IVF This Podcast Episode #24 Lessons from ACT
Welcome to IVF This, episode 24- Lessons from ACT
Hello my friends. Welcome back to the podcast. I am so excited you’re hear and listening.
I’ll be honest, I am so excited about today’s episodes because I’m gonna cover something that LITERALLY changed my life. When I embraced the concepts that I am about to break down for you- everything changed. No seriously- I’m not selling Amway products here, this changed everything for me and my infertility journey.
So, ACT is an acronym which stands for Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. I is a therapeutic framework that is considered the third-wave of behavioral therapy. So I’m gonna give you a little bit of background because I think it is important to understand HOW something was developed and then I’ll break down the main concepts of ACT, and I’ll talk a little bit about how it changed my life so wildly.
So, there are three widely accepted waves of behavior therapy.
The first wave was based on the work of psychologist and researcher BF Skinner and others. Developed in the 40’s it was researched in response to the emotional adjustments faced by many WW2 veterans that were returning from the war. The focus was on observing, predicting, and modifying behaviors in an effort to promote or improve mental health. His work and the work of his peers was to have a greater understanding of behavior by looking at the causes of actions and consequences. In the first episode of this podcast, you heard me refer to the “think, feel, do” cycle and this wave was really looking a the “do” part of that cycle. I mean, guys this was revolutionary at the time because the framework that was before this was classical conditioning- think Pavlov’s dog. It was a very simplistic way of looking at human behavior so this was pretty incredible to start to where we are today. So Skinner developed a framework called Operant Conditioning and things like positive and negative reinforcement- which most of us are at least familiar with the terms.
I won’t belabor this too long because I know not everyone geeks out on this stuff like I do but, again, I’m explaining how we got to where we are.
The second wave of behavior therapy was developed in the 50’s and 60’s, primarily from two researchers- psychiatrist Aaron Beck and psychologist Albert Ellis (whom I love). Albert Ellis developed Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy which is typically considered one of the earliest forms of cognitive therapy. He believed that a person’s emotional distress came from the persons thoughts about an event, rather than the actual event itself- which is still supported by a tremendous body of research and is the framework of my work. Around the same time, Aaron Beck started noticing that his clients had internal dialogues going on in their minds that they described during their sessions. He saw what appeared to be almost talking to themselves, rather that to him- but kind of cluing him in, sharing with him this part of their thinking- something they didn’t do with other people. Beck was the person that coined the term ‘Automatic thoughts” to describe the thoughts that kind of pop up in your mind. He identified that even though most people are not aware of these thoughts, which many are still not, by creating awareness, uncovering the thoughts, and challenging or questioning the thoughts the patient could experience long-lasting positive change. This second-wave was the prevailing method for nearly 30 years, substantially longer than the first wave but it wasn’t without it’s limitations. And that’s pretty much the case with everything, right?
So, the third wave, the wave we’re currently riding brought us Acceptance and commitment therapy and, of course, some other therapeutic modalities but we’re focusing on ACT. The third wave introduced more Eastern concepts such as mindfulness and focusing on the present- the goal, of course, is to accept the emotional experiences you are having exactly as they are, without arguing w/ one’s thoughts or trying to change the circumstance- without judgment around your reactions or trying to change your reaction.
It’s the understanding that thoughts are only thoughts- they cannot harm you. They are not dangerous. So you can observe your thoughts without identifying with them (and I’ll talk about that concept in just a minute). If you remember my episode about clean vs dirty pain, that is rooted in ACT. That feelings rise and fall like waves so we observe and accept them as they come instead of trying to resist them. Have you ever been on the beach and tried to resist a wave? I have because, well, that’s the kind of person I am and I usually just fall on my ass.
Ok, so you’ve gotten a lot of background on how we got to where we are in cognitive behavioral sciences. The fact that I geek out on this stuff might be why I don’t get a whole lotta dinner party invites, but I digress.
So the ultimate goal of Acceptance and commitment therapy is to increase or improve psychological flexibility. Which, to me, is EVERYTHING!
We’re talking about not being afraid of our feelings! Not being afraid of our thoughts.
Not resisting the uncomfortable. Not being at the mercy of the dickhead who said something idiotic or at the whim of whatever is happening around us but rather choosing, intentionally, how we want to think and feel in ANY situation. It’s so damn empowering!
There’ve been a few of these episodes where I’ve referenced the 50/50 of life. 50% of the time it’s amazing and 50% of the time it’s painful.
People want to argue for like an 80/20 split but that is just some BS that is fed to all of us through this pseudo empowerment movement and toxic positivity.
Ok, so here are the SIX essential components of Acceptance and commitment therapy:
Acceptance (obviously- it’s in the name)
Defusion
Self as context
Contact with the present moment
Values
Committed Action
Alright, lets break it down one by one
Acceptance- this means to open up and make room for unwanted, uncomfortable experiences, thoughts, feelings, emotions, memories, urges, images, impulses, and sensations. Instead of fighting them, resisting them, avoiding them- we open up and make room for them. We allow them to freely flow through us- come, go, or stay as they wish. Understanding that they will do so in their own time. -Full disclosure from your coach, this is HARD. This goes against what we all see modeled to us both from peers and from authority figures. I fought and, in some ways, still fight acceptance. There’s no switch that’s flipped. Acceptance is a life-long pursuit but a beautiful experience.
Defusion- guys, this was a GAME changer for me. Ok, it means that you learn to “step back” and separate or detach from your thoughts, feelings, images, and memories. The technical term is “Cognitive defusion” but in ACT it’s usually just called defusion. The goal is to step back and watch out thinking instead of getting tangled up in it. You start seeing your thoughts fro what they are- nothing more or less than words or pictures. I often tell my clients that thoughts are just sentences in your brain. So defusion is about holding them lightly, instead of clutching them tightly- we allow them to guide us not dominate us.
Ok, now Self as context sometimes its also referred to as “the noticing self”. So this one involves understanding that there are two distinct elements of the mind- the part that thinks and the part that notices. For most of us, we understand the mind as the part that “thinks”- generating thoughts, beliefs, memories, judgments, fantasies, plans, and so on. We rarely refer to the part that notices- the aspect of our brain that is aware of our thinking, feeling, sensing, or doing in any given moment. This is an aspect that is really identified by the practitioners that utilize ACT vs the individual that would kind of identify this but it ties in with defusion. If you can see your brain within the context of those two things the thinker and the noticer, then defusion comes a little more naturally.
The next one is Contact w/ the present moment: This is exactly what is sounds like. It is paying attention to experiences in the moment. This could mean consciously paying attention to the physical world around you or the psychological world within you, or both at the same time- connecting and engaging fully in your experience.
--A little caveat—ACT refers to “mindfulness” a lot. The 4 that I just talked about: acceptance, defusion, self as context, and contact w/ present moment are ALL four core mindfulness practices of ACT.
Now we’re going to cover the last two:
Values- so in ACT values refers to the same thing as personal or professional values. The questions of “who do you want to be?” “What do you want to stand for in life?” “how do you want to spend your time on this earth? This is your life’s compass because it gives you direction and guide your life’s journey.
And finally, committed action- taking actions that are guided by your values. This can look like physical actions or psychological actions. Now the caveat of committed action is knowing that when you do you will experience a wide range of thoughts and feelings- some of them amazing and pleasurable and some of them painful. That’s the 50/50 of life that I talk about. So “committed action” is when you do what it takes to live by your values, EVEN when it brings up painful, uncomfortable, or difficult thoughts and feelings.
Phew!! Ok, I know that was a lot of background and overview but, again, I think it is sp important to learn and know that because if I just told you my 3 lessons from ACT outta the gate, without context, it wouldn’t have made a whole helluva lotta sense, right?
So this is the good stuff, the 3 lessons from ACT that changed my life:
Seeing my thoughts for what they are, not what they SAY they are
You know those loud, repetitive thoughts that you have in your head? Well, I have them too. Mine are usually like, “you’re not doing enough?” “you’re not going to help anyone” “no one is listening to you or watching you” “No one wants mindset coaching for IVF- they want a baby” and so, so many more. These thoughts make me feels anxious, defeated, and overwhelmed. Here’s the things, these thoughts (and whatever the thoughts that you have) are REALLY convincing. They sound super loud in our heads and so they seem legitimate and, well, like the truth. They try to convince us that they are really important and that we need to pay attention to them. Right? Here’s the things, though. They’re NOT true, they’re just opinions. The opinions of my brain because I am doing something that is uncomfortable or unfamiliar.
Your brain only wants three things- we call it the motivational triad: seek pleasure, avoid pain, and not expend too much energy.
When you are doing something that strikes at one or more of those three things, your brain freaks out- because your brain can’t tell the difference between physical danger (like a tiger stalking you) and the discomfort of trying something new, or an upcoming conversation with a friend, boss, or partner.
So, if your brain can’t tell the difference OF COURSE its gonna throw out some BS stuff to keep you from doing the thing so that it doesn’t have to feel pain, it can continue to seek pleasure (food, shopping, social media, alcohol) AND if you’re doing the same thing all the time, well that’s really efficient from the brain so it doesn’t have to expend much energy.
When I learned about this, when I realized that my thoughts were not the absolute truth that they were like subterfuge from my brain trying to keep me in the cave- it was like a new day!
I realized that 1) I could actually stop and ask myself “is that true” when my brain would say something like “you’re not doing enough” or ask it “ok, what is ‘enough’ like what is that measure and my brain would come up with jack then I knew I was on it it’s BS. And 2) I could hear my thoughts, and let them pass me by without grabbing on to it and treating it like it was something special.
Allowing myself to feel whatever I’m feeling in the moment that I’m feeling it
I think I’ve talked about this before but I’m REALLY good at suppressing my emotions. Like REALLY good. And I think that’s true for the majority of people. In the feel Better NOW episode I talked about how there are usually 3 ways people experience emptions: Reacting, resisting, or avoiding. Now, I’m several years into my journey and I still do this, so it’s all about a work in progress. There is no destination.
I, like most people, was in the habit of believing that I should feel good all or at least the vast majority of the time. So whenever I wouldn’t feel happy or content or at peace, I would immediately interpret that as something being wrong.
And this is true for so many things in life;
Something smells wrong with the leftovers, so we avoid it.
Something feels off when we meet someone so we avoid them.
If something bothers us we try to change it or avoid it.
And it’s not like this is unreasonable for a lot of things. If you’re uncomfortable in bed then you move around, readjust, and try to get comfortable.
But there is so much more that is uncomfortable that exists inside of us- so we can’t just easily move or change that.
So for things that are going on inside of us, our thinking and feeling, the more and harder we try to get rid of things the bigger they become.
The more you try to NOT think about your infertility, upcoming IVF cycle, your job, the fight you had with your partner- the more you end up thinking about it.
Let’s take anxiety for instance, because that is something I think I talk to more of my clients about that anything.
The more we try to NOT feel anxious, the more anxiety we experience. Then, the longer we try to resisit it, the more anxious we feel about our anxiety. Or depressed about our depression, or angry about our anger, or stressed about how stressed we feel- you get the idea.
But THIS is where this second lesson comes in- When we experience the thoughts and feelings as they are, when they are, without trying to avoid them and without trying to hang on to them- their intensity lessens. WE completely change our experience of the thoughts and feelings.
All of a sudden, we’re not at war with them, they are just a part of us. Something that we are experiencing as a part of being human, rather than something to fight against or as a stain on our character.
I know this is so counter to how we are taught or what we have seen modeled for us, but when you allow yourself to experience is as what it is in the present moment, with all of its discomfort and pain, it is actually like paradoxically easier to manage.
And finally, Lesson
I get to choose how I want to feel and what I want to do based on how I want to show up in the world
This part was such an eye opener for me and still continues to be. So since one of the 6 core principles is about Values, I really do get to decide how I show up.
Now, some people might misinterpret the “choose how I want to feel” as though they get to choose to feel happy all of the time.
First, we actually wouldn’t know what the hell happiness felt like if we never felt sadness. They require each other. If you felt happy all the time, it wouldn’t actually be “happiness” it would be your baseline so you wouldn’t get that like warm sensation in your chest where a smile just seems to grace your face from out of nowhere. That’s happiness. WE have to have the darkness to appreciate the light, and sadness to appreciate happiness.
But also, the 50/50 of life still stands true.
50% of the time you’re going to feel good and 50% you’re going to feel bad.
When people tell me they want to feel happy all of the time, I think that sounds nice. Right? It sounds like a nice thing to want BUT that means that you would also have to feel happy about death, rape, social injustice, miscarriage, and yes infertility.
So there are times that I want to feel sadness or anger or outrage. There are time I want to feel grief. I get to choose that and because I know that I am the one choosing that, I have agency over it. It doesn’t rule me like I used to believe. I am consciously deciding how I want to feel based on my values.
And, since we know that our thoughts create our feelings and our feeling drive our actions, I am also now actualy aware of what I am feeling and why.
I used to, and sometimes I still do, find myself in the pantry eating anything that wasn’t nailed down. If it had a carb it was either already in my mouth or on it’s way there. I wouldn’t know why I was doing it or at the time I would just be thinking screw this- whatever this was and just eat.
Or I would sit and scroll IG or TikTok for hours when I had stuff to do and try to justify it to myself or just try to ignore the voice in my head or the list of my responsibilities.
But understanding ACT and that ACT recognizes that most of our emotional discomfort means that we spend a lot of our lives engaged in behaviors and experiences that aren’t valuable to us.
If I’m binge eating my pantry it’s because I am trying to avoid feeling something. Maybe overwhelm or anxiety or inadequacy.
IG, TikTok, and pintrest are the same.
I’m feeling uncomfortable and I don’t want to feel uncomfortable so I am trying to numb myself for HOURS or even DAYS instead of sitting down and just feeling my feelings.
You know it’s so interesting, when I sit down and allow myself to feel something- process an emotion it usually takes about 5 minutes, no more than 10. I start to feel the tightness of it ease off of me and loosen. It’s an incredible feeling of peace- now I know that it will probably come back or I will experience another uncomfortable emotion at some other time in the near future because that’s just life for a human but by taking 5-10 minutes to sit with that feeling I do get some peace, I do get the feeling of that tighteness the emotion had over me, loosened.
So I remind myself, When I am trying to numb with food, or social media, or Netflix or something I am literally turning away from peace. I am fighting feeling calm and peaceful on the other side of that feeling.
That is who I want to be for me, for my husband, for my children, and for you all.
I want to show you all that it is possible and expected to feel like crap but that we can handle any emotion that comes to us. You can too. I can show you how.
If you feel like you need some help in processing your feelings. Maybe you’re tired of feeling anxious and want to learn how to manage it- go to my website www.ivfthiscoaching.com or my IG page @IVFthiscoaching and book a mini-session with me. It’s 30 minutes but I guarantee you it’s 30 minutes that’s gonna count.
Ok, that’s what I have for you all today. I will talk to you next week and remember I adore you and you’ve got this.