Things Might Go Terribly, Horribly Wrong: A Guide to Life Liberated from Anxiety

by Kelly G. Wilson

Contact with the present moment—the ability to bring flexible, focused attention to what’s happening in your life right here, right now Defusion—the ability to hold thoughts and stories about what’s possible lightly, without taking them literally or assuming they are invariably true Acceptance—the ability to acknowledge and affirm all aspects of your life just as they are Values—the ability to choose and articulate those aspects of your life that matter to you Committed action—the ability to choose to act in ways that further your values and to gently turn back toward those values when you find yourself going in a different direction Self-as-context—the ability to see yourself as the dynamic and evolving setting in which your life unfolds instead of as a fixed set of ideas about who you are and what you might become

ACT’s six process areas. As you practice and develop mastery in these 6 areas or ways of thinking, anxious thoughts no longer have a meaningful place in your heart and mind. In other words, “The goal is to set you free—not free of anxiety in the sense that hard thoughts and feelings cease to exist, rather, free in the sense that they no longer set limits on your life.”