Act & Did: Can It Work?

[whiteraven]

I recently learned that's the therapeutic approach my T has. I know, I should have asked earlier but I w...

Oh, I so hear you, Arebas! Sometimes it seems totally insane, what they expect us to do! But I think what the acceptance is about is not accepting that you are "worthless" but accepting that you are having *feelings* of being worthless. That may seem to be the same, but it is actually very different.

In healing, I think we don't ever accept those thoughts of being invisible or ugly or worthless or (insert terrible thing here). We accept that for whatever reason these are the thoughts and feelings that we are having right now, instead of burying them, instead of denying them, instead of drinking them away or doing drugs to numb the pain or cutting to feel that instead, and then we learn to transform those thoughts and feelings into more positive ones.

One of the things I have learned over the years is that our thoughts and our feelings are not real things. They are constructs of our mind and they are *our* constructs and we can change them, manipulate them in any way that helps (or hurts) us. We really make things worse for ourselves when we take a thought like, for example, "why hasn't he called me?" and build a story around it, like "I must have said something to make him mad," "maybe he doesn't love me anymore," "maybe he's seeing someone else." Instead, if we just took a breath and asked or even just waited, we wouldn't create this additional suffering for ourselves.

It's so very hard, but it's doable. I'm struggling with it every moment. It is absolutely doable, though. If I can do it, anybody can.

 

[Arebas]

It's so very hard, but it's doable. I'm struggling with it every moment. It is absolutely doable, though. If I can do it, anybody can.

This gives me hope. I needed that today. Thank you!!!!

 

[Sideways]

acceptance is about is not accepting that you are "worthless" but accepting that you are having *feelings* of being worthless.

This.

I remember the first time that ACT was run by me by a psychologist I was insulted. I get out of bed every day knowing in advance that I'm going to hate myself all day long, how much friggin acceptance do you want??

If I peel that back to "I'm having thoughts that I hate myself", or I'm feeling self-hatred, yeah, I can come at that. That's easier.

But when it comes to function, I can put those self-loathing thoughts to the side and focus on the right-now reasonably well. I don't spend all day with my internal dialogue repeating "I hate myself, I hate myself...". The self-loathing and self-disgust is coming from an underlying core belief that I am toxic and evil, and I don't need to think about that, it's already hardwired and influences my thoughts, feelings, actions, the whole lot, on a subconscious level.

I can work on the fleeting thoughts and feelings with the ACT stuff, at least passably. But it doesn't seem to be getting to the core of the issue, which is that "I am evil", or "I am worthless" are beliefs that we have that operate subconsciously, and that's the stuff that really seems to need healing.

 

[whiteraven]

I can work on the fleeting thoughts and feelings with the ACT stuff, at least passably. But it doesn't seem to be getting to the core of the issue, which is that "I am evil", or "I am worthless" are beliefs that we have that operate subconsciously, and that's the stuff that really seems to need healing.

Yes. What I am doing in this regard - and it is a very new and kind of fleeting practice for me - is a practice called metta, which is loving-kindness meditation. It is a practice in compassion, both toward self and toward others. I have done it sporadically in the past and found it to be *very* powerful when using it while dealing with intense anger toward others. It has put me in literal tears and left me feeling deep compassion for those for which I was very angry and had no patience or tolerance. My practice in self compassion has been much harder, as one might imagine, but I know many people - and some with PTSD - who have said this works. I really have no doubt. I truly believe that we have what we need to heal within ourselves.