For the first time in human history, we are trying to raise an entire generation on the message that feeling good equals living well. It is not true. It has never been true. And now we are seeing the sad results in our homes and on our streets. Our task as human beings is to learn how to carry pain without needlessly amplifying it into suffering, while creating a values-based life.
Excerpt from “Human Pain and Human Vitality” by Stephen Hayes, From the March 5, 2007 issue of the Sunday Telegraph in the UK
Stephen Hayes, who wrote the above, developed a model of therapy called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (abbreviated as ACT and referred to not as A-C-T but as “act.”) It is based on the premise that a good life consists not of avoiding unpleasant or painful realities but of accepting them yet still engaging meaningfully in the world. This is counter to what most of us seek. Instead of accepting pain, we may be likely to say “I want to avoid anxiety,” or “I need to end this sadness,” or “I shouldn’t feel unhappy, given all the blessings in my life.” The problem with these thoughts is that anxiety and unhappiness are inevitable in human life. The illusion that only weak or ungrateful people suffer them leads us to even more destructive patterns of self-rejection and avoidance.
What does acceptance look like? It is a willingness to experience unwanted thoughts and sensations—not to mire in them or to believe them, simply to notice and name them, as if standing back and observing them. Instead of AVOIDANCE (“It feels too sad to think about that loss, so I’ll pretend I don’t hurt,”) ACCEPTANCE would say, “It hurts to think about that loss. This is what the pain of loss feels like. It will pass, but in the meantime it’s okay to get to know it.” A great example of this is Kermit the Frog’s lament It’s Not Easy Being Green
I believe that acceptance is one of the most important things we can do to improve our lives and our relationships. It involves learning to take care of ourselves as we approach difficult experiences (a skill called self-soothing) and it involves the courage to experience rather than run from the things we fear. There are as many strategies for doing this as there are people (or frogs.) Finding our own way to acceptance is a lifelong quest.
And as big and as challenging as acceptance may be, it is only one half of the equation for ACT therapy. The other is commitment to identifying and pursuing goals that reflect what we most want. For some, the very idea of “wanting” can be threatening. I’ve heard people say things like, “I try not to think about what I want so that I’m not disappointed when I don’t get it.” I believe this is a way of saying, “I can’t accept disappointment, therefore I can’t risk wanting.” But if we know that we can bear the pain of things not being the way we wish they were, then we can risk caring about and engaging with the things that matter to us. One way to get in touch with this is to allow yourself to complete this sentence, “If there were no chance of failure, then I would…” Change jobs? Move? Tackle racism? Take up knitting? Run a marathon? Commit to losing weight? Reconnect with estranged siblings?
The answers to this question reveal to us our deepest values and our sense of what matters most in life. Feeling confident that we can accept the outcome of trying empowers us to step toward these things.