Life is never going to be perfect. We’re always going to have ups and downs. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is all about accepting our thoughts and feelings as they are, and committing to living a life based on our personal values. It incorporates mindfulness and self-compassion with existential theory.

People tend to spend a lot of time battling with their current emotional state. Let’s face it, humans have a lot of unpleasant feelings—envy, anger, jealousy, sadness, loneliness, fear, just to name a few. We might be okay with feeling those things for a little while, but then we get frustrated and annoyed with ourselves, which just adds to our negativity. Then we feel sad and annoyed at ourselves for feeling sad. Or we feel jealous and angry at ourselves for feeling jealous. We make attempts at not feeling whatever unpleasant emotion it is by distracting ourselves or shutting down emotionally. We prolong the inevitable: feeling our feelings.

ACT helps us just feel the feeling without getting completely taken away by it. It puts some distance between us and the emotion, because we aren’t our emotions. By noticing and acknowledging our feelings, we give them the space and attention they need. Eventually, they run their course and fade away, just like more positive emotions do.

The values portion of ACT shifts our focus from “what’s wrong with my life” to “what do I want my life to look like”. Research shows that people who live life according to their values are happier. Let’s explore what those values are and what it means to live according to them. Contact me today.