ACT with Love Quotes

“The feeling of love comes and goes on a whim; you can't control it. But the action of love is something you can do, regardless of how you are feeling.”
― Russ Harris, ACT with Love: Stop Struggling, Reconcile Differences, and Strengthen Your Relationship with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

“Stop trying to control how you feel, and instead take control of what you do.”
― Russ Harris, ACT with Love: Stop Struggling, Reconcile Differences, and Strengthen Your Relationship with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

“The more importance we place on avoiding unpleasant feelings in life, the more our life tends to go downhill.”
― Russ Harris, ACT with Love: Stop Struggling, Reconcile Differences, and Strengthen Your Relationship with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

“The fact that you can act with love even when you don’t feel love is very empowering. Why? Because whereas the feelings of love are fleeting and largely out of your control, you can take the actions of love anytime and anyplace for the whole rest of your life.”
― Russ Harris, ACT with Love: Stop Struggling, Reconcile Differences, and Strengthen Your Relationship with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

“Ever seen a movie where the hero gets punched right in the face? A gruesome slow-mo close-up, where a spray of sweat and blood flies through the air? Notice how you wince, or flinch, or turn away even though you know it’s only a movie? Even though you know it’s make-believe, you can’t help relating to it on some level. How ironic is it that we can so easily relate to the nonexistent pain of a fictitious movie character, but we often completely forget about the very real pain of the people we love? Humans are social animals. When it comes to affairs of the heart, most of us are pretty similar. We want to be loved, respected, and cared for. We want to get along with others and generally have a good time with them. When we fight with, reject, or distance ourselves from the people we love, we don’t feel good. And when they fight with, reject, or distance themselves from us, we feel even worse. So when you fight with your partner, you both get hurt. Your partner may not reveal his pain to you; he may just get angry, or storm out of the house, or quietly switch on the TV and start drinking, but deep inside he hurts just like you. Your partner may refuse to talk to you, she may criticize you in scathing tones, or go out on the town with her friends, but deep inside, she hurts just as you are. It is so important to recognize and remember this. We tend to get so caught up in”
― Russ Harris, ACT with Love: Stop Struggling, Reconcile Differences, and Strengthen Your Relationship with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

“Suppose your partner has deep-seated fears of abandonment: afraid that you will leave her for someone “better.” Or suppose she fears becoming trapped, controlled, or “smothered.” Then when you fight, these fears will well up inside her; she may not even be aware of them because they very quickly get buried under blame or resentment. Or suppose deep inside your partner feels deeply unworthy: that he is inadequate, unlovable, not good enough. This is painful in itself, but when people feel this way inside, they often act in ways that strain the relationship. Your partner may continually seek approval, demand recognition for what he achieves or contributes, ask for reassurance that you love or admire him, or become quite jealous and possessive. If you then react with frustration, scorn, criticism, impatience, or boredom, you will reinforce his deep-seated sense of unworthiness. And this then gives rise to even more pain.”
― Russ Harris, ACT with Love: Stop Struggling, Reconcile Differences, and Strengthen Your Relationship with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

“LOVE is not just an acronym: it is a useful way of thinking about “love” itself. If you think of love as an ongoing process of letting go, opening up, valuing, and engaging, then it is always available to you—even when the feelings of love are absent. So in this sense of the word, you really can have everlasting love. But if you think of love merely as an emotion or feeling, then it can never last for long because all feelings and emotions continually change.”
― Russ Harris, ACT with Love: Stop Struggling, Reconcile Differences, and Strengthen Your Relationship with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

“We need to pay attention with a particular attitude: one of openness, curiosity, and receptiveness.”
― Russ Harris, ACT with Love: Stop Struggling, Reconcile Differences, and Strengthen Your Relationship with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

“Our mind has an endless supply of stories, and while some of them are pleasant, enjoyable, and helpful, many of them are the opposite: unhelpful, difficult, or painful. And when such stories hook us, they create a thick black cloud of “psychological smog.” And just like real smog, it surrounds us, smothers us, and prevents us from seeing clearly or acting effectively. Usually, several types of stories intermingle and coalesce to produce psychological smog.”
― Russ Harris, ACT with Love: Stop Struggling, Reconcile Differences, and Strengthen Your Relationship with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

“Both fill in a DRAIN worksheet, as described earlier.”
― Russ Harris, ACT with Love: Stop Struggling, Reconcile Differences, and Strengthen Your Relationship with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

“Our default is to get trapped inside-the-mind: we give it all our attention, take it very seriously, believe the things it says to us, and obey what it tells us to do. When you’re inside-the-mind, you get lost in the smog of your own thought processes.”
― Russ Harris, ACT with Love: Stop Struggling, Reconcile Differences, and Strengthen Your Relationship with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

“But please do be careful; it’s easy to spend a lot of time combing through your childhood experiences, trying to figure out how they “made you the way you are.” And while it’s useful to have some understanding of how your childhood has influenced you, be wary of getting lost in “analysis paralysis”: so busy analyzing your past experiences and figuring out “how you got to be this way” that you don’t do anything practical about changing your behavior.”
― Russ Harris, ACT with Love: Stop Struggling, Reconcile Differences, and Strengthen Your Relationship with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

“The fact is there will always be significant differences between you and your partner in some or all the areas mentioned here and also in many others. That’s why relationships aren’t easy. They require communication, negotiation, compromise, and a lot of acceptance of differences; they also require you to stand up for yourself, to be honest about your desires and your feelings, and—in some situations, where something vitally important to your health and well-being is at stake—to absolutely refuse to compromise.”
― Russ Harris, ACT with Love: Stop Struggling, Reconcile Differences, and Strengthen Your Relationship with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

“our own suffering that we can easily forget our partner is in the same boat. Suppose your partner has deep-seated fears of abandonment: afraid that you will leave her for someone “better.” Or suppose she fears becoming trapped, controlled, or “smothered.” Then when you fight, these fears will well up inside her; she may not even be aware of them because they very quickly get buried under blame or resentment. Or suppose deep inside your partner feels deeply unworthy: that he is inadequate, unlovable, not good enough. This is painful in itself, but when people feel this way inside, they often act in ways that strain the relationship. Your partner may continually seek approval, demand recognition for what he achieves or contributes, ask for reassurance that you love or admire him, or become quite jealous and possessive. If you then react with frustration, scorn, criticism, impatience, or boredom, you will reinforce his deep-seated sense of unworthiness. And this then gives rise to even more pain.”
― Russ Harris, ACT with Love: Stop Struggling, Reconcile Differences, and Strengthen Your Relationship with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

“like understanding the weather: no matter how much insight you have into its origins and how it operates, you can’t control it; you can only control the way that you respond to it.”
― Russ Harris, ACT with Love: Stop Struggling, Reconcile Differences, and Strengthen Your Relationship with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy