really like that idea of accepting and looking, and it means, like, accepting those emotions you have for what they are completely.
00:41:42.800 Like, the negative and the positive, like, and trying to find the positive, underlying positive.
00:41:47.660 Because that goes to a part of act is, you know, finding out what you value, which will allow you to, this is the final step, to take action, to do something about what you value.
00:41:57.820 So, those negative emotions can help you find out what you really value in life so that you can take action on those positive affirming values.
00:42:05.800 Yeah, exactly.
00:42:07.240 And, you know, it turns out, by the way, if you run away from negative emotions, pretty soon you start running away from positive emotions.
00:42:12.860 I didn't know that when we started the act work, but we found that.
00:42:16.280 And how pathetic is that?
00:42:17.820 You know, in the name of feeling good, you can't feel at all.
00:42:21.060 So, let's do a good job of feeling.
00:42:22.880 Let's feel good.
00:42:24.140 And then move our attention towards what we really want to have as qualities of what we do.
00:42:30.860 How do you want to be as a whole person in this world?
00:42:34.800 And there's four ways into that.
00:42:36.300 You can take pain and flip it over, what I just talked about.
00:42:39.280 You can think of the really sweet moments in a given area, your work, your relationships, anything that's of importance to you.
00:42:47.580 The really sweet ones, unpack them.
00:42:49.440 You're going to find the qualities that you want in your life.
00:42:52.020 Think of your guides and heroes.
00:42:54.660 We've all got guides and heroes.
00:42:57.400 Why are they heroic?
00:42:59.680 Why do we hold them up?
00:43:01.460 Because something about the way they are shows the kind of values we want to put in our behavior.
00:43:08.960 And finally, is authorship.
00:43:10.220 If you're just writing a story, how would you write this?
00:43:13.100 What's the next chapter going to be about?
00:43:14.800 Not at the level of who's going to show up, what the details are.
00:43:17.960 That's not in your control.
00:43:19.760 You might have a disease right now.
00:43:21.720 You're not going to find out until you just go to the doctor.
00:43:23.880 You might have a plane fly into your garage in the next moment.
00:43:28.100 That can happen.
00:43:29.100 But what is the arc of this story about?
00:43:32.200 Are you writing a tragedy?
00:43:34.060 Is that really what you're up to?
00:43:35.580 Or do you want to write a hero's journey?
00:43:37.420 It turns out that's really in your control.
00:43:40.920 So those are the four ways in.
00:43:42.280 And when you do find that, then now you've got a beacon.
00:43:46.040 Now you've got a lighthouse out in the distance.
00:43:48.400 And when you're lost, you can raise your eyes and see it.
00:43:51.780 You know, if you're about being a more loving and compassionate person, what are you going to have to do in the next moment to do that?
00:43:58.740 If you're about really kind of contributing to the well-being of others, what are you going to do?
00:44:05.400 If you want to be successful and your mind says that's all money, what are you going to do with that money?
00:44:09.680 You know, and what we found is if people don't do that, they start taking their goals, the concrete things they can achieve to be their values.
00:44:19.640 And the pathetic thing that happens is that even when they meet their goals, it feels empty.
00:44:24.780 It doesn't really scratch the itch.
00:44:27.620 You know, you see it with money.
00:44:29.580 You know, almost all of us, you know, would like to be more successful financially.
00:44:32.980 But if we forget why we want to do that, what are we going to do that's pro-social, that's in our hearts, that's, you know, of importance?
00:44:42.140 We just end up thinking that if we have enough dough that we'll no longer have self-doubts or people will love us or whatever.
00:44:50.820 It predicts misery.
00:44:52.160 That research has been done.
00:44:54.660 Happiness becomes inversely related to financial success if you do that.
00:45:01.140 I mean, what a joke.
00:45:02.080 It's pathetic.
00:45:03.860 I mean, you've got miserable billionaires.
00:45:06.740 So how about if we focus on what brings meaning and purpose by choice, by who we are, and get in front of that person in the mirror.
00:45:16.900 Use those four methods of pain or sweet moments, heroes or guides, or the kind of story you're writing, and dig down.
00:45:25.500 And you make some choices.
00:45:27.300 What's it going to be?
00:45:28.160 What you're up to with the life moments you got?
00:45:30.960 Now work on putting that into your behavior.
00:45:34.800 That's an engine for success, not just from the outside, but from the inside.
00:45:40.120 That's why it applies everywhere.
00:45:41.540 It's what applies to sports or business or, you know, dieting or exercise or stepping up to the challenge of physical disease.
00:45:48.720 Or yes, anxiety, depression, substance abuse, trauma, and all of those.
00:45:52.500 Because these core skills are just life skills.
00:45:56.940 They're success skills.
00:45:58.860 They're creating a life worth living skills.
00:46:01.080 No, I love this.
00:46:02.860 I mean, so I think, I mean, I think this is a great big picture overview of ACT, and there's a lot more details that you go into the book and then your other work.
00:46:09.480 But I mean, I think something that'd be useful to end our discussion here is kind of give some like very broad examples of this working through, let's say, like an anxiety problem that someone's struggling with.
00:46:19.040 And then also, I'd love to see like how this would work out with someone who's trying to enhance their performance on the job, at work, in their leadership position.
00:46:27.640 So let's start with like someone who's dealing with like anxiety.
00:46:30.640 They're stressed about social, they have social anxiety, for example.
00:46:34.480 So let's start with like that diffuse.
00:46:35.860 Like, so if they're experiencing that emotion, you start off with diffuse, you diffuse that emotion first, correct?
00:46:40.780 Well, we're going to, diffusion is especially good for thoughts because we're taking, we're dialing down the literal meaning part so that we can notice that we're creating thoughts in our minds in real time.
00:46:53.400 That's the core diffusion to look at your thoughts, not just look at the world structured by your thoughts and missing that you're doing that, that it's your thinking that's doing that, some of which is automatic, you don't completely control it.
00:47:05.340 So we start off to spin around the six processes, show up in consciousness, catch that person behind your eyes, focus over there and notice that you're thinking and own that.
00:47:16.700 You're having thoughts, cool.
00:47:18.400 Are your thoughts your enemy?
00:47:19.380 No, but do it with a little sense.
00:47:21.260 Like you're looking at your hand with that's, you know, 18 inches out from your face, not your hand up on your face.
00:47:28.840 You know, you don't let those thoughts get up on you because then you can't see anything else.
00:47:33.020 It'd be just like putting your hands over your eyes.
00:47:35.340 The diffusion moves it out.
00:47:37.100 You still see the thought, you still know what it means, but just like if I took that, you know, stupid, stupid or idiot, idiot at Stanford, okay, now I can see that I'm thinking.
00:47:48.580 Then use that skill to open up to your emotions, your memories, et cetera, and see if you can kind of taste them, kind of sense them and take in the gift that they offer.
00:47:59.280 And then when you've done that, notice that you can allocate attention in a flexible, fluid, and voluntary way.
00:48:08.200 You just did it.
00:48:09.380 You can carry it over into what's in the present moment around you, within you and without.
00:48:14.220 What's of importance here?
00:48:16.220 What should be focused on?
00:48:17.480 What should be shifted to focus on something else?
00:48:19.980 Do you need to broaden your view, narrow your view?
00:48:22.740 And then come over to what you really want to be about, meaning and purpose.
00:48:27.520 And now what would it take to create habits around that?
00:48:30.680 Those are the six things.
00:48:31.900 So with the social anxiety, let's say, catch that the person, you're a whole person who's witnessing this.
00:48:39.140 Notice that you've got chatter about how you may be inadequate.
00:48:42.360 People may not like you, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:48:45.180 But also there's thoughts in there about how you really like to do things socially.
00:48:49.660 It's not all negative thoughts.
00:48:51.620 Notice that you're thinking.
00:48:53.380 Notice that it produces some reactions, anxieties, things in your body.
00:48:58.340 Great.
00:48:58.700 Notice that, but try to focus it with equanimity.
00:49:02.300 Open up to it.
00:49:03.080 Be like a table with things put on it, rather than trying to get up there and move everything around on the table.
00:49:09.640 Just be the table.
00:49:11.020 Hold everything on it.
00:49:12.780 And now come into the present moment.
00:49:14.720 What's of importance here?
00:49:16.460 And one of the things you'll find is that witnessing, observing part of yourself now in the present moment can go behind the eyes of other people.
00:49:24.760 If you're socially anxious, take the time to notice you've got a conscious human being around you, maybe several.
00:49:32.300 And they may be doing the same thing you are.
00:49:35.600 They may also be worried about, are they going to be, you know, light?
00:49:41.440 Worried about your opinion of them.
00:49:43.760 And you're so in your head that you're not even noticing you've got other living, breathing, conscious creatures around you called human beings.
00:49:51.700 So take a little time to take this witnessing, noticing part of you and put it behind the eyes of others and get the sense of who you're with and what that affords, the connection that's possible.
00:50:04.580 Now, what do you value here?
00:50:06.780 What are you trying to create?
00:50:07.940 You're just trying to impress?
00:50:09.940 You're just trying to, like, have a bullet list of how great and grand you are?
00:50:13.960 Really?
00:50:14.760 That's what you're up to?
00:50:16.880 How about listening, connecting, relating, loving, liking, supporting?
00:50:24.700 How about compassion?
00:50:25.580 Could you do something other than be a performer on a stage because you actually come into a conscious connection with the person who's here with you?
00:50:36.200 That's like the social anxiety anti-drug.
00:50:40.200 Because when you do that, now we're putting that anxiety to kind of reach out and touch the consciousness of another.
00:50:48.560 And now, what do you want to do with that connection based on your values?
00:50:52.140 What are you going to do?
00:50:52.880 Are you going to ask the person to do something with you?
00:50:56.580 Are you going to create something together?
00:50:58.480 Are you going to be together?
00:50:59.660 Are you going to meet again?
00:51:00.800 Are you going to do something?
00:51:02.960 What do you want to do?
00:51:04.740 And so that arc will walk you right out of social anxiety and will take the anxiety that you feel with others into being able to do things that are values-based with others,
00:51:17.800 in which your own history now doesn't mock you, but becomes kind of a goad for the kind of person that you want to be.
00:51:25.540 Your best self, which is not the self-aggrandizing clown suit, nor the, you know, Paul pathetic, you know, help me, I'm so weak and helpless.
00:51:35.880 It's this owning your history, showing up, connecting with others, and doing things that bring meaning and purpose into your life and not others.
00:51:43.760 And the joy of creating a life worth living is right there in that spin around these six flexibility processes.
00:51:55.280 You know, and there's lots of books and lots of things for free.
00:51:58.160 You know, you can just Google acceptance and commitment therapy and find vast amounts of things, YouTube things, and, you know, things for free.
00:52:07.360 You don't even have to pay anything.
00:52:09.100 And, you know, I have written a book recently called Liberated Mind.
00:52:13.940 You mentioned it at the beginning.
00:52:15.760 I have another one, a self-help book that beat Harry Potter for one glorious week in 2006 when it was written up in time called Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life.
00:52:25.120 And those may be kind of entering into the world of ACT.
00:52:29.960 There's hundreds of books now, literally millions in print, mostly not by me, because there's a vast worldwide community that's trying to put these processes into people.
00:52:42.960 Now, you did ask, what about workouts?
00:52:46.400 Yeah, it could be workouts or like work.
00:52:48.520 I mean, this isn't...
00:52:49.780 Or work.
00:52:49.800 Yeah, you're asking about work.
00:52:50.720 Yeah, this isn't just for managing mental illness.
00:52:53.400 This can be used to...
00:52:55.400 Well, you know, like, just take leadership, for example, at work.
00:52:59.320 There's pretty good evidence that transformational leaders, people who can take the perspective of workers, who take the time to see the world through their eyes, who are open to what they're feeling and thinking,
00:53:13.540 which means you have to be open to the reactions that you have in the world of thought and emotion, and that can create, at work, a values-based community that's about something bigger than ourselves, that's not just about me, me, me.
00:53:29.540 It's about we, and that can, you know, use our behavioral skills in a way that create environments that are flexible and allow people at work to do creative things to best pursue the values that are there inside the business.
00:53:45.160 Because, you know, there are good randomized trials, you know, controlled studies showing that bringing ACT into leadership training produces more effective leaders with more successful businesses.
00:53:58.060 And so, this spin around that I was talking about with social anxiety could apply to leadership, it could apply to your relationships, it could apply to your workout routine, it can apply anywhere that the human mind goes, because your mind is not always your ally.
00:54:16.380 It can tell you to do things that are self-aggrandizing, disconnecting, fearful, limiting, you know, mindless.
00:54:24.440 And if you don't learn how to put your mind on a leash, and then use your skills to build a more flexible, cognitively, emotionally, attentionally, behaviorally flexible way of moving towards your values, you know, you're interfered with.
00:54:41.940 And I was, before the COVID thing, I had the great joy of going and spending time with a major league ball club.
00:54:50.340 I think I can say the name, Toronto Blue Jays, where the performance coaches and sports psychologists are all ACT all the time.
00:54:57.640 You know, people won gold medals at the Olympics doing it.
00:55:00.860 You know, this is not, yeah, it's for depression and anxiety, but these skills are life skills.
00:55:06.820 Learn them and see if they don't help, whatever it is that you're up to.
00:55:13.880 And it's not a panacea, but it's the 20% that does the 70% or 80%, and they're learnable.
00:55:20.900 And they're learnable, fortunately, from books and apps and so forth.
00:55:24.400 Therapy can help.
00:55:25.840 And when you have, you know what the data shows, lots of horizons become more reachable.
00:55:32.420 Well, Stephen Hayes, thanks for your time.
00:55:33.600 It's been an absolute pleasure.
00:55:34.440 It's been awesome, Brett.
00:55:36.020 Thank you for having me on.
00:55:38.200 My guest today was Stephen Hayes.
00:55:39.240 He's the author of the book, A Liberated Mind.
00:55:41.400 It's available on Amazon.com and bookstores everywhere.
00:55:43.880 You can find out more information about his work and acceptance and commitment therapy at his website, stephenchayes.com.
00:55:49.960 Also, check out our show notes at aom.is slash a liberated mind, where you can find links to resources, where you can delve deeper into this topic.
00:55:55.940 Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast.
00:56:06.180 Check out our website at artofmanliness.com, where you can find our podcast archives, as well as thousands of articles we've written over the years about pretty much anything you can think of.
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00:56:37.500 Until next time, this is Brett McKay, reminding you not only to listen to the AOM podcast, but put what you've heard into action.