A:
Yes, it can. Although your thinking self naturally sets you up to struggle, it can also help you accept unpleasant feelings. It can help in two ways: acceptance self-talk and acceptance imagery.
When practising expansion, some people find self-talk very helpful.
You may like to try saying things like:
• ‘I don’t like this feeling, but I have room for it.’
• ‘It’s unpleasant, but I can accept it.’
• ‘I’m having the feeling of...’
• ‘I don’t like it; I don’t want it; I don’t approve of it. But right here and now, I accept it.’
True acceptance is not a thinking process. It’s an attitude of openness, interest and receptiveness, which originates with the observing self. Therefore, silently saying things such as the above examples will not make you truly accept (any more than silently saying, ‘I’m happy’ will make you truly happy). But what these words can do is act as a prompt: they can
remind
us and
guide
us to accept.
ACCEPTANCE IMAGERY
This is a variation on the three-step expansion technique. It is often helpful for people who are good at visualising. First scan your body and pick the sensation that bothers you the most. Observe it the way a curious scientist might. Now visualise that sensation as an object. What is the size and shape of it? Is it liquid, solid or gaseous? Is it transparent or opaque? What colour is it? Does the colour vary? What is its temperature? Is it light, heavy or weightless? How does the surface feel to the touch: rough, smooth, wet, dry, sticky, spiky, hot, cold? Is there any sound associated with it? Is there any vibration, pulsation or movement within it? Is its position fixed or shifting?
Take a few slow, deep breaths. Breathe into and around this object. Make some room for it. Allow this object to be there, to stay right where it is. Let go of trying to push it out. You don’t have to like it; just let it be. Don’t try to get rid of the object and don’t try to alter it. If it changes by itself, that’s okay. If it doesn’t change, that’s okay, too. The aim is to accept it, not get rid of it.
Repeat this with as many other sensations as you need to, until you have a sense of no longer struggling with these feelings.
Q:
How much practice do I need to do?
A:
Expansion is a very powerful acceptance skill, and obviously the more you practise, the better you get. So try it out with different feelings—both strong ones and mild ones. Use every opportunity. For example, if you’re stuck in traffic, caught in a slow-moving line or waiting for a friend who’s running late, use that time to practise expansion. Notice what you’re feeling in that moment: is it boredom, anxiety, irritation? Whatever it is, observe, breathe and allow—and if you wish, visualise. At least then you’ll be using your time constructively to develop a new skill, instead of merely struggling with your feelings.
Q:
Isn’t it unhealthy to keep focusing on unpleasant feelings?
A:
I ask you to focus on unpleasant feelings only so you can develop better acceptance skills. In everyday life, focusing too much on your feelings will just create problems; it will distract your attention from more important things. The ultimate aim of all this practice is:
• to be aware of your feelings but not preoccupied with them
• to accept them fully and allow them to come and go
• to focus on them
if and when they’re helpful
• otherwise, to keep your focus on doing what you value.
Q:
So far we’ve focused only on dealing with sensations. How do I deal with urges?
A:
Through using a simple technique known as ‘urge surfing’. And yes, you guessed it: that’s what the next chapter is all about.
Emotions prime your body to take action; that is, every emotion gives you the impulse to act in a certain way. We call that impulse an ‘urge’. In anger, we may feel the urge to shout, smash something (or someone), or just prove ‘I’m
right,
damn it!’ In sadness, the urge may make us want to lie down, cry, curl up into a ball or have someone cuddle us. In fear, the urge may be to run away and hide, stay really quiet, pace up and down or talk too fast.
And we experience all kinds of urges besides those mainly associated with emotions. We feel the urge to eat, drink, sleep, have sex or get some exercise. Addictions typically give rise to extremely powerful urges: to gamble, get high or get drunk. Eating disorders come with their own powerful urges, too: to eat, starve or induce vomiting.
And this one’s a little less obvious: when uncomfortable emotions arise we often feel strong urges to use control strategies. For example, whenever I’m anxious, I get a strong craving for chocolate or I want to go to the movies. In someone else, anxiety might trigger an urge to have a double scotch, smoke a cigarette or go for a run.
You may not be aware of it, but your urges affect certain parts of your body far more than others—it all depends on which part of your body is preparing for action. If you pay attention to your body, you can feel these ‘preparations’ taking place. For example, when I have the urge to eat chocolate, I notice it first inside my mouth. First I feel my mouth watering, then my tongue gets fidgety and starts licking my lips. Then a vague tension starts in my jaws, as if they want to chew on something. Then, as the urge grows stronger, I may feel a sensation in my stomach—a sort of low-grade rumbling. As the urge grows stronger still, I may notice a restlessness in my legs: an impulse to get up and move (to wherever I can fin some chocolate).
These sensations are all rather vague. Notice my use of terms such as ‘tension’, ‘restlessness’ and ‘fidgety’. These are hard sensations to describe because, primarily, they are impulses to take action. Still, we’ve all experienced just such sensations. And a key skill in dealing with urges is learning to be aware of them: to notice where they are happening and what they feel like. (Yes, this is more about body awareness!)
So the next time you feel an urge to eat, drink, smoke, yell or run away, take a moment to scan your body from head to toe and notice
where
you feel it. If you pay close attention, you’ll detect a variety of vague sensations. For example, if you focus in on ‘restless legs’, you’ll notice that some of the muscles feel tense or springy as they contract in readiness to move. You may also notice feelings of warmth or tingling, caused by increased blood flow and altered electrical activity in the nerves.
It takes a little practice (that word again!) to get really good at tuning in to your urges, but as you do, you’ll find that they have two main components:
So, returning to my urge for chocolate, those sensations in my mouth, stomach and legs will be accompanied by thoughts and images about eating chocolate. Likewise, if you’re feeling anxious in a social situation, you may have ‘restless’ sensations in your legs, coupled with thoughts or images about leaving early.
You can deal with an urge in one of two ways: act upon it or not act upon it.
Therefore, once you are aware of a strong urge, you need to ask yourself: If I act on this urge, will I be acting like the person I want to be? Will it help take my life in the direction I want to go?
If the answer to either of these questions is yes, then it makes sense to act on that urge. For instance, if you’ve been nasty to someone and you’re feeling guilty about it, you may have an urge to apologise. If this is consistent with who you want to be and what you want to stand for, then it’s sensible to go ahead and apologise.
On the other hand, let’s suppose you’ve been mean to someone and you’re still feeling a lot of resentment toward them. In this case, rather than the urge to apologise, you may feel the urge to write them a nasty letter or say spiteful things about them to others. If this isn’t consistent with who you want to be or how you want to live your life, then it’s sensible not to act on it.
Now, let’s imagine a third scenario. You’re working or studying late to meet an important deadline when a friend calls and asks you to go for a drink. You turn down the offer because you need to get more work done. Your friend gets upset and tries to lay a guilt trip on you, telling you that she’s lonely and miserable and has no one else to go with. You tell her she can come and have a drink at your place, after you’ve done a few more hours of work. She’s upset and hangs up on you.
Different people will have very different emotional reactions to this situation. The emotional reaction you have will depend on your ‘learning history’; that is, everything you’ve ever learned, directly or indirectly, that relates to this event. This includes everything you’ve picked up from books, teachers, parents, television, movies, songs, video games, friends, family, co-workers and your own direct experiences of handling relationships, social etiquette, communication, negotiation and so on, plus every thing you’ve ever learned about how to relate to your own thoughts and feelings. This means that your emotional reaction in a given situation has been shaped by literally
millions
of learning experiences throughout your life. (Thus, it’s far too simplistic to say that your emotion is because of a certain thought, the way your parents treated you, or the chemical balance in your brain.)
There’s no right or wrong to how you should feel in any given situation. Your mind may tell you that you should feel this or that way, but that’s just your mind ‘mouthing off’. And other people may tell you how you should feel, but that’s just other people mouthing off. The reality is simply this: how you feel is how you feel. (And what do you get when you argue with reality?) The emotions you feel in any given situation are determined by three things:
Knowing this, it’s quite natural that in the scenario above, different people will have different emotional reactions. Those emotional reactions will in turn give rise to different urges. If you feel angry with your friend, you may have the urge to call her back and yell at her. If you feel guilty, you may have the urge to call back and apologise and change your plans to accommodate her. If you feel anxious, you may have the urge to call someone else and ask for advice. If you feel sad, you may want to cry. If you feel pleased with the way you handled the whole event, and didn’t buy into the guilt trip, you may have the urge to punch the air and shout, ‘Yes!’ If you feel distressed, you may have the urge to stop work and go and get some ice cream instead.
Whatever the urge, the first step is to notice it. (It often helps to acknowledge silently, ‘I’m having the urge to do X.’) The second step is to check in with your values: ‘Will acting on this urge help me be the person I want to be? Will it help me take my life in the direction I want?’ If the answer is yes, then go ahead and act, using that urge to guide you and give you momentum. But if the answer is no, then instead take some action that’s more in line with your values.
To exemplify this, let’s take a look at Lisa, a 21-year-old university student. Lisa values close relationships with her friends, and socialising with them regularly is an important part of her life. But when she feels depressed she has the strong urge to stay at home, all by herself. (This is a very common urge with depressed moods.) And here we have the setup for a major conflict of interest. Lisa’s values are pointing her in one direction—socialising—but the urge is pointing her in another direction—staying home alone. Which action is likely to take Lisa’s life in the direction she wants: to act on her urge and stay home, or to act in line with her values and go out and meet her friends?
Of course, it would be different if Lisa
truly valued
staying at home—if, for instance, she wanted to catch up on her studies for an important exam. If that were the case, staying home alone would be taking her life in the direction she wants, not away from it, so it would make sense to act on the urge.
So what do we do if an urge pushes us in one direction and our values pull us in another? We don’t want to struggle with that urge because then it’s hard to focus on effective action. So rather than try to resist, control or suppress it, the aim in ACT is to
make room
for it, to give it enough time and space to expend all its energy—in other words, to practise
expansion.
And one marvellously useful technique for this is known as ‘urge surfing’.
Have you ever sat on the beach and watched the waves? Just noticed them coming and going? A wave starts off small and builds gently. Then gradually it gathers speed and grows bigger. It continues to grow and move forward until it reaches a peak, known as a crest. Then, once the wave has crested, it gradually subsides. The same happens with urges in your body. They start off small and then steadily increase in size (usually, that is—sometimes it can happen amazingly fast).
We often get into a struggle with our urges; that’s why people talk of ‘resisting’ them or ‘giving in’ to them. In urge surfing, though, we aren’t trying to resist or control our urges—we’re just giving them space. If you give an ocean wave enough space, it will reach a crest and then harmlessly subside. But what happens if the wave encounters resistance? Well, ever seen a wave
crash
onto the beach or
smash
against the rocks? It’s loud, messy and potentially destructive!
Urge surfing is a simple but effective technique in which we treat our urges like waves; that is, we surf them until they dissipate. The term was coined back in the 1980s by psychologists Alan Marlatt and Judith Gordon, as part of their groundbreaking work with drug addiction. The same principles they used with addictive urges can be applied to any urge we feel: whether it’s an urge to stay in bed all day, to quit a course, to avoid some daunting challenge or to yell at someone we care about.
To surf an urge rather than be wiped out by it, all you need to do is pay careful attention and:
That’s the essence of urge surfing, and below is a simple formula you can follow.
Whenever you find yourself having troublesome urges, there’s a basic routine you can follow. You can remember it with the acronym OBSERVE:
O
=Observe
B
=Breathe
S
=Surf
E
=Expand
R
=Refocus
V
=Values
E
=Engage
Let’s take a closer look.
OBSERVE means you observe this urge as if you were a curious scientist. Where do you feel it in your body? What does it feel like? Notice the associated thoughts and images and silently acknowledge the urge (e.g. ‘I’m having the urge to run away.’)
BREATHE means you take a few slow, deep breaths. Breathe into the urge and make room for it.
SURF means you treat the urge as if it were a wave that you were surfing. Notice where you feel it and how intense it is. Keep track of whether it’s growing, cresting or subsiding. You can score it on a scale of 1 to 10, and watch the numbers increase and decrease as it grows, crests and subsides. Don’t try to rush it. Allow it to rise and fall in its own sweet time.
EXPAND means you breathe into the urge and make more room for it. No matter how big this urge gets, you are bigger! Allow it to be; don’t get into a fight with it. As long as you keep making room for it, sooner or later this urge will crest and then it will subside.
REFOCUS means you unhook yourself from any unhelpful thoughts, and you bring your attention back to what’s happening, here and now.
VALUES means you take a moment to connect with what’s important in your heart—with who you want to be and what sort of life you want to create. Then you choose an effective action, one that takes your life in a valued direction.
ENGAGE means you engage fully in whatever valued action you take. You let your thoughts and feelings come and go, and you give your full attention to your actions.
While I know that OBSERVE can be a wonderfully useful tool, I also know that plenty of readers will find it hard to remember. If this is the case for you, there’s always a simpler acronym you can stick to—ACT: