Reclaim Your Life Quotes

“YOUR EMOTIONS ARE NOT THE PROBLEM You are supposed to have feelings. Your emotions also evolved to help you survive. Sadness indicates a kind of loss and helps people slow down in order to heal.”
― Carissa Gustafson, Reclaim Your Life: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in 7 Weeks

“If you are able to excel at experiencing anger, that is, if you are able to bring nonjudgmental awareness to the thoughts and physical sensations associated with anger, you will be less reactive to it.”
― Carissa Gustafson PsyD, Reclaim Your Life: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in 7 Weeks

“How is anger experienced? What thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations are associated with anger? This is what I mean by experiencing anger. For many people, anger is experienced through strong physical sensations in the body. I might notice, for example, a wave of heat run across my body, or a strong warm sensation in my chest, clenching in my jaw, and tightness in the muscles of my face.”
― Carissa Gustafson PsyD, Reclaim Your Life: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in 7 Weeks

“Anger can be expressed through yelling, screaming, or punching, but it can also be expressed through strong, appropriate, nonaggressive, and assertive communication.”
― Carissa Gustafson PsyD, Reclaim Your Life: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in 7 Weeks

“There is a difference between feeling anger and expressing anger.”
― Carissa Gustafson PsyD, Reclaim Your Life: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in 7 Weeks

“I’ll give you a preview of and introduce you to a quick and easy defusion technique, in which you thank your mind. When you notice your mind telling you things about yourself (that you are lazy or stupid, for example), you don’t have to buy into it, you can simply notice it, say “Thank you, mind,” and move on.”
― Carissa Gustafson PsyD, Reclaim Your Life: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in 7 Weeks

“paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally.”
― Carissa Gustafson PsyD, Reclaim Your Life: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in 7 Weeks

“When you recognize that your thoughts are not facts, just mental events, and your feelings are not problematic, but rather important information, this frees you up to experience them.”
― Carissa Gustafson PsyD, Reclaim Your Life: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in 7 Weeks

“Sadness indicates a kind of loss and helps people slow down in order to heal. Fear indicates some type of danger and helps people fight, flee, or freeze. Anger indicates that some type of boundary has been crossed (for example, someone is taking advantage of you) and helps you protect or advocate for yourself. Guilt, as unpleasant as it is, indicates that we have done something inconsistent with our values and can help us make repairs by apologizing.”
― Carissa Gustafson PsyD, Reclaim Your Life: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in 7 Weeks

“you are not your thoughts.”
― Carissa Gustafson PsyD, Reclaim Your Life: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in 7 Weeks

“For example, if one of my values is mental health, I may need to commit to getting out of my mind, which tells me a story like “this person wronged me,” and learn how to be present with my pain, grief, and loss.”
― Carissa Gustafson PsyD, Reclaim Your Life: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in 7 Weeks

“Committed ACTion means making a commitment to move in the direction of your values despite whatever discomfort might arise as a result of doing so. People often know both what they value and what ACTions are needed, but fear or discomfort gets in the way.”
― Carissa Gustafson PsyD, Reclaim Your Life: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in 7 Weeks

“Values are also different from goals—goals can be accomplished, whereas values are ongoing and provide direction for how you want to live your life.”
― Carissa Gustafson PsyD, Reclaim Your Life: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in 7 Weeks

“Can you connect with your observer self? What are you thinking? Can you notice that you are having thoughts rather than just thinking them? This is the observer self.”
― Carissa Gustafson PsyD, Reclaim Your Life: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in 7 Weeks

“The goal is to become defused from our thoughts to help create more flexibility in our thinking. This allows us to see our thoughts as thoughts and allow them to guide us, if they are helpful, rather than to dominate us and dictate our ACTions.”
― Carissa Gustafson PsyD, Reclaim Your Life: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in 7 Weeks

“The idea is that your thinking affects your mood, which affects your behavior, which affects your mood, and so on.”
― Carissa Gustafson PsyD, Reclaim Your Life: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in 7 Weeks

“Practicing nonjudgment doesn’t mean that you won’t have reactions to things. (You are a human being; you are going to have reactions.) It simply means holding your judgments lightly or observing them as though from a distance.”
― Carissa Gustafson PsyD, Reclaim Your Life: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in 7 Weeks

“Mindfulness is about learning how to be present and welcoming of whatever your experience is.”
― Carissa Gustafson PsyD, Reclaim Your Life: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in 7 Weeks

“rather than focusing on symptoms and symptom reduction, it focuses on changing how you cope with your experience.”
― Carissa Gustafson PsyD, Reclaim Your Life: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in 7 Weeks

“When you recognize that your thoughts are not facts, just mental events, and your feelings are not problematic, but rather important information, this frees you up to experience them. You don’t need to be afraid of difficult thoughts or emotions—they’re just elements of your awareness and a normal part of being human.”
― Carissa Gustafson PsyD, Reclaim Your Life: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in 7 Weeks

“Not only are you not your thoughts, but your thoughts are not even necessarily reflective of reality.”
― Carissa Gustafson PsyD, Reclaim Your Life: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in 7 Weeks

“the goal of ACT, psychological flexibility.”
― Carissa Gustafson PsyD, Reclaim Your Life: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in 7 Weeks

“move toward discomfort in the service of living out your”
― Carissa Gustafson PsyD, Reclaim Your Life: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in 7 Weeks

“Committed ACTion means making a commitment to move in the direction of your values despite whatever discomfort might arise as a result of doing so.”
― Carissa Gustafson PsyD, Reclaim Your Life: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in 7 Weeks

“the part of you that observes the mind, as opposed to the part of you that gets lost in the mind, or”
― Carissa Gustafson PsyD, Reclaim Your Life: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in 7 Weeks

“Making contact with the present moment is being present with whatever is actually a part of your present-moment experience, whether it is your external environment (i.e., your surroundings) or your internal environment (i.e., your thoughts, feelings, or physical sensations).”
― Carissa Gustafson PsyD, Reclaim Your Life: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in 7 Weeks

“Acceptance is about allowing your experience to happen rather than avoiding or resisting it, even if it is difficult.”
― Carissa Gustafson PsyD, Reclaim Your Life: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in 7 Weeks

“Defusion is the ability to take a step back and observe your thinking rather than get lost or tangled up in it.”
― Carissa Gustafson PsyD, Reclaim Your Life: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in 7 Weeks

“The six core processes of ACT are 1) defusion, 2) acceptance, 3) present moment, 4) observer self, 5) values, and 6) committed ACTion.”
― Carissa Gustafson PsyD, Reclaim Your Life: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in 7 Weeks

“They are not driving the bus. You are driving the bus and you get to decide where you’re going. The passengers”
― Carissa Gustafson PsyD, Reclaim Your Life: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in 7 Weeks