Blog Posts Tagged "Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)".

This is 5 min mindfulness exercise for reducing stress that’s a favorite amongst my therapy clients. It’s especially good for people who pay too much attention to their internal sensations (for example, people with panic attacks or health anxiety), but people who are suffering from stress or depression or body image anxiety usually find it helpful too.

It’s from a book so I can’t copy it directly but I can show you an easy way to read it (free)

1. Go to this link Mind and Emotions: A Universal Treatment for Emotional Disorders (New Harbinger Self-Help Workbook). If you’re not auto logged in, log in to your Amazon account (you’ll need to log in to be able to do this).

2. Click the link that says “Search Inside This Book” (It’s under the big picture of the cover on the left hand side).

4. A window will pop up. In the new window there is a search box. Type “Inner-Outer”

5. You will be taken to an exercise called “The Inner Outer Shuttle” on page 49 of the book.

6. Read and enjoy. The Five Senses Exercise that is on the same page is also good.

Voila!

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Sarah

Sarah is a people-pleaser. When people ask her to do things or invite her places, never in a million years would it occur to her that she could say “no” even if she wanted to.

Angela

Angela never does anything for anyone. She sees herself as selfish and unlikable, and so she thinks

“why bother? Nothing I could do would ever be good enough for people to truly like and accept me because I am so fundamentally unlikable.”

Could Sarah and Angela both be doing the same kind of avoidant coping?

On the surface, Sarah and Angela seem vastly different, but they might have something in common.

Without necessarily being aware of it, Sarah and Angela may both be trying to avoid thoughts and anxiety about letting other people down. (Note that other explanations are possible too).

Sarah is self sacrificing, whereas Angela is “surrendering” by being black and white in her behaviour (i.e., never helping anyone). Being black and white in her behaviour reduces the amount Angela’s anxious thoughts get actively triggered in everyday situations. However, over the long term Angela’s behaviour ends up creating a self fulfilling prophecy. It perpetuates her belief that other people are unlikely to accept her and that she doesn’t have the capacity to please other people.

Because of her self sacrificing, Sarah never gets the opportunity to learn that it’s ok to let other people down sometimes. Both Angela’s and Sarah’s behaviour causes them to continue feeling anxious about the possibility of letting people down/other people being angry at them.

It’s the Function of the Behaviour and not the Form of the Behaviour that is Important in Whether Something Is Avoidant Coping.

Both of the above behaviours are avoidant coping.

The “form” of the behaviour is different, but the function may be similar.

Notice that avoidant coping can involve doing MORE of something (e.g., Sarah’s people pleasing). Avoidant coping is about escaping from difficult thoughts and emotions, OR avoiding behaviours or situations that result in difficult thoughts and emotions being triggered.

When You Do Avoidant Coping, What Thoughts and Emotions Are You Trying to Avoid Having Triggered?

Nutting out the “function” of your avoidant coping is the first step to change.

Function = what thoughts and feelings your avoidant coping is helping you (temporarily) avoid.

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Let’s think about a bear. A bear hibernates in winter to avoid the dangers of winter. Humans have evolved a similar mechanism. Sometimes when we sense a threat, our bodies respond by making us want to sleep a lot.

This mechanism is based on the idea that if there is a threat, it might be good to hibernate away from the threat – to step back from life.

When people are feeling anxious or low in mood, sleeping helps them avoid difficult thoughts and feelings. The difficult thoughts and feelings are the threat that is being avoided. For example, someone who is unemployed might sleep alot because being awake triggers their “I need to find a job” thoughts and anxieties, and the pressure to do job seeking activities. Staying in bed lessens those triggers – temporarily.

The trap is that this strategy works a tiny bit, but causes problems and distress over the long term (just like how overeating works to soothe stress but ends up creating a lot more stress). By avoidant coping, the unemployed person doesn’t progress in solving their problem, their financial situation gets worse, and they end up experiencing far more of just the sorts of anxieties that they were avoiding.

Avoidant coping also tends to create self-fulfilling prophecies out of negative thoughts like “Getting a job is impossible” or “I’m not good enough”. When the person avoidant copes, those thoughts become true BECAUSE OF the avoidant coping.

What you can do.

Try saying to yourself (in a caring, peppy tone)

“Hey, thanks brain, I know you’re trying to protect me from danger.

Thanks for looking out for me, but being awake and out of bed doesn’t present a danger, because my own thoughts and feelings aren’t any threat to me.

It’s safe to get out of bed. The difficult thoughts and feelings might arrive but I’m going to move forward in my life with my anxieties, rather than trying to avoid them, since banishing them completely is not one of the realities available to me (or anyone), and trying to avoid them only creates more anxiety and more serious problems in the long run.”

Then ask yourself

“What’s a skillful action here?

Given where I am right now in this current moment, regardless of anything that has come before now, what’s a skillful action in this current moment?”

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