In this week's episode, we have an enlightening chat with psychologist Dr. Carissa Gustafson about using acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) to get a handle on anxiety. Dr. Gustafson provides valuable insights on how a sense of lacking control can drive anxiety. She explains how ACT helps you accept what you can and can't control, and take action focused on the present moment.

We also dive into powerful ACT concepts like mindfulness, cognitive defusion, and connecting behaviors to your core values. Dr. Gustafson emphasizes embracing all your experiences with compassion as opposed to avoiding difficult emotions. She shares extremely practical techniques to become more flexible and committed to the meaningful life you want. Get ready to learn research-backed tools to develop self-awareness, acceptance, and take value-aligned action when anxiety strikes!

Some amazing highlights from our chat:

2:30 - Dr. Gustafson explains how anxiety arises from wanting control to feel safe. She emphasizes accepting what you can and can't control.

7:55 - How mindfulness helps relate to thoughts and feelings with open awareness rather than avoidance.

13:40 - Dr. Gustafson talks about using cognitive defusion to become unstuck from anxious thoughts. She suggests thanking your mind for trying to protect you.

21:15 - Dr. Jay asks about linking behaviors to values to enhance motivation for change. Dr. Gustafson agrees this is key.

31:20 - Dr. Gustafson stresses embracing all experiences, even difficult emotions, with self-compassion rather than judgment.

Buy Dr. Carissa's book Reclaim Your Life: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in 7 Weeks on her website or Amazon.

Alright, let's just jump off with a banger here. What do you believe is the number one contributor to anxiety?

Control. Yeah. So immediately when I think of anxiety, I think of control. That people want to be able to exert control naturally, right? And really when I think of anxiety, the emotion that I think of is fear. We are afraid. We are anticipating or experiencing some kind of threat.

Ooh, powerful word to start off. Control. Do tell more.

So we're afraid and we want to be able to exert control in order to return to a sense of safety. And if there's things that we can do, right? So I think anxiety can be healthy in a sense, right? If we can plan and we can prepare or there are actions that we can take, where people get kind of stuck or twisted up is trying to exert control over things that are just not within their control. And that's...

That brings me to the acceptance piece, right? How important it is to accept what is and what isn't in your control and really focusing just on the present moment and what is actionable. Because so often people get kind of off into the future, to a problem that they're anticipating but may or may not happen.

and or something outside of their control that they can't do anything about. And then people get very overwhelmed. And then the threat response just kind of heightens and lingers. But if we can bring ourselves back to the present moment, if we can bring ourselves back to kind of an action oriented approach and accept, you know, what, what is not in our control, I think that's the best place to be.

I can understand the concept of control leading to stress and anxiety from a personal standpoint, because for me, if I feel like I have control over the situation, then kind of cognitively, I can tell myself all will be okay. But if I feel like I've relinquished control, then I think my go-to or kind of my MO, if you will, is to feel like, well, oh, crap, like, well, what can I do to attain control? So with this notion of acceptance, and I'm sure we'll unpack.

Yeah.

Right.

this word because I think the word acceptance gets misconstrued sometimes for people but with this word acceptance and as it relates to control are we really talking about this idea of just kind of like let it all happen however it's gonna happen just kind of be almost like a victim to what the future has to hold or are we talking about something different

Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

Hmm.

Yeah, I think we're talking about something different, right? So I think, like you said, a lot of people, some therapists will not even use the word acceptance because people have misconceptions about what that word means. It's actually it's not a resignation. It's not a giving up. It's not a kind of just becoming a victim. As you said, it's an active process. We're actively accepting what is beyond our control, and we're focusing on what is actionable.

And in that way, I think that acceptance can actually be very, very liberating and very empowering.

Yeah, I think I would agree with you on that as well. I think a lot of times the misconception comes into play when people hear the word acceptance. That just means like, well, I guess I'm just going to be an absolute victim to everything that I encounter. I should just accept that it is what the way it is. It will never change. I can never do anything about it. And so therefore I might as well just come to terms that this world is going to end in nothing but pain and suffering.

Right?

for me. And that can be a really dark place to go, right? It would only make sense that someone would fall into a state of anxiety, of perpetual depression and sadness, anger, if you thought that that's the way that things end, right?

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Exactly. And as you were sharing that, right, that sounded very depressive to me, that kind of mentality. And that's not what we want, right? We want to empower people. We just want them to, you know, as the serenity process, have the wisdom to know the difference between what they can and what they can't control and really tap into, you know, maybe it's just a sliver of what they control, but really, really kind of like commit to that.

and feel empowered in that sense without kind of succumbing to hopelessness.

Yeah.

So you are well known and you've written a book and I'd love to talk about your book as well in the field of acceptance and commitment therapy or what people may have heard of as ACT and we should also clarify too that if you see ACT it's not you know in our fields called ACT we call it ACT for a reason but I'm curious what is acceptance and commitment therapy?

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, in my biased opinion, the best kind of therapy, but I'll explain kind of what it is and what it means. But in a nutshell, it's this balance between acceptance and action, or as the name implies, acceptance and commitment. Right? So we're accepting different things, right? Like our thoughts and our feelings, for example.

There you go. We could just leave it at that.

Those are things that I would say are kind of like beyond our control, but that are very important to be aware of. So mindfulness is a really big component of act. So we wanna be aware of the stories that our mind tells us without being bought into them. We also wanna be open to emotions that arise without being overwhelmed by them. So using mindfulness or acceptance to relate to our thoughts and feelings.

And then the action or the commitment piece is about identifying our values and what we really care about and taking action towards being the person that we wanna be, showing up in the world in the ways that we really value and care about. So I find it to be a very, very empowering approach.

I think too, to clarify if anybody also, you know, kind of the way I pose the question is what is acceptance and commitment therapy? So it is a modality that is used by clinicians within the therapeutic process. I think a lot of people may be familiar with this concept of CBT or cognitive behavioral therapy and I know there's a lot of digital mental health apps about that. I mean, a lot of people will talk about CBT as being kind of the core.

Hmm.

modality they use a therapist may say that people may have gone to therapy and CBT was used. How does act differ from CBT?

Yeah, this is one of my favorite topics because interestingly, a lot of people, even like laypeople now know about CBT and that's kind of touted as like the, you know, holy grail of like evidence-based therapy. I find CBT very lacking and I think that ACT has a lot to offer that's missing from traditional CBT. And in some ways, like some people would say ACT is kind of part of the evolution of CBT.

people will sometimes refer to act as like a third wave cognitive behavioral therapy. And there are people that are integrating more, um, you know, like mindfulness into traditional cognitive behavioral therapy. But the old school CBT was really focused on changing your thoughts as a way of changing your feelings and then helping you to change your behaviors. The problem with that. And like what I like to tell people is if it was that simple, if people could just change their thinking,

Like I wouldn't have a job. It's not that simple, right? Like some thoughts, especially kind of negative thoughts, tend to be hard to change. And so this is why I love ACT so much. I just, I find it so much more effective for myself and my work that we don't have to change our thinking. We can just be aware. We can just be aware of our thought patterns without being...

Mm.

hooked by them or fused with them or bought into them. We can just have awareness of our thoughts. We don't need to change them. And perhaps even more importantly, we don't need to get rid of our feelings. So so many people, even some clients that I see as therapists that have more of a traditional kind of like CBT background come in viewing their feelings like anxiety as the problem and they want to get rid of it. And then maybe, you know, in this case,

as a therapist, they feel bad that, you know, oh, I can't get rid of my anxiety and I should be able to get rid of my anxiety as a therapist, especially, but it just doesn't work like that, you know? So that difference, just being able to relate to our thoughts with awareness instead of trying to change them and being open to our emotions without trying to get rid of them, I think is so, so important because resisting or avoiding our emotions

leads to so many problems. And traditional cognitive behavioral therapy too, it doesn't have any kind of mention of values and what do you care about and how do you wanna show up in the world? It does focus some on kind of, you know, engaging perhaps in more effective behaviors. And sometimes I'll use like a sprinkle of kind of, you know, oh, that's, you know, notice that you're catastrophizing.

and that kind of thing that can be helpful for people. But I think it's the noticing that's helpful. Not that they're gonna all of a sudden stop catastrophizing. I think for some people, that's just the nature of their mind. But if they can have awareness of that, and if they can label those thoughts, maybe that will help them to relate to their anxiety or their fear a little bit differently. And I would say with more acceptance. And one of my favorite techniques is to say thank you. Like, oh, thank you for trying.

to protect me, you know, as we're talking about kind of anxiety, perhaps more specifically, your mind is helping you or trying to help you to anticipate a threat. So you can thank it, but you don't need to get lost in it. That might not be helpful.

I think I lost your audio.

There you are. Okay. Okay, good.

Sorry, I had muted and then didn't unmute. So it's okay. A podcast editor will clear that out. It's okay, I'll jump back into what I was saying. A core tenant of cognitive behavioral therapy is that we should be always monitoring for automatic thoughts and then labeling them as rational or irrational. And then taking that and replacing anything that we would identify as being irrational with a more.

rational thought, which was with a more rational thought. And for me, I always kind of took that perspective, even when I was in training, and it's been quite some time now. But I always thought to myself, it seems to me like that is an overly simplistic way of kind of dichotomizing thoughts and acts and serves as a way of avoiding the thoughts that we're having and avoiding the emotion. And one of the things that really brought me

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

to act and to really love the field of act is to view through this lens of identification that our thoughts are not something simply to be avoided or emotions are not simply something to be avoided. Avoided can be protective and I love how Steve Hayes always talks about how it can be protective but it typically is very short term. It might be helpful to do that in the short term. But in the long term.

Huh?

these recurring themes come up and we're having to do it over and over and over again. So how does act

Right. Yep. And if you just try to ignore it, it's kind of like whack-a-mole, it might come up even more, you know?

Yes, yeah, it's indeed it's like the don't think about the pink elephant, you know thought right and then all you can think about is the pink elephant

Right? Yep. And then people judge themselves and feel like they're failing. Like, oh, I just can't think rationally what's wrong with me. And that's of course not helpful to people's mental health. Yeah.

Yes. So if, if we kind of view, let's say from a therapeutic perspective and a mental health perspective, if we view this idea of emotions and feelings, not something as to be avoided, but something to be experienced. Well, then sometimes I hear this, the person kind of push back and say,

but it's painful to do that. Like if I want to be happy, like why would I just want to be immersed in that pain? Like my mind tells me some really shitty things. So like, why do I wanna sit there and just kind of like repeat that and listen to it in my head? Is that what you're saying is that we should just sit there and like listen to it in our head or is there something else we should be doing?

I think people could do that.

Right.

Yeah. Is that what you're saying is that we should just sit there and like listen to it in our head? No. Or is there something else we should do? Something else, right? So what you kind of described is a few things, right, that come to mind, but one of them is fusion, right? So if people imagine that they have to just buy into what their mind is saying, that's not helpful. And it is over simplistic, right, to suggest like, oh, I just need to kind of like recognize that that's irrational. And then kind of like...

as if we can like throw that thought in the trash or something. It just doesn't work that way. So what I tell people is like, we don't need to be rational. Like we're not human beings are not. We have irrational thoughts and our feelings, you know, might not always make sense to us on the surface. That's OK. Rationality is not necessarily the goal here. We want to be aware of our thoughts and our feelings. And what I like is kind of this like open, kind, curious approaches like

Why is this showing up or what is this telling me? And it may not be telling you anything useful. And if so, that's okay, right? You can just notice it. But we don't need to, and we can't, I would say just get rid of our irrational kinds of thoughts. We benefit by being aware of them. And I would also say we really benefit by being aware and open to emotions, including painful emotions.

because I also don't think it's realistic that we're just happy all the time. That's not the human experience either. We have a very rich and full range of emotions and that is not just the positive stuff that people like, like happiness or joy or peace or calm, all those kinds of things. It includes some very painful emotions like loss or fear, sadness. All of those emotions can be

Hmm.

People like that talking about their story of peace, calm, all this kind of thing. But in truth, I'm very thankful for that. I have lost my fear. That's why I'm here.

very, very strong, right? But we wanna be open to those feelings with compassion to ourselves for how difficult it is. Because if we close off from those, we're limiting our emotional range and they tend to persist. So a big part of ACT is this idea that, you know, what we avoid persists. And if we're avoiding, you know, kind of like these thoughts, if we're avoiding kind of

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

some painful feelings, they're going to find a way to pop up. We can't just get rid of them. We have to find a different way to relate to them with awareness, or mindfulness, with acceptance, with compassion. We have to be open to kind of experience these things while having the skills to know that we are more than these things that we're experiencing.

Mm-hmm.

We are more than we think we are. Yeah. So like one of the typical metaphors is kind of like, these things might be the rather. Like you thought that then, and then you heard those informants, but where does the fire? These things are the fire that you can feel by the sound inside. But we need to be open to it. And that's why we're here.

So like one of the typical metaphors is kind of like these things might be the weather, right? These thoughts or feelings, they might be very dark and stormy, but we're the sky. We contain them. We're not going to be destroyed by the storm itself. But we do need to be open to it and that it will pass.

Yeah, do you believe that for some people they have this notion or thought that if they were to allow themselves to experience the quote unquote painful emotion, the more suffering emotion, the negative emotion, that if they allow themselves to do it, then maybe they'll become trapped in it and they'll never be able to not experience it?

Absolutely. That comes up a lot. Especially it seems with people who have been very severely depressed and also I would add to that, suicidal in the past. I notice a lot of avoidance of sadness that you know maybe I'm seeing them and an earlier time in their life they were depressed or very suicidal and they don't ever want to go back there again and so they really avoid sadness and what I tell them is

Hmm.

We need to be open to sadness. Being sad is a part of being human. And right now you're not allowing yourself to feel, to grieve. And that, that avoidance of those feelings is more likely to result in depression or self-directed violence than if we can help you to be open to the sadness that is showing up here in the moment. And let's find a way to do that that's skillful with mindfulness, with compassion.

Mm-hmm.

Right. Well, there's this idea too, like if, if I avoid it and I don't experience that emotion, then maybe kind of the, the magical wand of the gods will wave its hand and it will just disappear and go away where in fact, sometimes if we put on the mask or the facade and we choose not to experience it, we just stuff it. Well, we know that compartmentalization is going to manifest itself at some point and in some way.

Right.

Right.

And we know that as things compound over and over and over again, people are led down the path of explosion or implosion. It's going to come back and manifest. So I think this idea of saying like, listen, there's kind of two paths here, right? You can continue to do that. But my guess is, and I have strong evidence is that it's kind of rear its ugly head and it's probably going to do so in a way that's way worse than even what it is now. But if we allow ourselves to find a position,

Yeah, absolutely. Yep.

of acceptance and work through this now as opposed to later. It's kind of the same thing like procrastination, right? It's like, I can either do this now or I can wait till crunch time and things might be even more stressful and really, really stress me out. So when you have someone who's kind of maybe we, maybe we refer to that as ambivalent or they're kind of sitting on the fence or maybe they've tried to convince themselves.

that waiting until doing this later or just trying to avoid it completely is the route to go. Like what kind of conversation do you have with them? Do you find that it's more of like, hey, let me see if I can convince you to work on this now or do you take maybe a different approach?

Yeah.

I take a different approach, right? So what I ask people to consider is what does your experience tell you? Right? Don't trust me. You don't need to believe me. What does your experience tell you? Does your experience tell you that this is working or not?

Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. The one concept that I always come back to and act as being kind of like my go-to concept to discuss and to talk about is psychological flexibility. Could you explain to our audience what is psychological flexibility?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it's really, that's how I think of emotional well-being is being flexible and, you know, conversely, you know, being unwell is rigidity. So when I think of kind of like psychological flexibility, one way that I think of it is a broadness, being able to kind of like take perspective, not being fused or hooked on our thoughts, not being resistant of our emotions, not restricting or limiting our behaviors.

but having kind of this broadness of perspective, through things like mindfulness, that allows us to be aware of and to notice without kind of judgment, like our thoughts and our feelings, and to engage in effective behaviors, which we haven't quite hit on this yet, but has a lot to do with being open.

Hmm.

to our thoughts and feelings and not letting those things get in the way. Because a lot of times what happens is people, you know, are rigid in their thinking, or they're fused with their thoughts, they believe what their mind is telling them, they're avoidant of their emotions or discomfort like we've been talking about. And then they're limiting their behaviors. And it doesn't allow them to show up in the world in the way that they want or to connect to things that are meaningful or important to them. And then everything is just so narrowed.

and that's not a way to live.

Right. Yeah. So the idea behind ACT would be to enhance psychological flexibility, especially if there is that evidence that there is rigidity. And this is more of a complex open question, but I think for our listeners, they may be interested in this idea. Well, how do I enhance, or maybe how do I even take the first step to enhance psychological flexibility?

So where would you say people start? Like what is kind of the easiest pathway to say, I wanna be more psychologically flexible. I see how my rigidity is kind of holding me back and it's enhancing my experience of anxiety or sadness, or you kind of fill in the blank with the adjective or emotion. Where do people start on their travel or their journey to psychological flexibility?

Yeah, I would say with mindfulness that can they start to practice mindfulness? Um, I think that that's probably the best tool out there to help people to start to do some of what we're talking about, to not be so wedded to the negative thoughts that they have, to not be so avoidant of their emotions. Um, I think mindfulness is probably the best tool in terms of creating that broadness or perspective, taking that flexibility of thinking and being.

Hmm.

So what is mindfulness?

Yeah. Well, a lot of people, right, they have an image of just sitting on the cushion and meditating, but that's, you don't have to do that to be practicing mindfulness. Yep. You don't need to shave your head. Yeah.

You don't have to be a Tibetan monk in order to practice mindfulness. I thought I had to sign up for, right? Shave your head, you know, move out to, you know, uh, Nepal. And then also, you know, you gotta, you gotta of course, you know, be silent for six hours at a time. Yeah.

Right, right. Yeah. So you don't have to do that in order to practice mindfulness. Really it's, it's just about being present in a particular way. Right. Um, and in a way that has this kind of attitude, like I described before, of kind of like non-judgment or kindness and curiosity, you know, so that's what mindfulness is, it's just being aware, you know, with intention in a non-judgmental or kind, compassionate way. And.

you can do that while sitting on the cushion, right? And paying attention to your breath or body sensations or sounds or any other kind of anchor. And you can do that in your daily life. And really it's probably the daily life piece that's much more important than on the cushion piece. It's just that on the cushion practice helps people to be more mindful in their daily life. But, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

It's translative, right? I mean, that's the thing that I always tell people is like, I put in the time to do it in a controlled condition. So on the mat, in my nice silent room, in this conditioned environment, so that it's translative or translates into real life, into my everyday interactions, into my work, into relationships. So it's kind of like you put in the hours at the gym, so it then will translate to, let's say the sport that you're playing. I see it very similarly.

Hmm.

Yep, that's a really good example, right? And then it shows up, you know, when you're at a meeting at work or you're having that conversation with your spouse or something, and you can notice that you're getting triggered. You can notice that you're feeling angry. You can notice that you're feeling inadequate. And instead of just reacting and doing something that might not be consistent with your values or might not help you to be kind of, you know, the professional or the, you know.

spouse or person that you want to be, you can respond in a more mindful way, a more effective way. But if you're kind of just an autopilot and you're fused with your thoughts or you're believing everything that your mind tells you, or you're generally avoidant of your emotions and you're not as aware of what's going on, kind of like emotionally or physically in the body, you're more likely to be reactive and less likely to be, you know,

Mm-hmm.

showing up as a person that you want.

Yeah, so if we got down to brass tacks on this one, because I know people love to take whatever nuggets they can on like, what can I do? And I'm sure we'll talk a lot about that too here in a minute. But if we just got down to brass tacks on mindfulness, is this something that you suggest maybe just people start like doing a couple minutes a day, like, you know, just have that dedicated practice? Or do you think more of like the informal practice is the place to start? Like, what's kind of like the boots on the ground version?

I think ideally both, right? So ideally people are engaging in both and you wanna do what works for you. So do what you can, do what's realistic. I do think that you wanna kind of like marry like the formal practice with the informal practice. So like, you know, whether that's five minutes of meditation in the morning or first thing when you get to the office or, you know, last thing before you go to bed, I think.

you do want to do some kind of like a formal practice, but you want to kind of do both kind of a formal practice where you're doing like mindfulness of breathing or a body scan or something like that with the informal practice like being aware of anything that you're doing in your day. It doesn't have to be even just like being aware of kind of when you get triggered, although that's when perhaps it's most helpful, but it can be aware of the sensations as you

Hmm.

or as you're cooking a meal, or as you're petting a pet, or holding your child or something like that, I would invite people to practice both simultaneously.

Hmm.

A lot of the feedback that I get from people when they first try to meditate or do a mindfulness practice is that they experience significant intrusive thoughts. Their cognition starts going wild and a lot of people will abandon the practice because it feels very stressful. I mean, it's hard to just like sit there with their thoughts. And so kind of coming full circle and tying in kind of these ideas, these thoughts that we've been, or these notions that we've been talking about in relation to thoughts and

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

sitting there and trying to push them away because we've identified that that's not a very helpful practice that doesn't really move us toward our goal and moves us away from it. What should people do when they get in that situation? They're sitting down to meditate and the next thing they know, it's like, man, I can't do anything but get stuck with my thoughts.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah, yep. And there again, like a lot of judgment can show up and a lot of shame and I'm not doing this right. And why can't I just quiet my mind and then yeah, exactly. Right. And then abandon the practice. So the first thing that I would tell people is, yeah, that's normal. You're not doing it wrong. You have a human mind. And yeah.

which enhances stress and anxiety, right? People get more anxious about it.

That's normal.

part of the experience can be having these kinds of intrusive thoughts. And so can you notice that? Because that is practicing mindfulness. If you can notice that you're having these intrusive thoughts, instead of being lost in them, that's practicing mindfulness. So the metaphor that I like to use there is, can you kind of like go to the river bank and stand at the side and watch the thoughts as opposed to being carried off in the stream?

Hmm.

Hmm.

And it's going to happen too that you're going to get carried off in the stream, especially if the current is really strong, right? And some thoughts, especially anxious or fearful thoughts, or maybe angry thoughts, or a lot of thoughts have a very strong kind of emotional current, right? That can suck you in. That's okay. That's going to happen. Practice getting out of it, right? That's practicing mindfulness. And that is developing a muscle, a skill.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, for sure.

Mm-hmm.

that's going to help you in your daily life when those same kinds of, you know, really pervasive intrusive thoughts are really kind of strong emotions show up. It's going to help you to take that step back and observe it with awareness as opposed to just being sucked into it or reacting to these things as if as if they're real, they're just mental events. Thoughts are just mental events or stories that our mind is telling us.

Mm-hmm.

Um, even if it, uh, even if it feels very scary, like intrusive thoughts can feel very scary and you might also write, use it as an opportunity, you know, to just thank your mind so you can notice it. You can label the thoughts, you can thank your mind and you can come back to the breath that's practicing mindfulness.

Right.

beautiful. Yeah, we're really good at humans at treating thoughts as facts, or cognition occurs and then we identify that as factual. It's inherently a part of us, whatever our mind says goes it's right.

Yes.

Right.

We might even think of it as somewhat dichotomous in the sense of like we categorize or bucket ourselves into like this is correct, this is incorrect. But when it comes to thoughts, it's really easy just to kind of throw it into, well, if the mind's producing it, then therefore, I might as well attach or get infused with it because it must be real. And a lot of it, I think, is very protective, right? It's like we're trying to do whatever we can to like, survive and push forward and pass the gene pool down.

Yeah.

So we're gonna figure out and we're gonna adopt these different mechanisms of doing anything that we can to be self preserving. And I see this with me even, I have practiced meditation and mindfulness now for longer than a decade on a consistent, I would say almost close to daily basis, pretty ritualistic for me. And there are so many days where I still get stuck, like I get carried away and the next thing I know,

Yep.

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

I look down and I'm like, it's been 10 minutes and I have just been off, I've been away. And I think that, and I hear a lot of these stories and narratives too, from like monks who do practice this, six, eight, 10 hours a day. And they're like, listen, my mind just doesn't turn off, it doesn't work that way. Like the mind is a language factory. And so to think that there's an on-off switch is a fallacy. And so I just like people to be reminded of that. That's okay, it's not about.

I hear a lot of these stories in there too, from like monks who do practice like six, eight, 10 hours a day. And they're like, this one, I'm doing this because it's turned off, but this is the worst. No.

Yep.

not getting caught up in your thoughts because that's gonna happen. It's about noticing that you're getting caught up in your thoughts and coming back over and over and over again and not being, like you said, judgmental about having to come back over and over and over again. It's okay, it happens. That's a part of being human. And that psychological flexibility is when you can say, it's okay, I'm a human. When you start punishing yourself for becoming overly punitive,

So.

Yeah.

Well, now we're getting into much more psychological rigidity. And as that compounds, that's a recipe for mental health disaster.

Yeah.

Yep, absolutely. Right. So I don't love this saying, but I think it's it resonates, right, that the mind generates thoughts just the way that the mouth generates saliva. We're not gonna we're not gonna just stop that from happening. But yeah, just being aware of it. Or another thing that was once shared with me is that for even for monks.

Mmm...

Sure, sure.

the moment of mindfulness is at the ringing of the bell at the end of the meditation, right? Because guess what? A lot of people even in that, you know, monastery are lost in thought. Yeah, so yeah, people put unrealistic expectations and pressure on themselves and then the judgment shows up and all of that, as you said, is really counterproductive.

Yeah. Right.

Exactly. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. There's something that stood out in your book that I really love that I wanted to talk about. And so for people who want to check out your book, it's called Reclaim Your Life, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in Seven Weeks. And what I love about this book is that it's just really practical, it's boots on the ground, it's easy to understand. You put things in a way that's really digestible. I believe right now, correct me if I'm wrong, this might be as it currently stands at the recording of this podcast on Kindle Unlimited. So if anybody like has Kindle Unlimited,

you can go there and download it. If not, obviously you can purchase it on, on Kim Kindle as well. But you talk about in one section, um, this concept of language and how it relates to suffering. And this is obviously an act component. What I will say is that, um, there's a lot of density to the theoretical background of act. And so I don't know if we necessarily get need to get into relational frame theory and kind of all that's involved there, because it can be really hard for people to wrap their mind around, even for act therapist. Sometimes it's like wrapping their mind around it is really difficult.

Right.

Yeah. Yep.

but I love this quote and I wanted to read from your book. You say in your book, unlike animals, humans have a storytelling mind. This allows us to do many wonderful things like make plans and solve problems. However, it also has the potential to increase suffering. I'd love for you to expound on that for us.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of like a blessing and a curse, right? This storytelling mind that we have. Because look at the stories that we tell ourselves sometimes, you know? People don't like me. I'm not good at anything. It's hopeless, right? Like when I think of animals, like I think of my dog, I don't think she's walking around with all these, you know, stories about, you know, difficult.

Mm-hmm. Right.

Cats cats might have it dogs not but cats might have the story telling mine How they're gonna how they're gonna take over the world like that's what they're thinking about

Cats might hate it. Yeah, it's hard to say. Yeah, but I think animals are able to be present. And for the most part, then seem pretty content unless there's something in the present moment that's happening. But for people, it's a little different because we have this kind of really magnificent mind.

we create stories about the past, we create stories about ourselves, and we also create stories about the future, this imagined future. And sometimes that can be very limiting if we're bought into these, you know, stories like I shared, like I'm not likeable or I'm not good at anything, or all these kinds of stories that people will kind of become really wedded to are about the future, that it feels hopeless or that everything's going to go wrong.

Right.

that is just going to create a life lost to depression or anxiety. But if we can kind of harness the tools that come with this kind of storytelling mind, while practicing things like mindfulness and compassion so that we're not just kind of bought into anything that our mind is telling us, we can recognize that these are stories that they may not be serving us.

Right.

we could really make good use of it, right? So our brain, it's a wonderful tool, but it is a tool. It can help us plan, it can help us prepare, it can help us problem solve, but guess what? We can't solve the problem of being human. So we're going to feel afraid at times. We're gonna feel scared at times. That's healthy. What's not healthy is judging those experiences, avoiding those experiences.

Hmm.

Yeah.

and being, you know, lost in these stories that our mind tells us. You can have the thought the future is hopeless. You can feel sad or hopeless about things, but it's important to understand that those are just experiences. Those are just thoughts. Those are just feelings. They're passing. And guess what? What does your experience tell you? Your experience probably tells you, oh, I've had a lot of times where I felt hopeless and things changed.

Sure. Yeah.

Right? Just like the weather, it changes.

What would you say to someone, I'm very interested in your thoughts here, what would you say to someone who maybe would push back and say, well, what if my thought that I'm having is actually used as like a motivator? So like, what if I'm like, you know, me saying like, I'm worthless actually motivates me to get up and do something. It makes me to kind of strive to be quote unquote worthwhile if it's the antithesis of worthless. Do you think that

Right?

that is okay? Is there fault in that? Like, because I've heard that before, where people like, well, you know, I have this thought, it really sucks. But I actually use it as motivation to change. Sometimes it's true, sometimes maybe not so much. But what general thoughts on that?

Mm-hmm. You hear that's motivating and it's a change. Yeah. I think that's really nice. Mm-hmm. You have a thought on that. I have a lot of thoughts on that, right? So a lot of people use self-criticism as a way of trying to motivate themselves or to try to perfect themselves, which of course is not attainable or possible. And again, look at your experience. Has it helped you? Maybe it has to some degree, right? I think, I don't think it's true to say that

uh, you know, telling yourself some of these things, even if they're very negative and harmful, can't motivate people to a degree, but does it sustain your motivation? Um, how else does it impact you? I would suggest that for most people, it actually just, um, affirms their own unworthiness or it keeps them caught in this constant kind of striving that's not healthy. And, and that what's most helpful.

Hmm.

Yeah.

is to adopt a self compassionate approach, right? To say that you're human, that you make mistakes, but to stay focused on your values and your goals and committed to actions that you can take it present to work towards those. While allowing for fear, while allowing for doubt, while allowing for feelings of hopelessness, for allowing for setbacks or failures, all of it. But so many people use kind of like self criticism as a way of motivating themselves and it...

Mm-hmm.

might work to some degree, but I don't see that it's sustainable and I don't see that it's healthy, right? So I think Russ Harris will talk about how you can get a donkey up a hill by whipping it. Okay, sure, yeah, it works, but you don't have a very happy, healthy donkey at the top of that hill, or you can motivate it with carrots, right? And then you get up the hill and you have a much happier donkey.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I like that. It's the for me, I come from an athletics background. So I've been into sports and athletics all my life. And it's, you know, kind of like taking the, the Phil Knight versus sorry, Phil Jackson versus Bobby Knight approach. And Bobby Knight was known for like throwing chairs and cursing you out and quote unquote motivating you. But what did it end up with? Yeah. Teams that were quite effective, but not cohesive. And they would burn out and they would, and the mental health of these athletes was really poor.

Whereas Phil Jackson took an approach that was well, much more Zen, it was much more mindfully approached. People felt a lot more cohesive when their organization, but they were also effective and they didn't burn out. So I would say, okay, you might lead to a similar quote unquote outcome, but also two very divergent outcomes all in one. It's kind of that weird anomaly. And so I think I love to the Russ Harris analogy that you provided, because I think it just resonates with me a lot. It makes a lot of sense.

Yeah.

Oh.

it out comes all in one.

I love.

because so many people, I see a lot of hard chargers who would just kind of like, they're really hard on themselves because they're a high performer and they have really high set standards. And they're like, well, self-criticism, a little bit of tough love, rubbing some dirt in it type of approach is the way that they get stuff done and they can be so motivating. But the next thing you know, they're like, but I'm miserable. I'm not spending any time with my kids. I might be effective in kind of reaching my, kind of, I guess more.

Yeah.

Yep.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Hmm.

arbitrary goals that I have set forth, but from a mental health, relational health, social wellbeing perspective, I'm not doing so hot. So I like your, your approach there, because I think it just, it makes sense to say, yeah, there might be some things that can act as motivators, but it doesn't mean that necessarily kind of when all is said and done, that you're going to come across the finish line, a better person, you might just have crossed the finish line.

Yeah.

Yep, exactly. Yeah. So how you want to cross that finish line, I think is really important.

Yeah.

really matters. There's a concept that we've talked about many times today in this talk, but I think it bears us spending a fair amount of time discussing. And it's the concept of values. And one of the things that I have had a hard time with other therapeutic modalities as a psychologist is not linking behavior to values.

Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Right, yep.

And one thing that I've even found in the field of act is that a lot of people wait kind of a little bit further into the process to open up a conversation about values. And for me, it seems almost like it needs to be the first thing we talk about because it's at the core of what we do. Everything should be linked to how is this moving and in line with me living a values based or values driven life. So I would love for you to open up this concept of values. And what is it that we mean when we talk about values?

Hmm, mhm. Mhm.

Yeah.

And is this something you approach later on in the therapeutic process, or do you start with this, or should we start with values?

It really depends. I think in some cases it does make sense to start with values as a way of helping people to in a healthy way find motivation for change. I think sometimes it's introduced later because people are kind of laying the foundations in terms of some of the skills that we've been talking about like mindfulness or like compassion to help people relate to their thoughts and their feelings with more awareness and more acceptance.

and then get into the values piece because that's connected to kind of the actions that you're gonna take. But absolutely, I think it can be important to bring it up at the outset, right? Like, why are you here when people come to therapy? Are they, you know, looking to make a change? Why? Why is it important to them? Or what is important to them? I think that really matters. And it might be important too, to differentiate between kind of like values and goals, right? So values.

Thanks for watching!

They're ongoing. There's not a finish line that you can cross, right? So it's not getting married, it's being a good partner, for example, or it's not just like losing weight or running a marathon or something like that. It's being healthy or active, something like that. So values themselves, making that shift from goals to values can be really important as a way of helping people to become more.

Right.

present focused and action oriented. Cause I also see a lot of times people getting stuck because they're so focused on the outcome and it feels unattainable to them or it feels too late and they feel hopeless about it. Which again is why we want people present focused and action oriented and connected to their values in the moment, you know, today, that kind of thing.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Mm-hmm. Right. So how do you tie in values in terms of when, let's say, for instance, you're meeting with somebody for therapy, you know, you're working on some foundational act-related skills, maybe, you know, mindfulness skills, you know, being present, cognitive diffusion. How do you link values into that conversation? Is it something that you have a formal discussion about?

Or like, what is kind of your take on that?

Yeah, there's lots of different kinds of exercises and ways to kind of get at values. You know, there's like online quizzes that I've introduced people to, or people have found themselves on like TikTok and stuff like that. And they come to me and they say, oh, here, I took like this values questionnaire. There's also kind of like mindfulness practices that help people kind of get at their values. Like, you know, imagining at the end of their life what they want people to say about them and that kind of thing.

Right.

One of my favorite ways of getting at values is kind of where does it hurt? Right? Cause when we, when we notice where something causes us pain or fear, there's a value there, there's something that we care about and that's kind of one of my favorite ways of getting at what do you really care about is where does it hurt? And I think that brings up too, why it's so important that we don't just avoid our painful feelings.

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

because if we're avoiding our painful feelings, we're also avoiding things that we really care about.

Mm-hmm. I love that. No, I think that makes I think that's a makes a lot of sense. Yeah, the reason why I like to have it at the core of what I do and basically what I'm saying is at the beginning of the conversation Is because I think that when we think about Motivation and accountability and the things that are gonna drive us to sustained behavior change I feel like it becomes a lot more difficult

to sustained behavior and have a willingness to engage in behavior if we're not linking it to something that brings us a greater sense of value and meaning and purpose. Because I find a lot of times it seems a little bit more shallow if it's just like, well, I just don't wanna be anxious or I want to be happy. Well, why? If you are less anxious, what good does that do for you other than you being less anxious? And then when you hear people start to respond in a way of like,

Right.

Well, it gives me more opportunity and valuable time to spend with my family and not be like so stuck in my head. Okay. Well, now we're ringing the bell here. Like I feel like we're really starting to get at something that is connected to sense of meaning and purpose. And so I find that it offers just a lot more drive for people again, serving as that kind of like little accountability partner, because then when they're engaging in some activity or behavior,

Uh-huh.

And they're saying like, again, like, is this working me towards living a value driven life or is this moving me away from it? Like, I think that resonates with a lot of people. So I just, I tend to like to open that conversation up a little bit earlier rather than later, I can understand doing, you know, some foundational skills that you mentioned here before. I just like it a little bit earlier because I feel like there's a lot of potency to it and it gets people's heads turning on like, why am I doing this? Like, what does it matter?

Well.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yep. It makes me think about kind of how, you know, people come to therapy because of they want to stop something or get rid of something oftentimes, right? Like their distress and how in act you kind of have to reformulate the goal instead of kind of like what you don't want. Like I don't want to feel sad to change it to something actionable, something that you can do. Like how do you relate to your sadness or why do you want to relate to your sadness in a healthier way? So yeah, even at the very beginning,

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

of identifying values can be a very important kind of part of helping people you know feel motivated or I think of things too like social anxiety right like if you're using a more traditional cognitive behavioral approach it would just be engage in social exposure and you know desensitize yourself to the distress that it causes in those situations but with ACT you can thankfully tie in values and it's like well why are you doing this?

That's right.

Hmm. Yeah.

Why is it important for you to do these things that make you so nervous, in addition to helping them kind of have skills to relate to their distress in those experiences? But it's a good example. Yeah.

Yeah, it's so much more robust when you do that. It seems again, a little bit more surface level and shallow to not link and direct that conversation that way. I think when you do take the time to dig a little bit deeper and tie it with meaning and purpose and value, again, I think it just resonates at the heart level, at the soul level of that individual more. And hopefully it's kind of the continued mover towards behavior change, for sure.

There's one more process that we have not referred to or talked about yet. We've talked about values and we've talked and kind of highlighted committing to action, cognitive fusion, talked about living in the present moment, being mindful, but there's the one that tends to be a little bit more confusing for people and act, which is the self as context, the observer self. I'm wondering how do you explain that to people and explain the value of that process?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, the way that I kind of explain it to people is like the self that's always been there. Like there's some part of ourselves kind of, you know, I think about kind of like in your core or something not that it has like a physical location. But there's some part of you that has been there with you throughout your entire life kind of like your consciousness itself, perhaps that has experienced your entire life.

Hmm.

right from the moment that you were born until this moment right now that has experienced all of the thoughts that you've had and all of the feelings that you've had and all of the circumstances and changes in your life, there is this part of you that's existed unchanged by it all. It makes me think of a meditation, a mountain meditation where you kind of visualize the mountain and.

The seasons change and the weather changes and there's storms and yet through it all the mountain sits, right? It's that part of yourself, that kind of mountain self, the observer self, the selfist context that it's just present and unchanged.

Sure.

Yeah, I like this notion of like, can you notice that you're having thoughts rather than just thinking them? And that's one of the things that you wrote in your book. It's being able to take almost like that step back panoramic view that I think is it's a mindfulness skill in and of itself is to be able to step back and just notice that you're having thoughts rather than just allowing them to kind of pop up and think. And, and I think that

It seems a little bit esoteric to some people because it's like, it's kind of confusing. Like, are you telling me like, is it like an out of body experience? And you're like, well, it kind of feels like it in one sense, but in another sense, it's like, I don't want it to be overly mystical. I think that can put people off a little bit, but I also think that it's just a valuable process to kind of connect with that part of who you are.

Sure.

Yeah, I think it's really important. And when I think of it, I think of it as a very embodied experience, a very connected experience. If you're able to connect with that part of yourself that is unmoved through all the circumstances of your life that can just almost like bear witness to the unfolding of your life and be present with all the experiences that you are having in this moment. Yeah, I think it's very powerful.

For sure. We've covered a lot of ground today, but the one thing that I want to do before we wrap up, two things. Number one, I want to talk about your book and I have a couple questions for you. And then number two is I want to leave our listeners with just some like really good action steps on things that they can get doing given the conversation that we've had today. The first thing though in regards to your book. So again, if anybody's interested in Reclaim Your Life,

people best utilize this? Would they utilize it as a manual that they can go through? Almost like kind of a self-help manual for them, within the context of their home. Should they go through this with a therapist? Well, what would you say is the best way to use this book?

Yeah, I would say people could use it both ways, right? So I know a lot of people, it's hard to access therapy. So for some people, it is gonna be working through it on their own. I think ideally, you would be able to work through it like with a therapist. But I think either way people can benefit from learning more about these kinds of skills and this way of kind of approaching life.

Sure. Do you have people start and go from, from kind of cover to cover or can people jump around? It's like, what's the, what do you feel like is the best way to experience this and gain the most? Like, does it make sense to go through it linearly?

I mean, I think it makes sense to go through it linearly, but I will say, I don't think it's a linear process, right? They, all the skills kind of interact with each other. It's, you know, it's not like you check a box and you're done with one and you move on to the next. They build on each other and they kind of interact with each other.

Sure.

Yeah, makes sense. So, you know, again, just for our listeners here, you know, I will, I've gone through this myself. I've read the entire book cover to cover, really enjoyed it. I thought you did a great job in just taking the complexity behind ACT and making it accessible, because I think some people just started kind of going down the rabbit trail of like, I'm interested in ACT.

and they start reading papers on relational frame theory and they kind of look at them with some of the older school papers of ACT, it's gonna be very heady. It's very, very heady and can be extremely difficult to wrap your head around, no pun intended. So what I would say is that this book, it just allows kind of for really great potency, actionable steps that people can take, which is great. So again, find that it's on, I know it's on Amazon, Kindle Unlimited has it as well, which is great. And I know too, you have it on your website.

Right.

Yeah.

Right? Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yep.

I will put all the link in the show notes as well there. Now, the one thing that I would say before we wrap up that I'm really interested in. So we talked about this idea. So one of the primary things that we're moving toward is more psychological flexibility. And I know that you said a great place to start is with mindfulness practices. The one kind of practical takeaway that I am curious about are people who have...

identified or resonated that, man, I really get like infused with my thoughts. Like I really get stuck. And for me, like you guys have talked about this notion of cognitive diffusion. So, you know, kind of pulling ourselves away from being stuck in this thought and this cognition, what are some good skills and strategies or things that people can even look up and practice in terms of becoming more and more unstuck from their thoughts?

and for me.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, the first things that come to my mind, right, is just, you can just label it. You can just label it thought or you can label it, you know, fear or you can label it insecurity. You could personify it and turn it into kind of almost like a character, right? Like, oh, that's Douglas talking or whatever. If Douglas kind of represents your fears or insecurities or your hopelessness or whatever, you know.

Mm-hmm.

or you can thank it, right? Like that really is truly my favorite technique because I really do think that your mind is not trying to like hurt you. It might be, particularly if you're fused with these thoughts but it really is trying to help you. It's trying to, it's really trying to help you. And so if you can say, thank you mind, like I know that you're scared, but this is what I'm doing, if you can thank your mind.

Yeah

to you, it might be particularly if you could help me. I'm just trying to help you in trying to really try to help you and I'm sure that you can say thank you, Mark. And I know that you're scared, but.

That's one of my favorite things.

Yeah. Do you do you like the I call it the Lemons practice? I don't know what the official title is for it. I know a lot of people that I've worked with who have done, you know, kind of this repeated word practice have found it to initially sound and almost feel really goofy and maybe like somewhat awkward. But they have found that it actually can be but they found that it actually can be quite effective.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

and defusing. Would you mind sharing with us kind of what this what this practice is and, and how someone might be able to do it?

Yeah.

I think what you're talking about, and I think I, so I came across this when I was reading his book, I think, Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life, and he does it with milk, where you repeat the word milk, milk. The idea is that it just kind of loses its meaning over time. Or in some of his books, Russ Harris talks about, saying like, I'm worthless to the song of, like tune of Happy Birthday or something like that.

It's just these different kind of strategies that people can say, whether you're repeating it or singing it to a silly song or making it in a silly voice or something like that, that it just loses the weight that it carries. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, and I would have people practice that. Like if you're going throughout today and you notice that, excuse me, and you notice that something's just kind of stressing you out. So for me, like it might just be like a work project that I'm doing or, you know, maybe it's even like some body. I mean, I might just repeat their name over and over and over again. I do it kind of just like really fast and rapid in the span of 30 seconds and just leave it at 30 seconds.

what you find is that word just ends up turning to sound. All it is sound. It's just vibration and the power behind it, the meaning that we've imposed on that word on, uh, it starts to lose its power. It loses its fidelity. And the great thing about it is I've noticed that like that simple practice as goofy as it sounds and just repeating something over and over and over again can just be a really good reset for me in times of like

distress or when I feel a little bit more anxious or I'm a little on edge. And so, uh, yeah, I made a Instagram reel about this, like not that long ago and posted it and got some really great feedback from people because they were like, you know, I think initially you just think that sounds super goofy. Like who really going to do it? I'm like, just don't knock it until you try it. So yeah, I know that's great.

I made a...

Uh huh.

Yeah.

Before we wrap it up here, any last parting words that you might have for the audience, especially for those who are struggling pretty significantly with anxiety or depression, who are just like, you know, for me, like I have problems with control, like anything that you can think of, just last parting words that you'd like to provide to these people.

Yeah.

Yeah, embrace it, embrace your experience. Don't reject it, don't judge it. And also learn how to manage it. Right? So whatever tendencies that you notice in yourself in your mind, in your kind of emotional landscape, allow like allow it to be accepted as it is well, making sure that you're not letting you know, fusion with these thoughts.

our avoidance of these emotions get in the way of living the life that you want that you can just be as you are with all the thoughts and all the feelings that you have and Just learn to relate to them differently and have the life that you want for yourself or be the person that you want for yourself if you're focused on not letting these thoughts and feelings, you know have a grip on you or restrict your life and focused on You know being present and being active and committed to the things that you really care about you can have

a rich, meaningful life. Everyone is capable of that.

Absolutely beautiful. Well stated. Thanks for coming on the show, Dr. Gustafson. I really appreciated all of your insight.

Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

Thanks.