As a first step, she made room for her sadness and her loneliness. She defused from her story that ‘life is worthless without a partner’ and she chose to connect with the present (instead of stewing pointlessly over the past).
Second, she connected with her values: her desire to cultivate loving, meaningful relationships.
Third, she took effective action: she resumed spending time with friends and family, and she also continued the dating process.
A little while later Soula fell in love with another man, whom she dated for over seven months. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out; they split up because Soula wanted to get engaged but he wasn’t ready to settle down.
So far, there’s no fairytale ending to Soula’s story. The last time I saw her, she was still dating. But she was also investing in meaningful, loving relationships with her friends and family and herself—and although this didn’t get rid of her desire for a partner, it certainly gave her a lot of satisfaction and fulfilment. What’s more, she had developed a sense of humour about the dating game. She had learned to see it as an opportunity to meet new people, discover new social venues and learn more about men! She also used dates as an opportunity to try new activities, from playing miniature golf to riding horses. In other words, the process of dating became a valued activity: a means for personal growth rather than a painful ordeal driven by loneliness.
As we go through life, we encounter all sorts of obstacles, difficulties and challenges, and each time this happens we have a choice: we can embrace the situation as an opportunity to grow, learn and develop; or we can fight, struggle and try whatever we can to avoid it. A stressful job, a physical illness, a failed relationship: all these are opportunities to grow as a person, to develop new and better skills for dealing with life’s problems. As Winston Churchill put it: ‘A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.’
ACT is an inherently optimistic approach. ACT assumes that no matter what problems you encounter, you can learn and grow from them; no matter how dire your circumstances, you can always gain fulfilment from living by your values; and no matter how many times you wander off the path, you can always get back on track and start again, right where you are.
Thomas Edison was perhaps the greatest inventor of all time. He patented over a thousand different inventions, including the first phonograph, the first commercial power station and, most famously, the electric light bulb. From a young age he thirsted for scientific knowledge and this passion kept him actively inventing for his entire lifetime, even after he was famous and incredibly wealthy. One of his most famous quotes is: ‘Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.’
We could just as accurately say: ‘Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in a monster suit and looks dangerous.’ Whatever valued direction you pursue, there will be challenges. These challenges will give rise to anxiety, insecurity, vulnerability or other uncomfortable feelings. It is the willingness to feel that discomfort and to keep moving forward that allows you to make the most of life’s opportunities.
It took Thomas Edison and his assistants several years of hard work to make a commercially viable light bulb, and in the process they failed thousands of times. They tried constructing light bulb filaments from many hundreds of different substances, but time after time they burned up, melted down or simply failed to conduct an electric current. One day, after many more failed attempts, one of Edison’s assistants complained, ‘It’s hopeless; we’ll never make a light bulb.’
Edison replied, ‘Nonsense! We now know more about how not to make a light bulb than anyone else in the world—which brings us closer and closer to making one that works!’
Many hundreds of failed attempts later, Edison finally succeeded—and changed the face of the world as we know it today. Now that’s commitment!
Again, the point of this story is not that if you try hard enough you will be rich and famous. The point is, you can appreciate the journey of life, no matter how far you are from your destination. Edison valued the process of scientific discovery and was therefore able to appreciate that each individual experiment furthered his scientific knowledge,
regardless of the results.
Naturally, it was thrilling when the experiments gave him good results, but he could appreciate the voyage of discovery, even when land was nowhere in sight.
Notice that I said ‘appreciate’ rather than ‘enjoy’. You can
appreciate
an operation that saves your life, but you probably won’t
enjoy
it. Similarly, you can appreciate your life’s journey even when it’s uncomfortable, but it’s unrealistic to expect that you will always enjoy it. As Steven Hayes often points out, there’s as much life in one moment of pain as in one moment of joy. We only truly know this when we practise connection: when we bring our full awareness to our experience right now, with an attitude of openness and interest.
A core theme in this book is that life involves pain. Sooner or later we all experience it—physically, emotionally and psychologically. But in every painful life circumstance there is an opportunity for us to grow. Earlier in the book we encountered Roxy, a 32-year-old lawyer who had been diagnosed with MS (multiple sclerosis). Before her illness, Roxy’s life had been totally focused on work. Success in her career meant everything and she had indeed done very well for herself, getting promoted to junior partner and earning a huge salary. But she was working an average of 80 to 90 hours a week and was neglecting other important parts of her life: she lived on take-out food, rarely exercised and was always ‘too tired’ to spend time with friends and family. Her relationships with men were typically short-lived and superficial because she never had the time or energy to invest in them. And she rarely found time just to chill out and have fun.
After her diagnosis, Roxy realised that her life was out of balance. Facing the possibility of severe disability or premature death awoke her to the fact that there’s more to life than work and money. She realised that, for every one of us, our time on this planet is limited and she started to think about what was really important, deep in her heart. She realised with a shock that her career was actually not that important to her. So she cut back on her work hours, started spending more time with the people she cared about and began to take care of her health through swimming, yoga and sensible eating.
She also changed the way she related to people at work. She had always been so driven to excel, she’d paid little attention to social niceties in the workplace and, as a result, appeared to her colleagues as closed-off and cold. Facing the possibility that illness might force her to leave the workplace, she realised that this was not how she would like to be remembered. So she started treating her colleagues differently: showing an interest in their lives outside work and opening up, letting them know more about her own life. As she warmed to her colleagues, they in turn warmed to her and she started to make some genuine workplace friendships. Indeed, over time she came to appreciate the social interaction far more than doing the actual work itself.
By embracing the opportunity in her difficulty, Roxy made her life far richer and more meaningful. Of course, she would rather not have had the illness in the first place, but since that was something not in her control, she chose to go down the path of personal growth.
Stories like this are commonplace. I have seen many people face a serious diagnosis—cancer, heart disease, a stroke—and completely re-evaluate their lives as a result. But we don’t have to wait until death is looking us in the eyes; we can commit to making meaningful changes whenever we choose to. And in keeping that commitment, we create a meaningful life.
So here we are at last: the final chapter. Hopefully, by this stage you’re already well on your way to creating a rich, full and meaningful life. If that’s you, carry on; do more of what’s working. But if it’s not happening, you need to look at why not and what you can do about it. But before we go any further, let’s recap the six core principles of ACT:
These six basic principles are neatly summarised in the basic ACT formula:
The more you live by these six core principles, the more fulfilling and rewarding your life will be. But don’t believe this just because I say so. Try it out and trust your own experience. If these principles work for you, if they give you a rich, full life, then it makes sense to embrace them as fully as possible.
At the same time, see this as a personal choice. You don’t have to live by these principles. There’s no obligation, no right or wrong, good or bad. If you embrace these principles, it won’t make you a ‘good person’ or superior to others in any way. And if you ignore them, it won’t make you ‘bad’ or ‘inferior’. If you go around thinking you have to live by these principles, it creates a sense of coercion, as if you were being forced to do something you don’t really want to do—and that’s neither pleasant nor constructive. Such an attitude only gives rise to pressure, stress and anxiety and ultimately leads to failure.
The way you live your life is a personal choice. And while most people find that these six basic principles will transform their lives in many positive ways, it’s important to remember they aren’t the Ten Commandments! Apply them if and when you choose to, and always in the interest of making life richer, fuller and more meaningful. But don’t make them into rules that must be obeyed absolutely and at all times!
I’m quite sure there will be plenty of times when you ‘forget’ what you’ve learned in this book. You’ll get caught up in unhelpful thoughts, struggle uselessly with your feelings and act in self-defeating ways. But the instant you recognise what you’re doing, you can choose to do something about it—if you want to, that is. Again, this is a personal choice. You don’t have to do anything. In fact, I’m sure there will be times that you deliberately choose not to use the principles in this book. And that’s okay with me and I hope it is with you, too. Just aim to be more aware of the choices you make and pay attention to the effects they have on your life. The more self-awareness you develop, the likelier you are to make choices that enhance your life, rather than ones that constrict or stagnate it.
It may be that you’ve reached this point in the book and still haven’t made many (or any) significant changes. If that’s what’s happening, you’ve probably come up against one or more components of FEAR:
So if you’re feeling stuck or you’re putting off taking action, take a few moments to identify what’s getting in your way and think about how to resolve it.
If you’re fusing with unhelpful thoughts like ‘It’s too hard’, ‘I can’t do it’, ‘It won’t work’, ‘I can’t be bothered’, ‘I’ll do it later’, then practise defusion skills.
If your expectations are unrealistic, break your goals down into smaller steps, give yourself more time and allow yourself to make mistakes.
If you’re avoiding uncomfortable feelings such as fear or anxiety, practise your expansion skills and develop willingness.
If you’re remote from your values, then keep asking yourself: ‘What do I really care about?’ ‘What really matters deep in my heart?’ ‘What sort of person do I want to be?’ ‘Deep down inside, what do I really want?’
And if you’re not quite sure how to implement these solutions, then go back to the relevant chapters in the book. This book was never intended to be read just once and integrated fully into your life. It’s intended to be used as a reference book. As often as you need to, go back to the relevant chapters and read them again. (And if you’ve read through the book without doing any of the exercises, now’s the time to go back and actually do them.)
In whichever domain of life you feel dissatisfied—whether it’s health, work, friends, family, relationships or something else—applying the basic ACT principles will help you transform it. Whatever you’re doing, engage yourself fully in it. Whoever you’re with, be present. When unhelpful thoughts arise, defuse them. When unpleasant feelings arise, make room for them. And whatever your values are, be faithful to them.
Using the six core principles of ACT can help you rise to the Serenity Challenge:
If your problems
can
be solved, then take effective action, guided by your values, to solve them. If your problems
can’t
be solved, use defusion, expansion and connection to help you accept this. And the more you practise connection—that is, the more awareness you bring to your experience right now—the more you’ll be able to tell which problems are which.
No matter what sort of problematic situation you encounter, there are only ever two sensible courses of action:
If no effective action is possible right now, then the only option is to accept it until you
can
take action.
Whatever you attempt to do, you’ll get the best results when you focus on what is in your control (and the worst results when you focus on what’s not in your control).
So what
is
in your control? Well, mainly two things: your actions and your attention. You
can
control the actions you take, no matter what your thoughts and feelings may be telling you (as long as you are aware of your internal experience and you focus on what you’re doing). And you
can
control how you direct your attention; that is, what you focus on and whether you do so with openness, interest and receptiveness.
Apart from your actions and your attention, you don’t have much control over anything else. For example:
Therefore, it makes sense to put your life’s energy mainly into action and attention. Do what you value. Engage yourself fully in what you’re doing. And pay attention to the effect your actions are having.
Remember, each time you act in line with your values, no matter how tiny that action is, you’re contributing to a rich and meaningful life.
The whole purpose of this book is to help you escape from the vicious cycle of the happiness trap—to live a full and meaningful life instead of basing your existence on chasing ‘good’ feelings and avoiding ‘bad’ ones. Of course, in a full human life you will experience the full range of human feelings. You will experience every emotion, from joy and love to fear and anger, and willingly make room for them all.
So how far have you come since you started this book? How often are you still getting caught in the happiness trap—running away from ‘negative’ emotions and desperately striving for ‘positive’ ones? If you really want to know, try this. Turn back to the very end of Chapter 1 and do the Control of Thoughts and Feelings Questionnaire again. Compare your score now with your score when you started the book. If it’s lower, then you’re on the right track. If it’s not, then you’ve still learned something valuable: that although you may have gained some useful ideas from this book, you haven’t yet applied them effectively in your life. (And if that’s the case, there’s no need to worry—it simply means you need to do more practice.)
There’s an ancient eastern saying: ‘If you don’t decide where you’re going, you’ll end up wherever you’re heading.’ To live a meaningful life, you need direction, and your values are there, deep in your heart, to provide it. So connect with those values; use them for guidance. Cultivate a sense of purpose. Keep setting meaningful goals and pursue them vigorously. At the same time, appreciate what you have in your life
right
now. This is important, because now is the only time you ever have. The past doesn’t exist; it’s nothing more than memories in the present. And the future doesn’t exist; it’s nothing more than thoughts and images in the present. The only time you ever have is this moment. So make the most of it. Notice what is happening. Appreciate it in its fullness.
And remember, life gives most to those who make the most out of what life gives.