Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life: The New Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

by Steven C. Hayes

we tend to take our own thoughts as gospel truth, missing the pivotal point that can create their destructive effects.

Instead of avoidance, you learned acceptance. Instead of belief and disbelief, you learned defusion and mindfulness. Instead of fearful expectations for the future or sad recollections of the past, you learned to be more present in the moment that is now. Instead of taking yourself to be who your mind says you are, you learned to notice that a transcendent “no-thing” self, a self beyond verbal categorization, is continuously present.

You have only so much time on this earth, and you don’t know how much. The question “Are you going to live, knowing you will die?” is not fundamentally different than these questions: “Are you going to love, knowing you will be hurt?” Or, “Are you going to commit to living a valued life knowing you will sometimes not meet your commitments?” Or, “Will you reach for success knowing you will sometimes fail?” The potential for pain and the sense of vitality you gain from these experiences go together. If your life is truly going to be about something, it helps to look at it from the perspective of what you would want the path your life leaves behind to mean.