Acceptance and Compassion Therapy

Acceptance and Compassion Therapy (ACT)

ACT is an approach to mental health that addresses wellness. As a form of wellness therapy, it addresses topics such as aging. Aging is a key topic because of the ambiguous place it has in our culture. Although not an illness, aging is often treated as one. It is often the occasion for ageism, which is discrimination on the basis of age.

But ACT is applicable to many areas of activity. Consider inflated expectations. ACT helps us reply to the high expectations that are put on us, from childhood on, to achieve success--to be in the winner's circle. That such circles are social constructs is often left out of the discussion. Many people achieve wonderful successes in life that involve neither fame nor fortune. Yet they think of themselves as failures. ACT provides a way to reply to this distorted view of self.

This essay provides a psychoeducational approach to ACT. As you read, consider how the ideas help you identify important dimensions of your life. A lot of times, you find that you know many things that you do not have names for. ACT is a great help in this respect. In therapy sessions, there is room to engage in explorations of ACT, but it is also immensely helpful to learn what you already have in place through your everyday efforts. The goal is health. Life is healing.

This basic ideas of ACT can be extended into a broad, fascinating range of discussions. For example, in this essay, ACT is discussed briefly in the context of neuroscience, with language drawn from interpersonal neurobiology (IPNB) as developed by Daniel Siegel. Likewise, the perspectives draws from the discussions of integration and the greater Self pioneered by Carl Jung. And it includes discussion of the ecological health approaches to self that Gregory Bateson and Fritjof Capra developed.

Figure 4. We Emerge to Health though Integration and Relation

Acceptance

One narrow definition of acceptance involves embracing thoughts and feelings without trying to change them. More generally, acceptance begins with the recognition of what we usually think of as “inevitable.” It is inevitable, for instance, that the sun will set each day if you live anywhere except in the polar regions of the earth. It is inevitable, if you are alive, that one breath follows another. With life, it is inevitable that we grow, mature, and eventually die.

But consider this: It is inevitable that we learn as we live. The inevitable can have an enormously positive feel about it. We can be grateful for the inevitable! This is an essential notion since throughout life we often hear the talk of the inevitable in a gloomy light. We see it as a burden rather than a blessing. But the fact is that inevitability is neither the one nor the other. Our perspective shapes what we experience.

With aging, it is inevitable that loss of physical strength, loss of hearing, loss of sight, and other concerns with health are going to occur. With all humans, a degree of cognitive decline will occur with aging. This involves, for example, taking longer to understand things, and we are slower to respond. But to return to the earlier theme, if this is inevitable that this is part of life, then why is there any reason to conclude that there is something wrong with this? Why should we view one phase of life as less valuable than others? As Carl Jung wrote, aging is something to look forward to and to relish and enjoy, and it brings with it capabilities not present in other parts of life.

In Man in Search of a Soul, Jung discussed what he referred to as the second half of life. This is the part of life when we begin thinking about the end of life. We see the sunset rather than the sun at is zenith. Jung argued that nature must see something positive about this. It gives more attention to the beginning, middle, and end of life--the whole of life. This involves thinking more about death as a goal toward which we move as we age. Why has nature made this so? What is it about this awareness that is so important? What is adaptive about it in the path of evolution? Jung wrote,

As a physician I am convinced that it is hygienic—if I may use the word—to discover in death a goal towards which one can strive; and that shrinking away from it is something unhealthy and abnormal which robs the second half of life of its is purpose. (p. 113)

Awareness and acceptance of life as moving toward death becomes something in which you can delight. It is being able to know that the “signs of aging” can be signs of strength. Consider that taking longer to process information brings with it an experience that deepens appreciation of life. You can more genuinely appreciate and come to know each moment of life in new, enriching ways. Earlier in life, millions of experiences flashed by without your giving thought to them. As you age, you find that you have directed your attention toward goals that drew you to relentlessly pass over wonderful details in life. Your priorities focused on profitability and efficiency as you strove to reach the goals you felt to be more important. These were often goals “out there” in the future, but at the same time, you passed by thousands of opportunities for achieving great rewards simply by giving your attention to the nearest thing and the most reachable objective—your own sense of relatedness to the universe.

Acceptance is taking a breath and being in the “in here” of here and now. Acceptance is allowing yourself to enjoy the experience of being alive in the moment. This becomes easier and more rewarding with age because a wonderful shift of perspective occurs. Goals concern the feelings and thoughts of the moment. Inward dimensions of self call to you, and theses often connect with resonating memories. This enables you to feel more connected with life as a whole, more in tune with life itself rather than in a struggle against it. As you feel more connected, your wisdom grows. And you can exercise something that is essential to intelligence--trust.

The inevitable becomes something other than something you confront. If you are floating along on a river, the experience is much different from trying to swim against it. When you accept the inevitable, you feel a certitude about life that can bring enormous satisfaction with the moment. One term for such acceptance is "openness." The Buddhist philosopher Jack Kornfield has written,

"With openness, you can approach conversations, family, friends, and enemies, creativity, and conflict with a willingness to listen and to learn rather than just defend yourself. An open mind brings empathetic listening that can foster understanding no matter how great the differences" (No Time Like the Present, p. 165).

Yes, there are more aches and pains. Yes, you do not feel the energy you had during earlier times. Yes, it is necessary to be careful on the stairs…. The list goes on. But this is not illness! This is the natural process of aging, and by taking a breath, and pausing to feel the wonder of each moment of life, you can delight in it! You can then say something like:

“I am grateful for this life, whatever I might be facing with physical and cognitive concerns. Beling alive is an incredible experience, and I am grateful for it! I am glad that I have reached a point in my life where I can have this feeling and enjoy this awareness of life as it is!”

With this sense of gratitude, openness follows, and with openness, the universe becomes more full of life than ever. With this come increased opportunities to find meaning. In this sense, it becomes possible to see how much we gain by acceptance in all areas of life. We are all limited. In fact, understanding limitation is the beginning of wisdom.

Cognitive Diffusion*

Diffusion (or difusion*) involves learning to become aware of thoughts and feelings as they are, without reacting to them as though they are invaders from the darkness of space, without trying to give them a moral purpose or making judgements of or with them.  

Consider that we often assume that thoughts and feelings are things that own us, invade us, bear down on us, plague us, or force us do things. But this is not so, not without choice. Thoughts are what the mind/brain generates on an ongoing basis as a healthy form of activity. This is so because the brain in a complex system. It is continuously in action, and every moment of its life is marked by originality. We experience life in an endless stream of thoughts and feelings. They are moments in a flow of energy. They can be viewed as moments in an endless stream of temporary states of being.

The important notion, as emphasized by Jon Kabat-Zinn (Wherever You Go, There You Are), is to not mistake yourself for any moment of this endless flow. You are the flow. As the flow, you have infinite moments within you. So it becomes painful if you try to stop the flow because you believe that one moment in it is the whole of the flow.

Envision thoughts and feelings passing in a parade. Each float, band, or dancing group approaches and passes on. Happy dancers, bright colors, and merry sounds characterize this activity. It also includes booming drums, regimented steps, and scowling goblins. Some of the sections feature floats bearing creatures of fantasy, others local celebrities or children’s choirs. They come and they go.

So goes the flow of the mind/brains stream of endless moments of being. To achieve health, you experience them with compassion. In other works, you allow that they come and go, some grim, some delightful, forming an infinite continuum. Judgement is not necessary. In our daily life, thoughts come every second, one passing to another. With compassion, you observe them and let them go their way. They have little permanence, and we must work hard to learn the patterns they can provide to us if we want to educate ourselves and learn new skills from them.

But it is also possible to become stuck on one or another, mistaking this one moment for the whole. It is inevitable that moments of pain arise for us. We are commonly in places where we open ourselves to another only to be ignored. Or something expected happens, like a close encounter in traffic or being jostled while in the supermarket line. The moment brings pain, and it is easy to dwell on it, making of it much more than a passing event in the endlessly complex experience of life.

We can have enormous influence over these moments by doing something as simple as taking a breath. Try it. Relax where you are sitting. Straighten a little. Take a long, slow breath through your nose and pull it down into your diaphragm so that your stomach bulges a little. You feel a pleasant buzz. This is the effect of oxygen, neurotransmitters, and hormones changing your body’s chemistry. As you change the chemistry, you change the flow of thoughts. Let me repeat that: by breathing, you change the flow of thought. You do this when you breathe in. You do this when you breathe out. You do this because you change the chemistry of the neurochemicals that sustain the activities in the circuits of your brain.

Our thoughts flow through us, and breaths sustain our life from which the thoughts emerge. One moment leads to the next. Thoughts and feelings are not things. They are aspects of the flow of experience, and they change continuously. But if we think of them as fixed things that we identify as enemies, then we are making them something they are not.

When you encounter persistent thoughts, you can remind yourself that whatever you think or feel, you can influence, if not completely control. If you do not want to sustain such thoughts, you are free to let them go. They do not exist apart from your efforts to sustain them. If they seem to be permanent and dictatorial, it is because you are sustaining them. To let them go, we can take a few deep, mindful breaths.

*Writers on ACT usually employ the term “difusion” (one ‘ f '). I use “diffusion” here to refer to the same phenomenon.

Being Present

Staying in the moment and being aware of the here and now: This is sometimes referred to mindfulness, which is a central activity among Buddhists. An influential Buddhist teacher of mindfulness was Tich Nhat Hanh (Peace Is Every Step), who showed that mindfulness begins with attending to the feelings that arise from breathing. In this case, notice that you are not reacting or even responding to the affect (emotion) of a moment. You are approaching the moment proactively, using breathing to establish the state of mind from which you approach the experience you have of the present.

As the findings of Damasio emphasize, every thought arises from feeling. Change the feeling, and you change the thought. It does not work the other way around. You cannot think a feeling. But you can use a thought to structure activity that involves breathing differently, mindfully, and from this different thoughts can then arise. With practice, then, as Thich Nhat Hanh taught, breathing centers us. The mind opens through the experience we have when we breathe with awareness (mindfulness). From there, everything in life can be experienced in a renewed, deepened way.

Mindful breathing has many complementary activities. Consider such exercises as placing the slice of orange in your mouth and savoring its sweetness. Or a simple task, like washing the dishes or sweeping the floor. As you engage in such activities, you allow your thoughts and feelings to go to the activity you are engaged in. You feel the fullness of the moment.

Self as Context

Over our lives, we grow from a collection of little selves (me-moments or me-selves) into the greater Self (using the term as Jung used it, capitalized). Me-selves arise from the same type of activity that characterizes reacting to thoughts and feelings as things. Reactions are common. The me-self is immediately transformed by the affect of the moment. Anger, resentment, worry, fear, silliness, and so on. The me-self is the self of the moment. While there is health in spontaneity, however, the me-self tends to concretize moments, mistaking the self of the moment for the whole of the self.

In reality, the mind/brain/relational system is made of an endless set of self-states. This is largely how the system forms. From the first moments of life you attach to your care taker. The moment of attachment brings with it a place (center) within you from which you grow as you gain experiences in association with this place. As time goes on, other centers arise, each with different experiences bringing a vast array of moments of self awareness. From this, you develop many self-states.

To get a sense of the outcomes, consider what happens when you answer an iPhone call from a friend. As soon as you note the name and hear the voice, a multitude of memories are brought into immediate reach of consciousness. Along with this is a complex field of feelings associated with specific words, images, and metaphors. With this friend, a multitude of things take on special meanings.

As an example, imagine that you mention an a corner in the neighborhood, and a laugh follows from both of you. You might have been on this corner with dozens of others. But with this friend, the two of you stood one rainy day engrossed in a conversation in which you both shared the news of being accepted to college. It was a culmination of years of growing up together, and the start of another phase of your friendship. The corner becomes in this self-state something it cannot be with others.

Self-states can originate in moments of safety and in moments of shame. The meeting on the street corner can be viewed as a moment of safety. Two people validate each other's feelings in the fullness of a moment of significant, resonating life change. While endlessly complex topics, safe self-states are those that can be extended and integrated with other self-states. This is an essential aspect of mental health and the emergence of the greater Self.

Moments of shame also characterize dissociated self-states. Such self-states contain pain that holds them apart from other self-states and are usually characterized by what they conceal more than what the reveal. They are dissociated.

The working of dissociation is a central theme of Philip Bromberg, one of the greatest writers on self-states (The Shadow of the Tsunami and the Growth of the Relational Mind). Dissociated self-states are characterized by the effects of moments when those who are significant in our sense of self turn away from us. The turning away is not usually done in a calculated or willing manner. Think of a parent distracted by fear of unemployment or memories of abuse during childhood.. Such a parent might be unable to focus on the needs of a child. The child does not feel validated, acknowledge, loved. When the parent turns away from the child, the parent fails to validate the child's need to receive acknowledgement. This is referred to as developmental trauma. Later in life, trauma takes the form of relational trauma, social trauma, or Trauma (with a big T, as with war, assaults. accidents, and crimes). The death of a significant other is a trauma because death is in some ways the ultimate form of turning away. In each case, dissociated self-states can result.

Dissociative states are usually associated with mental disorders because through them we become trapped by the powerful emotions they contain. When we are trapped in such self states, or move in dissociated, disconnected ways from one to another self-state, our sense of self lacks the openness and trust that sustains the process of integration. One moment in life is mistaken for all others. Integration of self is slowed or halted, and in some cases, our life journey to integration of greater Self does not continue. We are stuck.

But then, life is healing. In the context of ACT, the focus is on the greater Self. This is the form of self in which everything is related to everything else. One moment can be understood in relation to others. The path to integration is regulation, as mentioned previously. One of the most convenient paths to regulation is taking breaths and breaking out of a fixed, brittle moments of affect. The mind/brain changes, and the experience of life is broadened. You become more practiced are recognizing your states, your feelings, your moments of being for what they are.

Daniel Siegel has emphasized that the energies that mediate the growth and regulation of the self-states involve mind, body, and relationship. The mind arises from the wonderful properties of the brain and self-awareness that evolution has brought to us. But the mind is an embodied, emergent creation. Our body serves as the mind’s interface both to the environment (exteroception) and to our experience of ourselves (interoception). With the body, we are put into contact with the environment, and the environment involves a spectrum of interaction that stems from the sub-atomic to the known scope of the universe: from super-collider particles to microscopic lifeform to what is at hand to radio telescope arrays. All of this extends interoception and exteroception, allowing us to infinitely develop our potentials for interaction in the context of the greater Self—the unified self.  

Self-awareness enables us to experience an endless set of paths by which to delight in the miracle of living. This is an inward turn. It involves being compassionate toward yourself. With compassion, you can recognize a moment of anger or fear and also realize that it is a moment, not the whole of you. You can exercise patience in the face of such moments, realizing that they lead to other moments. If such moments are considered in the context of self-states, something transformative can follow. With the initiative of taking a breath, you create state of safety, and this can be the beginning of healthy integration. This awareness emerges in the mind’s relations with the body and the body’s relations to internal and external dimensions of existence.

Age brings with it the ability to engage in this activity with greater continuity because with age, we enjoy a greater store of self-awareness and possible greater capacities for being able to embrace the present without judging it.

Values

Values are the set of feelings and thoughts that govern the scope of our activities in the various dimensions of self. Values are usually expressed through language. Values are central to mental health because they establish pathways for giving expression to self-states. They establish boundaries. and with boundaries, it is possible to become aware and tolerate of your feelings. Consider for example, whether you regard it as okay to be angry. In some self-states anger is primary. But then, is it okay to be angry all the time, at everything? Is it okay to be angry sometimes at events you feel pain or injustice characterize? Is it okay to never be angry? Why?

Values help you identify what is profoundly important to you, but what is important is more than an impulse or an opinion (although it certainly might involve an both impulse and option). Values involve multiple levels of interaction in the triangle of mind, body, and relationship. Think of value as emerging from your system of self. They are emergent because then involve the whole of your system of Self.

Values emerge from the vast field of integrated self-states that the larger Self comprises. As mentioned above, the larger Self is something that continues to grow over the whole of life. It emerges through integration. With the larger Self, we learn that for everything that takes us in one emotional direction, there is something that is likely to take us in the opposite emotional direction. We learn not to become fixated in the feeling of the moment that we experience in any given context of isolated self-states (me-selves). We learn to realize that while something is repulsive or frightening from this self-state, from another self-state it might be attractive and soothing. Over our lifetime, we grow toward what Jung called the Individuated Self--the greater self that includes a vision of life that is beyond the personalized me-self moments.

Jung's notion of the Individuated Self involves all dimensions of mind, body, and relationship. You can glimpse how this is so using the Bateson-Dilts logical layers. This model of selfhood arose from psycholinguist explorations conducted during the 1970’s in the context of what Bateson referred to as “the ecology of mind.” In the context of systems theory, it is fruitful to use a metaphor of fields or properties of selfhood rather than layers. The terms occur interchangeably in the discussion provided in "Values in the Context of Fields (Logics) of Integration" (see below).

Each layer provides resources for responding to different life situations. You can think of the logical layers as a dimension of self-awareness. Each dimension is something like a field of sensitivity. Self-states each contain a number of such fields. This is why they can be so varied. Each such state is a distinct center of interoception and perception. For instance, if I talk about the colors of a flag from a design perspective, color and shape prevail. A key path of perception is sight. A key path of interoception is feelings and thoughts associated with colors in what might be a formalized historical or anthropological framework. I might also discuss dyes available for making the flag or the culturally significant aspects of the flag.

But colors are one focus only. if I talk about the inspiration I feel when I watch a flag waving in the wind, then different dimensions of personal history and interoception come into play. This includes thoughts and feelings related to my sense of nationality, my knowledge of history, and my feeling of personal involvement in the events of history.

You realize the logical feeds or layers or value through thoughts, feelings, and acts. When you work with all six layers, you find that you can follow innumerable paths to give expression to and realize your selfhood. The larger Self calls to you, allowing you to have different perspectives on anything that you encounter.

Committed Action

It is important to remember that we come into being through interactions with our environment. When a child is born, the touching and holding of a caretake induces the expression of genes. DNA might structure the potentials of life, but interaction realizes them. Committed action is the aspect of ACT that emphasizes the importance of interaction. Committed action relates to giving attention to capabilities in relation to actions.

To be able to engage with the world, you must open yourself to the world. One summary statement of this is that "You must give to get." A key aspect of giving is trusting life to bring you what you feel you need. Trust remains an essential aspect of heath. It is true, of course, that news reporting abounds with stories that relate to trust that his misused. But for every such story a million others confirm how trust has brought renewed life and healing.

Committing to action involves starting with the smallest thing if you are having deep trust concerns. If you are afraid to walk around the block, then walk along once side. From there, with each step beyond, you extend your sense of proven trust. It is by extending our interactions with our environment that we are able to experience it in fulfilling ways. Such extension need not involve great strides. But it remains important to commit each day to renewing your trust in life. Trusting is renewal.

In the context of the greater Self, committed action relates to how you engage with life as it is for you, validating your paths of integration and further extending them. Committed action is deliberate action through which you can remind yourself the great strengths that arise from being aware of your ecological identity. You exist through your exertions of Self, through the relations that you maintain with Self and Other.

It is also deliberate being. It is as simple as taking a breath and allowing everything discussed so far to come into your sense of being. And then you do what comes next.

---

2024 © John P Flynt, PhD | Your Horizon Counseling.