“Reading this book is like talking with a good friend who happens

to be a world-class therapist. It is both simple and profound,

practical and soulful, healing and inspiring. It is a rare achievement
to find so much wisdom expressed in such a warm and encouraging
way. Useful for anxiety and stress, as well as for simply living life
fully and joyfully. This is a real gem.”
—Rick Hanson, PhD, author of Hardwiring Happiness

“I love the ACT Daily Journal! It is an easy-to-follow guide for

practicing ways of being that contribute to thriving and
psychological health via small, consistent actions we can engage in
each day. I love that the journal begins with compassion and self-
care, providing the perfect foundation for a committed practice.
And I now want to be a snail when I grow up (but you’ll have to
read the book to find out why)!”
—Jill Stoddard, PhD, author of Be Mighty and The Big Book
of ACT Metaphors, and cohost of the Psychologists Off the
Clock podcast “In ACT Daily Journal, Diana Hill and
Debbie Sorensen guide you on a journey of introspection,
intention setting, and deliberate practice. Unlike many self-
help books and guided journals, this book emphasizes
action. Each day you will read (in only a few minutes!)
about the rationale and science behind that day’s practice.
You will reflect on, and write in response to, a few prompts.
Then you will weave throughout your day a simple practice.
The result? In just eight weeks, you’ll build mastery in the
core processes of acceptance and commitment therapy
(ACT), a complex and powerful therapy that can help you
build a richer, more fulfilling life. Finally, a book that truly
brings ACT to the masses!”

—Alisha L. Brosse, PhD, partner at the Boulder Center for

Cognitive and Behavioral Therapies, and author of End the
Insomnia Struggle
“Increasing your psychological flexibility is not a one-and-done
issue. Like creating healthy patterns of eating, sleeping, or
exercising, it’s a one-day-at-a-time issue, and there is no better way
to groove a daily habit of improvement than to keep a daily journal
while you learn. This book will show you how, in a step-by-step,
day-by-day, eight-week journey. You will be challenged but never
overwhelmed; you will create new habits but never be bored. I
highly recommend ACT Daily Journal.”
—Steven C. Hayes, PhD, originator of ACT, author of A
Liberated Mind, and foundation professor of psychology at
the University of Nevada, Reno “In this wonderful book,
Diana Hill and Debbie Sorensen help readers use the tools of
ACT to develop self-compassion and psychological
flexibility in the best possible way, applying it in their lives.
The authors create an engaging, immersive experience in
which readers are gently guided through brief, easy-to-
follow practices and reflections to help them work with life
struggles and build lives filled with meaning, purpose, and
kindness. Highly recommended!”

—Russell Kolts, PhD, professor of psychology at Eastern

Washington University, and author of CFT Made Simple and
The Compassionate-Mind Guide to Managing Your Anger
“Are you ready to get in the driver’s seat of your life and
take it to the next level? In ACT Daily Journal, Diana Hill
and Debbie Sorensen take you on a journey to greater
purpose, joy, and ful­fillment. Grounded in psychology, this
journal is filled with self-reflection journal prompts and
daily practices that guide you toward deeper self-awareness
and realignment with what matters most to you. By the end
of this eight-week journey, you will have the tools and
firsthand experience needed to show up more fully in your
life, reach your goals, and overcome any obstacles you face
along the way.”
 —Robyn L. Gobin, PhD, licensed psychologist, assistant
professor of community health at the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign, and author of The Self-Care
Prescription “With relatable personal stories, moving
vignettes, and digestible descriptions of the science, this
unique journal gently guides individuals through one of the
most powerful treatment approaches available for managing
mental health and improving quality of life. It’s an inspired
and inspiring read you will want to buy for anyone and
everyone you care about.”

—Yael Schonbrun, PhD, assistant professor at Brown

University, and cohost of the Psychologists Off the Clock
podcast

“Living your values can be hard work. With this guided journal,
Hill and Sorensen have created a useful and practical resource to
apply evidence-based skills to everyday life. It is a charming,
compassionate, and helpful resource for anyone trying to live a
more vibrant and value-­consistent life.”
—Dayna Lee-Baggley, PhD, registered psychologist who
provides clinical care for medical, surgery, and cancer care
patients, and conducts research as an assistant professor in
the faculty of medicine at Dalhousie University; and author
of Healthy Habits Suck “Hill and Sorensen’s ACT Daily
Journal makes a wonderful addition to the ACT literature
for both novice and expert alike. ACT strategies to build
psychological flexibility are engagingly taught within a
doable structure alongside relatable and motivating authors’
anecdotes. I enthusiastically recommend this guided ACT
Daily Journal to my clinical colleagues for use with their
clients as well as themselves!”

—Debra L. Safer, MD, associate professor in the department

of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University
 School of Medicine

“ACT Daily Journal is a flexible, step-by-step guide to living with

greater life vitality, and a perfect addition to any professional’s
library! Weaving in personal stories, quotes, and metaphors to
introduce the six core components of psychological flexibility, it is
highly engaging, relatable, warm, and accessible. With each week
focusing on a different process; and each day, one small practice;
clients can readily integrate skills into their daily lives. Highly
recommended!”
—Rhonda M. Merwin, PhD, associate professor at Duke
University School of Medicine, peer-reviewed ACT trainer,
and coauthor of ACT for Anorexia Nervosa
 Publisher’s Note
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the
subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in
rendering psychological, financial, legal, or other professional services. If expert assistance or
counseling is needed, the services of a competent professional should be sought.
NEW HARBINGER PUBLICATIONS is a registered trademark of New Harbinger Publications,
Inc.
In consideration of evolving American English usage standards, and reflecting a commitment to
equity for all genders, “they/them” is used in this book to denote singular persons.
Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books
Copyright © 2021 by Diana Hill and Debbie Sorensen
New Harbinger Publications, Inc.
5674 Shattuck Avenue
Oakland, CA 94609
www.newharbinger.com
The meditation that appears in Week 8, Day 5 is from AWAKENING TOGETHER: THE
SPIRITUAL PRACTICE OF INCLUSIVITY AND COMMUNITY by Larry Yang, copyright ©
2017 Larry Yang. Used by permission of Wisdom Publications.
Cover design by Amy Shoup; Acquired by Elizabeth Hollis Hansen;Edited by James Lainsbury
All Rights Reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Hill, Diana, (Psychotherapy) author. | Sorensen, Debbie, author.
Title: ACT daily journal : get unstuck and live fully with acceptance and commitment therapy /
Diana Hill, PhD, Debbie Sorensen, PhD.
Other titles: Acceptance and commitment therapy daily journal
Description: Oakland : New Harbinger Publications, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020049513 (print) | LCCN 2020049514 (ebook) | ISBN 9781684037377 (trade
paperback) | ISBN 9781684037384 (pdf) | ISBN 9781684037391 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Acceptance and commitment therapy. | Psychotherapy.
Classification: LCC RC489.A32 H55 2021 (print) | LCC RC489.A32 (ebook) | DDC 616.89/1425--
dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020049513
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020049514
 For my husband, Craig. I love you.
—Diana

For Piper, Hadley, and Easan, with love.

—Debbie
 Contents

Foreword: The Joy, Pain, and Value of Practice

Welcome: Painting the Golden Gate Bridge
Week 1: Prepare the Ground
Week 2: Being Present—Live in the Now
Week 3: Cognitive Defusion—Greet the Monsters in Your Head
Week 4: Acceptance—Courageous, Willing, and Open
Week 5: Perspective Taking—Take In the View
Week 6: Values—Choose Your Direction
Week 7: Committed Action— Fall on Purpose
Week 8: Flexible Integration—Hive Mind
The Labyrinth Ahead
Additional Resources
Acknowledgments
References
 Foreword:

The Joy, Pain, and Value of Practice

Aristotle once stated, “For the things we have to learn before we can do
them, we learn by doing them.” Practice means to put into action a
behavior you would like to learn or change. Sounds simple enough. But as
many of you know, practice also takes discipline. A much harder thing to
put into practice! Nonetheless, these two are intimately entwined in the
ever-evolving process of learning and growth.
As humans, we will experience our own measure of joy and pain. We
will meet incredible challenges and wonderful times of peace. We will rise
and fall in life as we encounter the unpredictable, often chaotic, and
amazing experiences of being alive. Our journeys will have many winding
roads and undeveloped paths. How you walk those paths will matter. When
your journey is finished and you look back along the road you have
traveled, will you have traveled it well?
There may be many ways to answer this question; perhaps you will
find that it was hard and your journey ended with a feeling of being
disappointed or “beat up” by life. Perhaps your journey was sweet, an
attitude of optimism carrying you through to the end. Whatever the case of
your journey, it will be filled with obstacle after obstacle. Life works like
that. A deep valley, a ragged crevice, an overly wide and long sunbaked
field: we do not, for the most part, get to choose which obstacles will be
placed in our path. Given the inevitability of life, however, we can choose
how we show up to the obstacles, bringing what matters most to bear with
every hindrance we meet. This will be the stuff of your purpose, the stuff
of your personal meaning. It will be the stuff that makes life worth living.
Here I am talking about your values and how you bring them to bear
in your everyday journey. In the ACT Daily Journal, authors Diana Hill
and Debbie Sorensen invite us to look at how we will practice our values
in our everyday lives. How can we bring meaning to moments of joy and
moments of pain? How will you approach the ragged crevice? The steep
path? What intention will you bring to this journey? ACT Daily Journal
invites us to bring a hallmark of well-being—psychological flexibility—to
each and every moment of our existence. If we can practice with discipline
the ability to be present, living more fully in the here and now; if we can
disentangle from the stories our minds feed us that hinder our progress; if
we can learn to take perspective on stepping into the many different views
that can be explored on any journey; if we can be courageous—opening up
to what we feel and sense—and then take that next step on the path with
intention linked to values and commitment, we will build something. We
will build something important, something powerful. A life created by you,
lived in and moved through by you in the way that you intended. Loving,
laughing, crying, struggling, being in pain, being in peace, creating,
playing, building, progressing—tasting all that life has to offer. Truly
showing up to life in all of its fullest moments.
Your way of being in the world will be defined by what you do. And
as Aristotle said, we learn by doing. We must practice with discipline how
to be present to and engage in what matters to us most. The journey is
amazing, but it is also short. Let the ACT Daily Journal guide you forward,
opening you to the possibilities and curiosities awaiting your arrival. So,
prepare the ground that will help you face your inevitable challenges. And
let this book guide you into a lifelong practice—a lifelong discipline such
that when you turn and look back at your path, you can say, my journey to
the grave was not fraught with actions of safety and work to preserve every
inch of my body, never taking the courageous path. Instead, just as Hunter
S. Thompson did, you can loudly proclaim, “Wow! What a Ride!”
—Robyn Walser, author of The Heart of ACT
 Welcome:

Painting the Golden Gate Bridge

There’s a tale that Diana’s dad used to tell her as a little girl: It takes so
long to paint the Golden Gate Bridge that as soon as the job is finished,
the painter has to turn around and start all over again.
In your life have you ever felt like that painter? Do you keep facing
similar problems, get stuck painting the same spots, or get so busy painting
you forget to take in the view? Do you struggle against the discomfort of it
all or start wondering if you’re cut out for the job? Or do you find yourself
painting for endless hours without a sense of why it’s even worthwhile or
in what direction you should head?
Life can feel a lot like painting the Golden Gate Bridge. That’s why
we developed ACT Daily, an eight-week collection of daily practices to
help you paint the bridge of your life more fully, with more vitality, and in
line with your deepest personal values.
To find meaning on the bridge of your life, it’s important to:

Have compassion for yourself when you make mistakes

Pause from time to time and take in the view around you
Make room for discomfort when things get boring, hard, or scary
Hold your thoughts lightly when they’re discouraging or unhelpful
Identify the parts of your life that matter most to you, and do your
best at those parts
Look toward the work ahead with a sense of direction and
perspective
Keep at it—day after day after day
 ACT Daily will help you with these important tasks. Give yourself
eight weeks to try it out, and you just might find that it helps you, as it has
helped us and our clients, live more freely, with more meaning, and with a
deeper understanding of your inherent humanity.

Psychological Flexibility: The Key to

Psychological Health
Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT, pronounced like the verb “to
act”) lies at the heart of this program. ACT is a modern, evidence-based
approach that offers a unique perspective on well-being. You might think
that therapy is about getting rid of “bad” thoughts and feelings and
encouraging “good” ones. ACT is different. It helps you make room for
uncomfortable thoughts and feelings—because not only is discomfort part
of life, it’s inherently linked to what you care most about (Hayes, Strosahl,
and Wilson 2012).
Hundreds of research studies show that the ACT processes taught in
this book are beneficial, not only if you’re struggling with psychological
distress, such as depression or anxiety, but also if you want to improve
your relationships, develop healthier exercise and eating behaviors, cope
better with pain or health conditions, or make positive changes in the
world (Hayes 2019).
ACT’s aim is to build your psychological flexibility, the ability to be
aware of the thoughts and emotions you’re having and be flexible, even
when they are painful, so you can make conscious, values-driven choices.
If you’re psychologically flexible, you’re less caught up in struggling with
difficult thoughts, emotions, and urges, and you’re free to act more in line
with your values (Hayes 2019). And ultimately, when you’re
psychologically flexible you can keep moving in the direction of the things
that really matter to you, even when you encounter challenges along the
way. When you’re psychologically flexible, you:

Are present in the life you have

Know what you care about and live in a way that’s consistent with
your values
 Accept and allow discomfort and pain instead of avoiding it
Notice and unhook from unhelpful thoughts
Connect with an observer self, one who can see your experience
from many perspectives
Take committed action toward what matters most in your life

The reality is that discomfort and pain are embedded in every

fulfilling life. And you’re even more likely to experience discomfort when
you engage in activities that matter deeply to you. When you’re
psychologically flexible, though, you’re able to fully engage in your life
and, as our colleague Jill Stoddard (2019, 74) says, be “the Me you want to
be,” even when strong emotions and inevitable problems arise.
Psychological flexibility looks like:

Starting a new relationship even if you fear vulnerability

Making a change to pursue meaningful work even when it’s
intimidating
Being a caring parent even when your child is pushing your buttons
Moving your body even when your mind screams I don’t want to!
Taking meaningful action even when it’s uncomfortable or
exhausting

Psychological flexibility builds resilience.

In order to build a life that matters to you, it helps be able to respond
effectively to life’s natural stressors. Just as deep roots and flexible
branches keep trees from falling over in windstorms, psychological
flexibility will help you better withstand the turbulence of life by rooting
you in your values and helping you be more flexible in your responses.
Psychological flexibility also makes us more resilient as a human species.
We need it now, more than ever. Our ability to flexibly adapt and
collaborate compassionately is key to meeting the challenges of our
communities and our planet (Biglan 2015).
Your Eight-Week Program to Psychological
Flexibility and Health
ACT Daily will teach you the core processes that make up psychological
flexibility. These ACT processes aren’t psychological “tricks” but rather
ways of being that contribute to thriving and psychological health. Just like
an experienced cook who can make a stir-fry with whatever’s in the fridge,
once you learn these core processes you can apply them to any ingredient
that shows up in your life! The processes are dynamic and interconnected,
and they are enhanced when you engage in them with compassion. They’re
also meant to be lived out in your daily life. Like your physical health,
your psychological health depends on the small, consistent actions you do
daily. For each day of this journal you will build psychological flexibility
by doing a set of simple exercises—some reading, some writing, and some
experiential practices—that will help you learn the processes associated
with psychological health.
The core ACT processes of being present, cognitive defusion,
acceptance, perspective taking, values, and committed action together
comprise psychological flexibility. These processes work together,
centered around compassion for yourself and others, to build a more
flexible, resilient, and meaningful you!
 Week 1. Prepare the Ground
Often when we’re trying to grow and learn something new, we get in
our own way. If you’re hyperfocused on your imperfections or neglect
your self-care, you’re less likely to make progress toward what really
matters to you. During this week of focusing on compassion, self-care, and
intention you will:

Uncover the critical inner voice that keeps you stuck

Cultivate a compassionate inner coach
Learn how your brain’s threat, drive, and caring systems influence
the degree to which you’re critical or compassionate
Develop simple self-care practices for emotional and physical well-
being
Learn to use your time with intention

Week 2. Being Present—Live in the Now

By becoming more aware of the present moment, you can fully
experience your life as it’s unfolding now and make more conscious
decisions. During your week practicing being present you will:

Move from living on autopilot to living with intention

Savor more moments of your daily life
Have greater self-awareness of your body’s sensations, thoughts, and
emotions
Find a steady center in the face of difficulty
Bring more awareness to your relationships and work

Week 3. Cognitive Defusion—Greet the

Monsters in Your Head
 Getting stuck in your own head is one of the biggest barriers to living
life effectively. During this week, you will learn a process called cognitive
defusion, which will help you:

Notice your chatty mind

Step back and create space from your thoughts
Use humor and playfulness to get unstuck from thoughts
Let go of trying to control your thoughts
Get more flexible with rules, being right, and shoulds
Pay attention to thoughts that are helpful, not harmful

Week 4. Acceptance—Courageous, Willing,

and Open
Psychological flexibility means opening up to all aspects of your
emotional experience, even the unpleasant ones, in order to do the things
that matter to you. During your week focusing on acceptance you will:

Explore the messages you’ve been taught about emotions

Recognize your avoidance strategies, such as numbing out,
distracting yourself, turning down opportunities, or speeding through
life
Uncover the consequences of avoiding pain and discomfort
Increase your willingness to face all of your emotions, thoughts, and
sensations, pleasant and unpleasant alike

Week 5. Perspective Taking—Take In the

View
The ability to shift perspective helps you open your mind beyond the
stories it has about yourself, placing you on a grander, more flexible
vantage point. During your week practicing perspective taking you will:
 Identify self-stories that keep you stuck
Become more flexible with labels you assign to yourself
Step into your “sky mind,” a perspective that makes room for all of
your inner experiences
Zoom out and take perspective over time
Explore broader possibilities in your life

Week 6. Values—Choose Your Direction

What brings you meaning, purpose, and vitality in your life? What do
you really care about? And what type of person do you want to be? During
your week focusing on values you will learn to:

Identify what you want your life to be about

Explore your values within important life domains, such as family,
work, community, and health
Realign with your values when you get off track
Explore impermanence as a way to uncover what matters most to
you

Week 7. Committed Action—Fall on

Purpose
Committed action is the process of taking ongoing steps in the
direction of our values, even when those steps are difficult. This week you
will use the science of behavior change to:

Increase your motivation to change using values

Focus on the process of taking action, rather than on outcome
Develop small achievable habits
Explore obstacles to behavior change
 Create contexts, consequences, and a team to support your valued
actions
Develop a flexible and sustainable action plan

Week 8: Flexible Integration—Hive Mind

During the final week you’ll put together all the processes you’ve
learned. You’ll experience how each of these processes inform and
influence each other, like bees working together in a hive, to help you
build your psychological flexibility. You’ll fluidly move between them and
apply them beyond yourself, ACTing daily to create a life you can feel
proud of.
How to Use ACT Daily
ACT Daily is a guided journal. Many journals are focused on introspection
and expressing thoughts and feelings. ACT Daily is different; in addition to
developing such insight, you’ll learn about the processes that make up
psychological flexibility, so you can apply them in small ways, every day,
to create a more vibrant life. We designed this journal to help you learn and
practice actionable skills and develop daily habits to build psychological
flexibility and take steps toward living a more vibrant life. Whether you
are new to ACT, or have years of ACT experience, there’s always room to
strengthen your ability with its processes and apply them more regularly in
your own life. On most days of this eight-week course you will:

Read a short passage about that day’s ACT process

Do a brief guided writing exercise
Try a brief exercise on the spot
Write about ACT in your life (In each day’s “ACT in My Life”
section, you’ll have space to note the main values you want to focus
on for the day, jot down your daily goals, reflect on the day’s reading
passage, or write about your personal experience practicing ACT.)
Learn a simple practice to try in your daily life

ACT Daily invites you to focus on each psychological flexibility

process for seven days. Our aim is for you to do each day’s reading and
writing in about fifteen minutes and then practice the ideas in your daily
life.
With our therapy clients, we’ve seen that psychological flexibility
processes are only helpful if people use them regularly in their life. To
really understand ACT, you can’t just read and write about it; you have to
put it into practice. Still, we know you’re busy, and we are too. As you’ll
learn in Week 7 (on committed action), habits are more likely to stick if
you keep them small and apply them consistently—and that’s what we’ll
help you do.
 Although consistency is important, so is flexibility. You can start this
journal at the beginning and work your way through each week in order, or
you can start with the process you want to work on first. Consistent
practice is helpful, but if you skip some days now and then, or if it takes
you longer than a week to work through a given process, don’t sweat it.
Just pick up where you left off and keep moving forward.
About Us
We are both clinical psychologists, cohosts and creators of the
Psychologists Off the Clock podcast, and good friends who care a lot about
values-based living. We share a value of using cutting-edge and effective
ideas from psychology research to help our clients and others thrive in
their daily lives.
ACT Daily is a culmination of what we have learned from years of
academic study, interviewing more than 150 experts in the field of
psychology, and thousands of hours of clinical practice. We’ve both trained
extensively in several different forms of therapy and have found ACT to be
the most helpful approach in our own lives and the lives of our therapy
clients.
ACT Daily also draws heavily from our own personal fumbles and
successes in using research-based principles from psychology in our own
lives. As busy working parents, daughters, partners, and friends, we often
struggle to put the ideas we’ve learned as psychologists into practice on a
daily basis. Like everyone, we sometimes lose track of what’s important,
get stuck in our own thoughts and emotions, and get caught up in our day-
to-day problems. Throughout this book, you’ll hear our stories and learn
how we’ve used these concepts ourselves to live more flexibly, and with
more purpose. With a healthier mind, heart, and body, ACT Daily will help
you live a more satisfying life. We hope you value the process of using
ACT Daily as much as we valued creating it for you!

ACTing Daily: A Lifelong Process

In closing, it turns out that the story about the Golden Gate Bridge is only a
tale; the painters don’t start at one end, paint all the way through, and start
over. In reality, a crew of painters works continually to maintain the bridge.
And much like the painting of the bridge, engaging the processes of
psychological flexibility is a lifelong endeavor.
The two of us have been practicing ACT for many years, both
professionally and personally, and there’s still more for us to learn and
practice every day. We hope that even after you’ve finished this eight-week
course you will continue to use ACT in your daily life. Consider this
journal to be a maintenance handbook for when the paint starts chipping
off your life, as it inevitably will. This journal can help you continue to
live a values-driven life.
 Week 1:

Prepare the Ground

If you grow a vegetable garden, as we both do, you know that before you
can start planting seeds, it’s wise to tend to your soil. You want to create
conditions that will help your plants grow, thrive, and be resilient in the
face of inevitable challenges.
Similarly, when you embark on a new project that requires openness,
time, and effort, such as ACT Daily, it helps to prepare yourself for the
challenges that will arise. Perhaps you’ve started journals or self-help
programs before, only to get stuck or to lose motivation and stop. This
week, before you dive into the ACT processes of psychological flexibility,
you’ll prepare your soil with compassion, self-care, and intentional use of
time.
Compassion
Compassion plays a key role in psychological well-being. Having
compassion for yourself makes you more resilient during life’s challenges,
helps you stick to healthy habits, and enhances your compassion for others
(Neff 2015). Having compassion for others forms the foundation of healthy
relationships, caregiving, social justice, and a sense of purpose in life.
Compassion is an active, not passive, process. As Gilbert and Choden
(2014, 105) define it, compassion is “a sensitivity to the suffering of
oneself and others, combined with a commitment to do something about
it.” First, we become aware that someone (including ourselves) is hurting,
then we move toward the hurt person and offer help. When practicing self-
compassion, it helps to think of it as having three components, as outlined
by researcher Kristen Neff (2015):

1. Mindfulness: Be fully present with your experience without

judgment
2. Kindness: Be caring, gentle, and warm toward yourself when
you’re struggling
3. Common humanity: Understand that all humans are imperfect and
suffer

Taking a kind stance toward yourself and others will make a big
difference in your ability to tolerate distress, and it will help you to feel
encouraged and to say yes to your deepest callings.
Living a values-driven life can be challenging and painful at
times. Compassion can help you take meaningful action in
the face of those challenges.

Real Self-Care
It takes inner resources to do the hard work of building a meaningful life.
Tuning in and tending to your physical and emotional needs will help you
keep at the important work of becoming more psychologically flexible.
Intentional Use of Time
Being intentional about your use of time will help you prioritize the things
that are most important to you. In this chapter you’ll take a look at how
you’re using your time and choose to organize it around activities you care
most about.
Over the next eight weeks you’ll build psychological flexibility by
trying new things and relating to your thoughts and emotions in new ways.
Preparing the ground this week will serve you well as you take on the
important work ahead.
 Day 1: Your Inner Critic
Diana: When my son was six, he wanted to learn to surf. Though I grew up in
Santa Barbara, I’d never tried surfing because I don’t like taking risks or
being cold. But I was practicing ACT, so I let my value of being an engaged
parent win out over fear and shivers. During my first lesson, the instructor
said, “Don’t worry, I get five-year-olds and seventy-five-year-olds standing
every time.” When I fell try after try, you can predict where my mind went.
What is wrong with me? Five-year-olds can do this! What I really needed was
an encouraging voice to remind me I wasn’t there to stand, but there to
engage with my son. A compassionate voice that encouraged me to look to
what I valued.
What does your inner monologue sound like when you’re trying
something new or struggling? Are you harsh, judgmental, and negative
in ways you’d never be toward someone else? Do you reject yourself?
We can be so hard on ourselves.
Curiously, we’re often meanest to ourselves when we’re most
vulnerable, struggling, or stepping outside our comfort zone. In these
moments, our inner critic tries to set things straight by being
perfectionistic, setting high standards, and judging.
There are many reasons why we might be self-critical. We may
have internalized the critical voices of caregivers, absorbed
individualistic ideals such as “pull yourself up by your bootstraps,” or
internalized messages based in stereotypes, racism, or other people’s
standards. Self-compassion offers you a chance to choose a more
reassuring voice—in the moments when you need encouragement
most.
Today you’ll identify your critical voice so that tomorrow you can
start growing a more compassionate one.

ACT Daily Writing: Meet Your Inner Critic

Write about your inner critic. How has it shown up in your life? What
did it say to you when you were younger? What about more recently?
 Write about something that’s hard for you now. In what way does
your inner critic show up when you are struggling? What does it
say?

Try It Out: Feeding Your Inner Critic

Have you ever stopped to wonder what your critic wants? There is an
ancient Tibetan practice called “feeding your inner demons” (Allione
2008). In this meditation, the practitioner personifies his or her inner
demons, asks them what they’re hungry for, and then imagines
“feeding” them what they desire.
Close your eyes and imagine that your inner critic is in front of
you, personified. Ask these questions and notice what shows up:
Why are you here?
How are you trying to help me?
What do you need from me?

Become curious about your inner critic. What could satisfy its true
hunger?

ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,

Reflections
 Today’s Practice
Be on the lookout for your inner critic’s voice today. When you spot it,
approach it with curiosity.
 Day 2: Fostering Self-Compassion
What if instead of being harsh with yourself when you’re hurting, you
had an inner coach who was kind, courageous, and forgiving? Today
we’re going to help you develop that compassionate inner coach, one
who wants the best for you, cares for you, and supports you.
In ACT, you get to choose which thoughts you listen to. When
your critic shows up, you can get stuck in its message, or you can
disregard it and turn your attention to more helpful thoughts instead.
Choosing the latter doesn’t mean that your critic will go away, it just
means you can be more flexible and compassionate in how you treat
yourself and respond to your mind.
As Russell Kolts notes in episode 50 of our podcast, “When you
really look at what it is like to have a human life, compassion is the
only thing that makes sense” (2018). We couldn’t agree more.

ACT Daily Writing: Your Compassionate

Coach
In moments of struggle, what would you want your compassionate
inner coach to say to you (e.g., You are enough, I accept you exactly
as you are, You’re doing the best you can right now)?
 Try It Now: Compassionate Touch
Touch can be a powerful, nonverbal way to foster self-compassion. We
use touch to soothe babies, express love to our partners, and let our
friends know they are not alone. You can activate self-compassion by
practicing caring touch with yourself now:

1. Place both of your hands over your heart and feel it

beating.
2. Move one hand to your belly, keeping one hand on your
heart. Take long, slow breaths.
3. Place your hands on your cheeks and hold your face as
you would hold that of someone you love.

ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,

Reflections

Today’s Practice
Catch yourself during moments when you’re beating yourself up.
When you do, repeat one of the compassionate statements you noted
above. As you say it, you may want to add a little caring touch, too, by
placing your hands on your heart in a simple gesture of self-
compassion.
 Day 3: From Threat and Drive to Caring
Yesterday you began to practice self-compassion. You may have
noticed that self-compassion led to feelings of contentment,
connection, and well-being, or that it motivated you to be kinder toward
others. That’s because self-compassion activates an emotion system
in your brain designed for affiliation and caring. Compassion-focused
therapy (Gilbert 2014; Kolts 2016) describes humans as having three
primary emotion systems with different functions: The caring system
regulates the way we take care of ourselves and others.
The drive system seeks out resources to help us survive and
thrive.
The threat system picks up on threats and provokes strong
emotions that motivate us to seek safety.

All three are necessary for survival, and ideally you want to find a
helpful balance between them. Yet sometimes our threat and drive
systems dominate our experience and override our caring system.
Debbie: Sometimes I feel like my drive system is more like an overdrive
system. I have a long to-do list and so many balls in the air that I can’t juggle
them all. Achieving more can feel good, but when I’m in overdrive mode,
sometimes my drive system takes over and my caring system is nowhere to be
found. When that happens, I feel overcaffeinated, unfocused, and
disconnected from others. Now that I’ve learned about the three systems of
emotion regulation, I’ve started noticing when I’m feeling this way and
making a point of slowing down to get my systems back in balance.
Today we’ll draw from compassion-focused therapy to explore
your threat and drive systems. Tomorrow we’ll take a look at your
caring system and how you can activate it with compassion.

ACT Daily Writing: Your Threat and Drive

Systems
Your threat system motivates you to quickly avoid risks. When
threatened, your body prepares to fight, flee, or freeze, you focus on
danger, and you may feel anger, anxiety, or disgust. But when your
threat system is chronically activated you can feel on edge, irritable, or
stressed, or you may have difficulty sleeping.

What people, situations, or activities stimulate your threat system?

What happens in your body? How do you behave? How dominant is
this system now? What’s activating it?

The drive system motivates us to acquire food, seek shelter,

position ourselves socially, and find a mate. When it’s activated, you
may feel excited or a sense of vitality. But when it’s too dominant you
may experience craving, overbusyness, competition, reduced
empathy, or restlessness.

What people, situations, or activities stimulate your drive system?

What happens in your body? How do you behave? How dominant is
this system now? What’s the cause?
ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,
Reflections

Today’s Practice
Today, take note of your threat and drive systems. Notice your body
sensations, thoughts, and actions related to them.
 Day 4: Cultivate Compassion
Yesterday you took a look at your threat and drive emotion regulation
systems. Today you’re going to explore your caring system. As Paul
Gilbert (2014) teaches, it’s not our fault that we have “tricky” brains, but
it is our responsibility to reorient our mind and behavior toward caring.
You can mobilize your caring system through compassion.
Compassion can flow in three ways (Gilbert 2014):

1. Giving compassion to others

2. Receiving compassion from others
3. Giving compassion to ourselves

You can also activate your caring system through body-based

soothing practices, such as gentle touch and slow, soothing breathing,
or by imagining a time when you felt compassion for or from another.
In caring mode, you have greater capacity to feel empathy for others,
are more open-minded, and have more courage to engage in difficult,
meaningful actions.
Diana: There’s a business in my town called Cat Therapy. You can go there to
cuddle and play with rescued cats, or you can fill out an application to take
one home. It makes sense it’s called “therapy”—what better way to soothe
your nervous system than to give and receive compassion from a furry friend?

ACT Daily Writing: Your Caring System

Think of a time when you were struggling and received compassion
from another person. What did this person say and do that was
compassionate? Describe this person’s tone of voice, body language,
and facial expressions.
 Now think about a time when you gave compassion to someone
who was struggling. What did you feel? What did you do to show
compassion?

Write about a struggle you’re having now. What qualities of

compassion, such as those you noted above, could you offer
yourself?

Try It Now: What’s Your Balance Today?

On a scale from 0 (not at all) to 10 (all the time), how dominant are
your three systems today?
My threat system
My drive system
My caring system

ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,

Reflections
 Today’s Practice
What simple activity could you do today to activate more caring in your
life? Remember the three ways that compassion flows? Consider
these elements to jump-start your caring system:

1. Give compassion to others: smile at a stranger, cuddle

with your pet, or reach out to someone you love who is
struggling.
2. Receive compassion from others: discuss your worries
with someone you trust, or visualize a time when you felt
safe, secure, and at peace with someone.
3. Give compassion to yourself: for example, practice
soothing rhythm breathing (check out episode 89 of
Psychologists Off the Clock, Hill 2019b), spend some time
in nature, savor a nice cup of tea, or listen to music you
enjoy.

Choose one of the above examples, or come up with one of your

own, and try it today.
 Day 5: Real Self-Care
There’s so much talk about self-care these days that it can start to feel
like yet another thing you aren’t doing well enough. The term might
evoke images of pedicures and long bubble baths. But, as self-care
expert Robyn Gobin (2019) shares on our podcast, “Real self-care
means asking yourself, What do I need most right now on a soul
level?” Real self-care could mean:

Taking a step toward a goal you’ve been putting off

Asking for help
Straightening out your finances
Engaging in a creative outlet
Setting relationship boundaries
Making a change that will help your future self

And you can practice real self-care in many domains of your life,
including work, relationships, health, intellectual pursuits, social
activism, or spirituality. Ideally, self-care should be anchored in your
values and should fill your soul.
Common myths about self-care are that it’s indulgent or selfish
and only for people with money to spare. In reality, neither plentiful
time nor financial resources are required.
Debbie: When I think about people going on yoga retreats or doing spa
treatments for self-care, I have pangs of envy. That’s just not going to happen
in my life as it is now. It helps me to pause and think about what I can do,
within my real life, to better care for myself. Even if I can’t go to a spa, I can
walk my dog, spend time with someone I love, get extra sleep, or take time to
relax on the couch with a good book. I can make room to engage in self-care
in many small ways.
Today we’re going to take an honest look at your life and what real
self-care looks like for you, because, if we’re going to care for others,
it’s important to care for ourselves.
 ACT Daily Writing: My Real Self-Care
When you take good care of yourself, what do you do?

How do you neglect yourself? What is the impact on you?

If you were going to take better care of yourself this month, what
would self-care look like in terms of your health, work, relationships,
finances, intellectual pursuits, altruistic efforts, or spirituality? What
could be your daily self-care practice?
 ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,
Reflections

Today’s Practice
Find one small (or big) way to practice self-care and prioritize doing it
today. Be sure it’s aligned with your values and is realistic for you in
your life as it is.
 Day 6: Physical Self-Care
Diana: I have scoliosis, which means I was born with a crooked spine, and
sitting for long periods of time can be painful. As a therapist who sits for
hours, I’ve had to get creative—and unconventional—in order to care for my
back. Sometimes I sit on the floor on cushions across from my clients, stretch
during short breaks, and ask for walking meetings with my supervisee. A lot of
days my back hurts, despite these efforts. But I take refuge in knowing that I
am engaging in my value of caring for my body, even at work.
ACT cofounder Dr. Kelly Wilson likes to ask workshop participants,
“What kind of critter are you? And what does this kind of critter need?”
Caring for your physical self means asking yourself what movement,
food, and rest your body needs to best live out your values. These
activities directly impact your mental health and how you function
across life’s domains. Today you’re going to explore what it would
mean to care for your body as you would care for someone you love.
On a busy day physical self-care can be as simple as noticing
what your body needs in the moment: you’re thirsty or need to use the
restroom. Other days it may mean paying more attention to your need
for movement, play, nutritious food, or sleep.
Dr. Rhonda Merwin encourages her clients to care for themselves
the way a warm, attuned parent would (Merwin, Zucker, and Wilson
2019). A good parent is neither overly rigid nor overly permissive, but
rather has reasonable expectations and boundaries. A good parent
cares for you with small things—taking you to the doctor, suggesting
you spend time outside, putting you to bed—every day.

ACT Daily Writing: Tending to Your Body

Are there ways you’ve been neglecting your body’s physical needs?
What changes might you consider to take better care of your body? If
you were to tune in and tend to your body like a loving parent would,
how would you care for you?
ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,
Reflections
 Try It Now: Parenting Yourself
Imagine yourself as a warm, attuned parent with healthy goals and
realistic expectations for the day. Imagine parenting yourself as a
loving parent today.

Today’s Practice
Find one small thing you can do to care for your body today. What
does your body need to thrive? More rest? More movement? More
fresh food? Whatever you choose to do, once you’ve done it, notice
how it feels to really care for your body in this way.
 Day 7: Intentional Use of Time
Carving out time to do the practices in ACT Daily, and making it a
habit, can be a challenge. In our busy lives, finding even fifteen free
minutes can be difficult. We can get lost in the flow of time, so it’s
important to check in with ourselves periodically to evaluate how we
use our limited time resources.
Each new day offers an opportunity to be more intentional about
how we use our time, and to engage in what matters most to us. It can
be helpful each day to prioritize tasks and plan for the habits we’d like
to develop. To learn how you are really spending your time, try keeping
track of your time with a time log (Vanderkam 2018). Once you look at
your patterns, you might be surprised that you’re spending hours each
week doing things that aren’t important to you.
We aren’t saying that you need to be busy or productive every
minute of the day. Indeed, downtime can be one of the best uses of
time! But it’s one thing to deliberately rest and quite another to let
hours pass without noticing that you’ve been scrolling around online
and missing out on doing the things you care most about.
Take an honest look at what you’re really doing with your time.
What would it be like to spend more time doing the things that matter
most?
Debbie: I sometimes think that I’m so busy I don’t have enough time to read
fiction anymore, even though it’s one of my greatest joys in life. Keeping a
time log helped me see that I actually spend plenty of time reading, but I’m
reading “junk food”—scrolling around news and social media sites on my
phone. If I really care about reading fiction, I can choose to put my phone
down and spend time with a good book instead.

ACT Daily Writing: Your Ideal Day

Imagine a day when you get to choose how you spend your time. Who
would you spend time with and what would you do?
ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,
Reflections
 Today’s Practice
In the space below, or on a separate paper or spreadsheet, keep a
simple log of how you spend time today. At the end of the day,
compare the log with the ideal day you wrote about above. Are you
using time in ways that feel meaningful to you?

Wake-up time:

Time to bed:
Final Reflections
Congratulations on completing your first week of ACT Daily! This week’s
work helped prepare your soil for planting the seeds of psychological
flexibility. Take a moment to skim through the weeks ahead and decide
where you want to go next. Pick your next chapter, and we’ll meet you
there!
 Week 2:

Being Present—Live in the Now

Technology, information overload, and fast-paced living all compete for a

limited resource: our attention. We often live in a state of distraction, with
our thoughts drifting from the future, to the past, to the future again. When
our minds are pulled away from what we’re doing here and now, as they
are much of the time (Killingsworth and Gilbert 2010), it can start to feel
like we’re missing out on ­living—because we are. In this state we’re living
on autopilot, reacting to events without paying much attention.
With practice, you can step back, notice what’s happening now, and,
with greater awareness, make more intentional, deliberate choices. The
ACT psychological flexibility process of being present puts you at the
center of your own experience. Based on principles that can be traced back
thousands of years to many of the world’s religious traditions, being
present increases your awareness of your thoughts, emotions, and
behaviors. This will help you act less habitually and mindlessly and allow
you to make more conscious, intentional choices in this moment.
Diana: When I was a little girl and someone asked what I wanted to be when
I grew up, I would say, “a snail.” I liked that snails get to have their homes
on their backs and are happy moving at their own pace. As I got older, I gave
up on becoming a snail and instead thought I’d find happiness in graduating
from school, getting married, or having another child. I found myself rushing
to get to the next place before I could settle in. But as soon as I achieved one
goal, a new one came along. Being present helps me see that right now is my
home. I get to be what I’ve always wanted—a snail, with a home on my back
wherever I go.
Recent research (e.g., Goleman and Davidson 2017) suggests that
paying attention to the present moment can help us:
 Be more resilient during times of stress
Focus our attention
Have more compassion for others
Decrease inflammation and improve health
Improve longevity markers

Being present, also known as mindfulness, has a strong body of

research showing that it’s beneficial in treating chronic pain, addiction,
depressive relapse, and anxiety (Kabat-Zinn, Lipworth, and Burney 1985;
Kabat-Zinn et al. 1992; Teasdale et al. 2000; Witkiewitz et al. 2013).
A formal meditation practice is a great way to strengthen your
mindfulness skills, but it is not a requirement for practicing ACT (Wilson
and DuFrene 2009). Instead, ACT emphasizes bringing awareness to your
life as you are living it. You can practice being present by sitting quietly on
a cushion, or you can practice it in your daily life while cooking breakfast,
taking a shower, or stuck in traffic late for work!
This week, we offer you a series of stepping-stones to help you be
more aware in the present moment. You’ll take a look at where you could
use a little more awareness, practice building new skills, and bring
awareness to the areas that matter most to you.
 Day 1: Autopilot
Debbie: True confession: on weekdays, I sometimes eat breakfast in the car
while driving to work…while also listening to a podcast. I’ve been driving for
more years than I care to admit, so I can arrive safely without much effort.
I’ve eaten so many meals in this manner that I can chew my almond-butter
toast and barely notice it. Clearly a person cannot pay attention to the road, a
podcast, and one’s food at the same time. So, I often arrive at work with little
memory of my meal or of the drive itself. I wonder what I might have noticed
had I paid more attention.
We can do many routine things, such as eating and driving, without
much thought. Although autopilot mode can be a useful shortcut, when
we don’t pay attention to what we’re doing, we can miss out on the
moment-to-moment events that make up our lives. Living on autopilot
can also lead to automatic, unhelpful habits. We might automatically
reach for the phone every time we’re bored, or automatically pour
ourselves a glass of wine at the end of the workday, whether we
actually want one or not. It can start to feel like we are living in a fog,
just going through the motions without being tuned in. As a yoga
teacher once told Diana, “If you’re wondering what is missing in your
life…it just might be you!”
Being present can help us be more tuned in to what’s happening
and to choose our actions more deliberately. By tuning in to the
present moment, we can become less scattered, even when life is
moving at a fast pace, and find a steady center from which to face
life’s challenges.

ACT Daily Writing: From Scattered to

Engaged
In what situations do you tend to rush through tasks, live on autopilot,
or feel scattered?
 With which people, activities, and moments would you like to be
more present and engaged?

Try It Now: Today’s Attention

Look at your agenda for today. Which events would you like to
experience with your full attention and focus?
 ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,
Reflections

Today’s Practice
Today, bring awareness to your distractible mind. Without trying to
change your thoughts, see if you can catch yourself rushing, scattered,
or disengaged from one of the important events you listed above.
Make a goal of catching yourself as many times as possible. Every
time you do, you’re strengthening the powerful process of being
present.
 Day 2: Beginner’s Mind
Often, we move through life with the lens of I already know. I already
know what my house, my family, or my town looks like, so why take
another look? What gets lost in already knowing is noticing the
intricacies of the present. Beginner’s mind is the skill of experiencing
something as if you’ve never done it or seen it before (McKay, Wood,
and Brantley 2019). What am I seeing? Hearing? Feeling? With
beginner’s mind, you pay attention to things without preconceptions.
Diana: A while back I paid to shovel someone else’s mulch. I was on a retreat
with biomechanist Katy Bowman learning about how to build more movement
into my life during simple daily tasks. Under normal circumstances I would
have prejudged shoveling mulch as drudgery, a chore. But approaching it
with beginner’s mind helped me see it as an opportunity to move my body!
And, shoveling with a group of others had the added benefit of connection.
Using beginner’s mind in life is like wiping off a dirty windshield.
You see things that you were missing in your life in real time, as
opposed to how your mind has predetermined them to be.
For example, Diana often asks clients who struggle with restrictive
eating to approach meals with beginner’s mind. She suggests they
imagine that they’ve never had the food in front of them before and to
eat it as if it were the first time. Clients often report that their newfound
awareness increases their willingness to branch out to new foods.

ACT Daily Writing: Start Where You Sit

Take a look around and pretend you’ve never seen the room you’re
sitting in. Look for details you might not have noticed or appreciated.
Bring a sense of wonder to this space and write about what you see
with fresh eyes. Where else might you want to use beginner’s mind
today?
 Try It Now: Begin with Your Body
Often when we look at our body, we see flaws and make judgments
(good and bad). Let’s try something different. Next time you’re in the
bathroom, take a minute to look in the mirror at your eyes—as if you’ve
never seen them before. Look at the colors in your irises, your
eyelashes, your tear ducts. If you have longer than a minute, move to
other parts of your face, and if you want, even to a body part that you
judge harshly. What happens if you approach this body part with
beginner’s mind?

ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,

Reflections
 Today’s Practice
Use beginner’s mind today. Enter your day as if you have never seen it
before.
 Day 3: Savoring Daily Life
Debbie: For many years I specialized in providing therapy for people with
disabilities and chronic health conditions. Some of my clients had difficulty
performing basic activities without assistance or specialized equipment. For
instance, putting on socks or cutting food with a knife can be challenging for
people who suddenly lose hand function. People often express feelings of loss
over activities they previously thought were mundane. Often, we take the
simplest things—the tasks we do every day without thinking about them—for
granted.
Every day, many small moments pass us by. For example, when
COVID-19 hit, many of us quickly began longing for the simple things
that were put on hold—hugging friends, watching our kids play freely
with their friends, and pouring cups of tea for neighbors. We realized
how easily we overlooked things we loved about life because we
hadn’t been paying much attention to them. Had we known these
activities would be taken away from us, we might have approached
them differently.
Not only do we easily overlook happy moments, but the moments
that catch our attention aren’t always the ones we want to focus on.
Our brain is designed to dismiss positive experiences and to pay
attention to the negative ones—this keeps us safe and can help us to
survive.
The good news is that you can enrich your life by intentionally
savoring the experiences that matter to you. Do you want to savor
feelings of contentment and connection? Gratitude and joy? According
to Rick Hanson (2018), intentionally practicing awareness by savoring
positive feelings that arise actually sculpts the neural structure of our
brain! Our positive experiences are more likely to be transferred to our
long-term memory when we linger on them and absorb them more
fully.

ACT Daily Writing: Appreciating Daily Life

What moments of life do you take for granted? What moments might
you savor or linger over in your daily life? What might you appreciate
just a little bit more?

Try It Now: The Small Things

Think about your day ahead. Imagine this was the last time you were
going to engage in your daily activities (washing your face, greeting
coworkers in person, cutting with a knife). Which aspects of your day
would you want to linger on and appreciate just a little bit more?

ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,

Reflections
 Today’s Practice
Today practice savoring small enjoyable moments, to encode them in
your memory. When you notice one, use the beginner’s mind skill from
Day 2 to see it with fresh eyes and to absorb it more fully.
 Day 4: Embodiment
Diana: My graduate research was in appetite awareness training for eating
disorders. It can be a long journey to find and trust your satiety cues when
you have repeatedly overridden them. I’d ask clients to explore: What am I
really hungry for? What does satisfaction feel like to me? Is this hunger
or anxiety? Anger or fullness? As clients rediscovered their body’s callings
and needs, they also found a deepened inner knowing. When you listen to
your body, you can hear its wisdom.
Take a look inside and you’ll find a varied landscape of sensations,
such as hunger, emotions, breath, and physical pain. Your body sends
you signals all day long to help you reach homeostasis, or a state of
balance. But we often discount or ignore these cues. As a baby you
were naturally tuned in to your body. But over time you likely learned to
focus more on your external world.
As adults we become increasingly detached from our body:

Do you squelch your satiety signals with dieting or

overeating?
Do you mask your tiredness with caffeine?
Do you quiet your aches and pains with substances?
Do you spend so much time in your head that you
forget you have anything below the neck?

It’s not helpful to spend every minute focused on your body, but if
you repeatedly cut yourself off from your body, you miss out on its rich
information. And sometimes your attempts to control your body’s cues
can backfire.
Today you’re going to bring awareness to your body’s inner
sensations, increasing what is called embodiment.

ACT Daily Writing: Tuning In

Are you connected to your body, or do you spend most of your time
living in your head? How do you mask or ignore your body’s inner
signals? Are there negative consequences when you disconnect from
your body?

Now, turn your attention inward. Notice your level of hunger,

physical aches and pains, tension, and fatigue. Write about these
sensations. What is your body asking for right now?

ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,

Reflections
 Today’s Practice
Let’s focus on increasing your awareness of your body, and your
experience of living in it. Choose one of the following exercises:

Set your phone alarm to go off at three random times

today, and when it does ask yourself, What’s happening
in my body?
Go barefoot outside, noticing the sensation of walking
on different textures, such as that of grass, rocks, or
dirt.
Use appetite awareness training (Craighead 2006) to
check in with your hunger and fullness each time you
eat today. Before eating make a note of how hungry you
are on a scale from 0 (very hungry) to 7 (very full). Rate
your appetite again after eating.
Pay attention to your breath. Notice where your breath
moves in your body, its rhythm and the places where it
pauses. Or, try out the ten-minute breathing meditation
featured in episode 81 of Psychologists Off the Clock
(Hill 2019a).
 Day 5: Noticing Your Mind
Have you ever been so preoccupied while showering that you couldn’t
remember whether you shampooed? Or been so busy thinking about
your to-do list while listening to the radio that you missed a whole
news story? Minds love to comment nonstop. When you’re busy
worrying, analyzing problems, or replaying memories, you can lose
track of what’s happening right before your eyes.
Debbie: A few years ago, I offered an ACT training in Salt Lake City. After
checking into my hotel I walked to get dinner. My mind was busy thinking
about the material to review, fretting about travel logistics, and problem
solving where to find a decent dinner in an unfamiliar city. I had walked
about two blocks before I looked up and noticed a beautiful snow-covered
mountain range right in front of me! Often, life is like that; we’re so
preoccupied by the content of our thoughts that we don’t see what’s right in
front of us.
Even ACT trainers are mindless sometimes. Left unchecked, our
mind tends to wander to almost anything but the things we’re doing.
That’s not all bad. Sometimes your mind needs to roam free to rest;
our mind gets fatigued by sustained, focused attention. Mind
wandering can lead to creativity (Preiss et al. 2016), and if your mind
wanders to an engaging topic your mood may even improve (Franklin
et al. 2013). But if you’re chronically distracted, you’ll likely miss out on
important moments.
The first step in changing your relationship with your mind is
becoming aware of it. If you notice your thought patterns, they can’t
push you around as much. Let’s start by building awareness of your
thoughts.

ACT Daily Writing: Today’s State of Mind

Write about the quality of your mind today. Is it busy? Slow? Calm?
Scattered? Clear? Notice your urge to write the content of what you’re
thinking. For now, just describe its quality.
 Try It Now: Running Commentary
Time yourself for one minute. Write down all your thoughts. When
you’re done, step back and observe the content of your mind.

ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,

Reflections
 Today’s Practice
Sometimes being silent can help us tune in to our present experience.
For example, at Thich Nhat Hanh’s monastery in France, the monks
and nuns encourage engaging in “noble silence” from dinner through
breakfast. Noble silence is seen as an opportunity to not have to talk,
so people can be more aware of their minds, their bodies, and the
present moment. Today, try eating a meal, taking a walk, or sitting
outside in noble silence. Notice the quality and content of your mind,
your thoughts, and the world around you.
 Day 6: Emotional Awareness
Debbie: Once, I had to have a conversation at work that I expected to be
difficult and unpleasant. As the conversation approached, I noticed I was
putting up my emotional guard, bracing myself, and wanting to get it over
with. When I became aware of my thoughts and feelings, I changed course. I
made a conscious decision to be genuine and open and to approach the
conversation with courage. The conversation ended up being a meaningful
one. Had I not first noticed my thoughts and emotions by being present, that
wouldn’t have been the case.
When you’re tuned in to your emotional experience, it’s easier to show
up in a way that’s wholehearted—authentic, open, and able to
approach with courage even the things that scare you. Most people
feel many different emotions throughout the day, and this is no
accident. Fear keeps us alive, moral emotions like shame can help
bond us to others, happiness can motivate us, and sadness means we
care.
Emotions are complex. They’re linked to thoughts and memories
and can include strong sensations and urges to act. Some emotions
last only a few seconds, others a few minutes; and when they last
longer than that, they can become moods. Many of us are often
unaware of our own emotions because we’ve spent a lifetime tuning
them out, or pushing them away. For example, you might:

Turn to your phone or snacks when you’re stressed

Feel vaguely uncomfortable inside, but struggle to
understand your discomfort
Start a fight with your partner, not realizing you’re
feeling hurt

Increasing emotional awareness and really opening up to the

emotions you feel will help build psychological flexibility. You’ll also
grow your emotional intelligence, which helps you better empathize
with others, communicate effectively, and be a stronger leader
(Goleman 2005). Over time you’ll learn to approach your emotions with
acceptance, see them as a source of information, and make choices
directed by your values instead of reacting with little awareness.

ACT Daily Writing: What Are You Feeling?

Describe what you’re feeling right now. Where in your body do you feel
your emotions? What are their sensations? What urges, images, or
memories are associated with how you’re feeling?

Try It Now: Physicalizing Emotion

Pick one of the emotions you wrote about above. Explore it. Where do
you feel it in your body? Does it feel heavy or light? Is it moving
around? Does it feel cold or hot to you? What sensations do you notice
inside?

ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,

Reflections
 Today’s Practice
Choose an activity, something you care deeply about, and show up
wholeheartedly today. As you go about this task, open up to your
emotions by feeling them in your body and staying fully present.
 Day 7: Being Mindful Where It Matters
We’ve been building awareness for an important reason: to help you
make your life as meaningful as possible. This is where being present
meets values (see Week 6). But we don’t expect (or even want) you to
be 100 percent present every moment of the day. Instead, work on
being more aware and engaged where it counts—such as in your
relationships and at work.
Diana: I often give my partner couples therapy retreats as “Homer
gifts” (like when Homer Simpson gives Marge a bowling ball with
an H on it). On one retreat, we learned about “sliding door
moments,” opportunities to step toward or away from our partners
(Gottman and Silver 2013). In these moments, marriages are
strengthened or weakened. I realized how often I failed to step
through the sliding door. A typical example: Diana’s spouse:
“Honey, check out that red-tailed hawk.”
Diana: “Hold on, I need to schedule this client.”
To be emotionally responsive and receptive in our relationships
we must see and hear our loved ones with our whole being. When
your friend is going through a breakup, listening fully is more soothing
than giving advice. When your children are hurt, holding them is more
healing than rushing for an ice pack. And when your partner tells you
there’s a hawk outside, it’s a good idea to take a look.
Work is another area where showing up mindfully can be hard.
We spend a lot of time doing work—jobs, domestic work, and other
productive activities. When we have a stressful interaction, or an
unpleasant task, we might be tempted to get angry, disengage, or
procrastinate.
Being present in relationships and work is a lot like high-intensity
interval training; even short spurts of effort will have a big impact on
your psychological flexibility!
 ACT Daily Writing: More Mindful in Love and
Work
Write down the people who really matter to you. How do you miss their
bids for attention? How can you show up more wholeheartedly?
What’s one thing you can do today to be more present with those you
love?

What about your work? How can you show up more fully? When do
you tend to be unfocused or unproductive? How might you be more
present at your work today?
 ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,
Reflections

Today’s Practice
Today, practice being present with someone you love, with work, or
with something else that matters to you. Notice when your attention
moves away and bring it back over and over again.
Final Reflections
This week you practiced being more aware in the present moment. You
moved from living on autopilot to developing a beginner’s mind that
savors the fullness of this moment as it unfolds in your body, emotions,
and mind. You’ll find that the ACT process of being present is woven into
every week of this journal. If you choose to move on to unhooking from
your thoughts next (Week 3), or another ACT process, bring your
beginner’s mind with you!
 Week 3:

Cognitive Defusion—Greet the Monsters

in Your Head

Diana: When my oldest child was three, there was a period of time when he
woke in the night seeing monsters in his room. My initial instinct was to tell
him what most parents would: “Honey, there’s no such thing as monsters.”
But, as an ACT therapist, I taught him to instead greet the monsters. “What
do the monsters look like? Where are they in the room? What do you think
they want from you?” And when he told me he thought the monsters were
hungry, we made them a bowl of cereal. After a few nights of leaving cereal
outside his door, the monsters didn’t wake him anymore. Apparently, they were
full.
You’ve probably woken in the night with your own version of monsters in
your head. Maybe you’ve been hooked by worries about the future, a work
problem, or a relationship concern. Just like trying to rationalize with a kid
about monsters, trying to rationalize with your mind at 2 a.m. rarely works.
Your middle-of-the-night thinking comes from being human. Your
brain has the unique ability to create language, which allows you to think,
plan, imagine, and make meaning. But language is a double-edged sword.
With language you can worry, ruminate, create rules, and judge. It’s
normal to get caught up in convincing thoughts, or to want to stop yourself
from thinking—especially when your thoughts are distressing. But both of
these strategies can backfire. Have you noticed that problem solving in the
middle of the night only amplifies your worry? Or that trying not to think
about your problem only makes you think about it more? According to
thought-suppression research in psychology (Wegner et al. 1987), the more
we attempt to get rid of unwanted thoughts, the stronger they rebound. If
you have social anxiety, you know how this works. The more you try to
not think about how awkward you are with another person, the more your
mind points out I’m being so awkward right now!
Language also allows your mind to make comments about yourself
and the world around you—all day long. Even as you read this, your mind
has something to say. It may not even be related to what you’re reading!
Not only is your mind never quiet, it tends to focus on the negative. As
Rick Hanson (2020b) shared on episode 122 of our podcast, our brain is
like Teflon for positive experiences and Velcro for negative ones. For
evolutionary reasons, the negative thoughts we have tend to stick; the
positive thoughts, we can’t get to stick around at all.
When you’re caught up in either fighting or believing your mind’s
chatter, you become what ACT calls cognitively fused. There’s no space
between you and the thoughts your mind is generating. Cognitive fusion
entangles you in your thoughts, which makes it hard for you to see your
experience, and yourself, clearly.

Are You Cognitively Fused?

Answer these questions to see how fused you are with your thoughts:
Do you have a hard time paying attention and get distracted by your
thoughts?
Do you believe your thoughts are facts, and follow your mind’s rules
and shoulds?
Do you believe your mind’s judgments about yourself and others?
Do you let your thoughts direct your behavior without second-
guessing their helpfulness?
Is it hard for you to separate yourself from the thoughts you have?
If you answered yes to most of the questions above, congratulations!
You are human.
Like most humans you probably try a number of things to quiet the
thoughts that bother you most. Perhaps you try to think “happy thoughts,”
make your mind go blank, or avoid things that remind you of your
monsters. Yet you probably noticed that when you automatically follow
your thoughts, they can take you off track. And, when you resist your
thoughts they keep coming back. What else can you do?
Defuse from your thoughts! Cognitive defusion is different from
trying to challenge or stop your thinking. Rather, it involves relating to
your thoughts differently. You take an observational stance with your
thoughts and recognize I am the one watching this, and I am not these
thoughts. By spending less time being hooked by your thoughts you’re
freed up to move more flexibly toward what really matters to you. This
week you’ll practice cognitive defusion when you:

Notice your nonstop chattering mind

Step back and look at your thoughts instead of being stuck in them
See how attempting to control your wild and wacky thoughts can
backfire
Shift away from behavior that’s inflexibly governed by judgments,
shoulds, and rules and toward behavior that’s flexibly guided by your
values
Attend and respond to thoughts that help you act the way you want
to be in the world

We hope you’ll get a little distance from, and perspective on, the
monsters in your head. And once you have more space from your thoughts,
you’ll be more able to choose which thoughts are worth your attention.
 Day 1: Your Chatty Seatmate
Imagine you’re unhappily settling into a middle seat on a long, cross-
country flight and find yourself stuck next to an airplane chitchatter.
Your seatmate for the next five hours talks nonstop. He complains,
criticizes you, judges the airline, and forecasts doom and gloom
ahead. At first, you try to ignore him, putting on headphones, but he
still won’t stop talking. Then you get annoyed and argue back, even
telling him to please be quiet, and he still won’t stop! So, you distract
yourself with the in-flight magazine, and even order an overpriced
cocktail to numb out from this experience. But no matter what you do,
you’re stuck with him.
Guess what! You have a chatty seatmate with you all the time—
your mind! Your mind narrates your life and rarely stops chatting. And
sometimes that chatter consists of unhelpful thinking that’s very hard
to ignore.
What can you do instead? Allow your chatty seatmate to talk
without getting so caught up in what he’s saying. Don’t let him push
you around. Shift your attention to things you care more about.
Become a skillful observer who acts based on your values, not on
what your seatmate dictates. Just as the excruciatingly long flight
detailed above eventually passes, so, too, does every moment in your
life.

ACT Daily Writing: Your Mental Chatter

Write about what your mind has been chattering about today. What are
some of the comments your mind is making about you, your future, the
world around you? Which of these comments are helpful (those you
want to listen to)? Which are unhelpful (those you want to disregard)?
 Try It Now: Brush Your Teeth
Get up and brush your teeth. Do it even if you already brushed your
teeth today. Your dentist will thank you. While you’re brushing, notice
how your mind chatters about anything but teeth brushing. Notice your
mind complain, comment, and plan, just like the chatty seatmate on
the airplane. Can you notice that chattering mind, but not get hooked
by it? Can you also look at your teeth in the mirror or focus on getting
all those hard-to-reach spots? Focus on brushing your teeth with
intention, letting your chatty seatmate become background noise.

ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,

Reflections
 Today’s Practice
Pay special attention to your mind, the chatty seatmate. Pick one task
you are doing today (such as showering, dressing, or eating) and
notice the thoughts that show up without getting hooked by them. Be
on the lookout for the real doozies—the thoughts that trip you up and
pull you away from the task at hand. Can you notice these thoughts
while also bringing attention to what you care about in this task?
 Day 2: Thriller or Slapstick?
Have you ever gotten really stressed out watching a suspenseful
movie? But then you remembered it’s not real—that you’re actually
sitting in your living room with a bowl of popcorn on your lap? As in a
movie, our minds can manipulate us into believing something that isn’t
real; however, if you can look at your thoughts from a distance and see
them for what they are—that the blood on the screen is really ketchup
—your mind is less likely to push you around. Now and then, it’s
helpful to step back from your mind, label your thoughts as thoughts,
and notice what’s happening in the moment.
Diana: I mustered the energy to get to yoga class one time only to find myself
in line behind a couple buying a yoga package. I had cut it close, and class
was starting soon. Meanwhile, the couple was going back and forth about
vacation plans and work schedules. As time ticked by, my mind complained
and judged: It took a lot to get here, and now I’m stuck—just standing
here! Finally, the couple finished, and I got to class, only to find the teacher
demonstrating mountain pose—a pose in which you just stand there!
Often we’re so caught up in our thoughts we don’t notice them for
what they are. It’s amazing how much thoughts can taint the
experience of life! What if you had a more playful relationship with your
thoughts? Appreciating them as expressions of your wondrous—and
sometimes obnoxious—mind, rather than letting them carry you away?
Today you’ll gain awareness of your thoughts—and relate to them in a
playful new way.

ACT Daily Writing: Your Movie Mind

Sometimes it helps to not take our thoughts so seriously. Imagine
watching your mind like you would watch a movie. What thoughts and
imagery are particularly captivating nowadays? What worry, regret,
and criticism scripts are you caught in?
 Try It Now: Cast Your Mind
Now think about the characters of your mind’s movie. Does your mind
have a regular cast, such as Regretful Roger or Never-Good-Enough
Nelly? What would you name your cast?

What would today’s main character be named? What would this

character wear and what’s her script? Examples:
Diana’s mind: Overcontrolling Ophelia, wearing a pressed shirt
buttoned to the top, nagging, “You aren’t doing enough.”
Debbie’s mind: Preoccupied Penelope, disheveled, talking fast,
rattling off a to-do list repeatedly.

Your Mind:
 ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,
Reflections

Today’s Practice
As you go through your day today, step back from your thoughts.
Catch unhelpful scripts or familiar mind characters. Instead of being
engrossed in thoughts, notice them for what they are: thoughts playing
out scenes in your mind.
 Day 3: Wild and Wacky Thoughts
Debbie: A few years back, I briefly (and unsuccessfully) tried eating fewer
carbs. One day at lunch, I saw a baked potato in the cafeteria and told myself,
I can’t eat that potato, it has carbs. Guess what happened. I spent the rest
of the day obsessing about the baked potato and telling myself to stop thinking
about it. The more I told myself to stop thinking about it, the more I couldn’t
help it. Every minute or so, I pictured that potato. If I had just allowed myself
to think freely about that boring old baked potato, perhaps it wouldn’t have
turned into something so big in my head that day!
The mind can be wild sometimes. You tell it not to think about a baked
potato, and what does it do? Thinks about a baked potato all day long.
Even if we can suppress our thoughts for a while, they come
rebounding back stronger than ever. We’ve all gotten well-meaning
advice about thinking, such as “Don’t worry!” or “Just don’t think
negative thoughts.” On the surface, this seems helpful. There’s just
one problem: such advice doesn’t work. Minds don’t like to be
controlled.
Not only that, minds can be wacky! If we told you we were going
to attach a bullhorn to your head and broadcast all your thoughts and
mental images, how would you feel? Embarrassed? Mortified? Us too.
We may worry that we’re the only ones having these kinds of thoughts,
or even that we’re going crazy, but we all have weird, wacky thoughts
sometimes. And thoughts are only a problem when we buy into them
or try to control them.

ACT Daily Writing: Mind Control

Write about a time in the past when you tried to control your mind or
think positive thoughts. How successful were your efforts in the long
run?
 How about now? Are there topics you try not to think about? How
well is that working?

Try It Now: Just Don’t Think

We have a challenge for you. Try not thinking about your big toes while
you read the rest of this passage. Force yourself not to notice them.
You can think of anything else you want, just not that tingly feeling in
your big toes. Could you do it?
Now, for a minute, let your mind roam free. Loosen up on efforts to
control your thoughts. What do you notice?

ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,

Reflections
 Today’s Practice
Today, be on the lookout for two things: first, wacky thoughts that pop
into your mind (the ones you wouldn’t want to broadcast through a
bullhorn), and second, times that you try to control your thoughts by
clearing out your mind or by changing your thoughts. Reflect on your
attempts to control your mind.
 Day 4: Your Inner Judge
Debbie: One Halloween, while trick-or-treating with kids, my neighbor and I
got into a debate over which is better, sour candies or peanut butter cups. (I
mean, sour candies? Really?) I noticed we both stated our opinions about
fruity versus chocolate candy as if they were facts. “No way! Peanut butter
cups are so much better.” Do you see how this opinion is stated as fact?
The human mind is great at making quick evaluations. This ability
helps us make decisions and stay safe. For example, if you see a
cockroach at a sushi place, you might benefit from judging it as
“disgusting” and making other dinner plans. Sometimes our judgments
are accurate.
The problem is that sometimes our assumptions are wrong
because we don’t have enough information. What’s more, we often
confuse judgments for facts. For example:
She’s such a good girl.
My anxiety is the worst.
His car is nicer than mine.

These statements are opinions presented as truths. When we

present something as a truth, we lose sight of how perspective and
context are shaping our thoughts. For example, how are you defining
“good girl”? Is your anxiety always bad? What do you mean by “nicer”?
Notice that the judgments about yourself (I did a terrible job) and
other people (He’s an idiot) depend on perspective and who’s doing
the thinking—in this case, you! When we let our mind’s judgments
guide our behavior, we might lose sight of the bigger picture and miss
out on experiences we value.

ACT Daily Writing: Judgments Vs.

Observations
Write down positive and negative self-judgments. For example, I’m
friendly and I’m too short.

Now write your self-judgments as observations. Include observable

facts or words that give context and perspective, such as
“sometimes” and “in my/their opinion.” For example, Sometimes I
make time to chat and I’m five-foot-three.

What differences do you notice between self-judgments and

observations?
 Try It Now: Unhook From Judgments
Another helpful practice is to not take your judgments so seriously.
Notice judgments as language that hooks you and try to unhook from
them by seeing them as just words. Write down a self-judgment you
struggle with (e.g., I am fat):

Now write that judgment over and over in different ways: with your
nondominant hand, backward, in cursive, tiny, big (e.g., FAT, taf,
fat…).

What happened to the judgment?

ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,

Reflections
 Today’s Practice
Notice your judgments (good and bad) today. When you notice them,
try either restating them as observations or seeing them as just words.
Write the judgments down and play around with them. See how this
changes your perspective.
 Day 5: Rules and Being Right
Diana: When it comes to work, I’m a rule follower. I was the kind of kid who
didn’t have to be told to do my homework and the kind of graduate student
who stayed in the lab instead of heading to happy hour. Although these rules
helped me reach career goals, they also blocked me from other important
things—like making time for friends. I haven’t outgrown my work “rules,” but
my response to them has changed. Sometimes that means following my mind’s
“rules,” but not always. Yesterday I woke early to write more of this book, but
today I chose to make pancakes with my kids instead. I now notice my
“rules,” use them flexibly, and take actions that line up with the life I want to
build.
Our mind loves to follow rules. Rules can be helpful for organizing
behavior and solving problems. For instance, the rule to wear your
seatbelt has kept you safe. However, when you rigidly follow your
mind’s rules, you prevent adaptation and values-based action.
Sometimes you must let go of rules to flexibly respond to life’s
circumstances.
Our mind also wants others to follow our rules, and we can latch
on to being right. When this happens, we lose sight of what’s really
important. As therapists, we’ve both seen marriages destroyed over
partners believing too firmly they were right. What happens when
you’re fixated on being right, but others disagree? Or when being right
makes you chronically frustrated with the world or disappointed in
people you care about?

ACT Daily Writing: Your Rules

We may not notice our mind’s rules and righteousness, even if they
limit us. For example, here are a couple of our rules: If I say no to my
friends, I’ll hurt their feelings, and I can’t feed my kids processed food
because it’s unhealthy.

Write some of your rules.

 What does your mind tell you “you’re right” about but not everyone
agrees? How are rule following and being right limiting you?

Try It Now: Unconscious Rules

Notice some rules you’re following right now that you’re not usually
conscious of. How many can you count? Are you wearing matching
socks? Drinking your coffee from a mug and not a bowl? Wearing
shoes outside? Sitting in a chair and not on the floor?

Now consider whether some of these rules are less or more helpful
to you? What would it be like to experiment with breaking some of
these rules, just for the sake of practicing flexibility?
 ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,
Reflections

Today’s Practice
Today, pick out a rule that you want to be less trapped by. Make a
commitment to break that rule today. See what happens if you rebel
against your mind!
 Day 6: Comparisons and Shoulds
One of the wondrous things about the human mind is its ability to think
abstractly. We can think of new ideas and create things that don’t exist.
We can compare ourselves to others and think about how we’d like
things to be different.
Debbie: I have a hand-me-down couch in my living room. It’s slouchy and
shows evidence that my kids love coloring on the couch. I feel embarrassed by
it, and every time I visit a friend with a knack for home design, I can’t help but
compare: I should have nicer furniture by now! The thing is, when I think
this way, my mind leaves out some other important information: I’m so lucky
that I have a safe and comfortable place to live. I feel good about the
environmental impact of reusing items. My couch is pretty comfortable, and I
don’t have to worry when my kids spill beverages on it. When my mind’s
caught up in comparing, I lose sight of what I have.
The dark side of comparing ourselves to others is that we can
create high standards and come up with all kinds of shoulds—ideas
about what we should (or should not) be doing. We can dream up an
ideal world in which we never measure up. Here are some of our
unhelpful shoulds:

My partner should appreciate that I swept the floor.

I should respond to an email the same day I receive it.
I shouldn’t have people over until my house is perfectly
clean.
My friends should know it’s my birthday and call me.

ACT Daily Writing: Noticing Shoulds

Write down some of the shoulds that might be limiting you (e.g., I
should…, I shouldn’t…, they should…, they shouldn’t…).
 How are these shoulds preventing you from doing what you care
about? If you didn’t follow them, how could your life be different?
What would it be like to loosen up on those standards and to be
more flexible with yourself?

ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,

Reflections

Today’s Practice
Pay special attention to how your shoulds, and other comparisons, are
showing up for you today. Try doing things differently. When
comparisons show up, keep your eyes on your own plate…and how
full it is! Try challenging a should today. Experiment by not doing it and
doing something you want to do instead.
 Day 7: Watering Seeds
Diana: On a meditation retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh I learned about the
mind training of “watering seeds.” Put simply, our thoughts are like seeds in
the garden of our mind. Some seeds will grow into plants we hope to harvest
from someday. Other seeds will grow into weeds that can take over a garden
bed. It’s up to us to choose which seeds we want to water with our attention
and our actions. Modern neuroscience supports these ancient teachings.
When we defuse from unhelpful thoughts and act on our values instead, we
shape neural connections and our behavior (Hanson 2020a). We can use our
actions to water the person we want to grow.
Sometimes we want to take action, but our mind gives us terrible
advice—You can’t do that; you aren’t good enough. Just do it later, and
why bother anyway?—stalling us with doubt or procrastination. This
“advice” is intended to protect us; our mind judges and criticizes to
shield us from things that could be physically or socially dangerous.
But our mind can go too far when unhelpful thoughts keep us from
doing things that are important to us. As Tara Mohr (2014) describes in
her book Playing Big, when we listen to our inner critic—which guides
us to avoid pain—we hide, don’t speak up, and shy away from our
truest callings.
Instead of giving attention to your mind’s unhelpful advice, you
can water seeds in your mind that encourage what Mohr calls “taking a
leap” toward what matters most.

ACT Daily Writing: Mind Watering

Let’s see how mind watering can help you take a leap. Write down one
thing that you want to do but can’t seem to muster the courage to do
(e.g., start a blog or an exercise program, take on a new work
responsibility).
What unhelpful advice has your mind given when it comes to
“playing big” in this area? What unhelpful thoughts would you like to
lay fallow?

What more helpful thoughts would you like to water with your
attention?

Think back to a time when you did something you didn’t think you
could do or didn’t want to do. What did this experience tell you
about who’s in charge of the garden of your life?

ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,

Reflections
 Today’s Practice
Tend to your inner garden today. Notice which seeds you’re watering.
If an unhelpful thought arises, simply let it pass—let it go fallow, as you
would a weed. And notice the thoughts that are aligned with your
values. Water those thoughts with your attention and actions.
Final Reflections
This week you worked on looking at your thoughts in a new way. You
learned that you have an inner chatterbox, and that you don’t have to take
your thoughts so seriously. You learned to step back and defuse from your
thoughts and water the ones that are most useful to you. What lessons
would you like to remember? Your mind will most likely have a lot to say
as you continue your work in ACT Daily. When you get hooked by its
unhelpful commentary, don’t forget that you can always defuse from your
thoughts!
 Week 4:

Acceptance—Courageous, Willing, and

Open

Diana: My husband drives a 2001 Subaru with a peeling problem. I hate the
car. When I park next to it in the driveway I comment internally, Ugh, that
car. Even imagining it now makes me irritable. Meanwhile, my husband
happily drives his old clunker around town, not obsessing about the peeling
paint on the hood. He doesn’t like the car either yet accepts these feelings so
that he can focus on other things that are important to him—such as the
students he works with. As for me, the more I focus my energy on wishing
things were different, the more my suffering grows.
Resisting and rejecting our inner experiences causes much of our
psychological suffering. There is a reason why ACT is called acceptance
and commitment therapy. Acceptance is a key process in psychological
health (Forsyth and Ritzert 2018).
When we stop struggling with our experience, we free ourselves up to
make choices that are consistent with our values. It’s like dropping the
rope in a tug-of-war with yourself so that you can use your hands for
things that matter to you. Psychological acceptance does not mean that you
have to “like” or “approve” of what life is offering. Acceptance means
opening up to your moment-to-moment experience with receptivity,
flexibility, and nonjudgment (Hayes, Strosahl, and Wilson 2012).
Acceptance sounds good when we experience emotions we like (such
as joy, contentment, pleasure), but when we have more painful emotions
(such as sadness, fear, or anger) we often reject, avoid, or suppress the
feelings that come with them. When trying to get rid of difficult inner
experiences means turning away from what matters to you, you engage in
what is called experiential avoidance, which is the opposite of acceptance.
 We all do things to move away from what we don’t like, and that’s
neither bad nor good. But, it’s helpful to notice when we are caught in a
harmful circle of avoidance.
The Experiential Avoidance Roundabout
It’s normal to not want to experience discomfort. To keep you safe, your
brain evolved to problem solve ways for you to escape and avoid pain. If
it’s cold outside, you find shelter. If a car swerves at you, you try to dodge
it. Attempts to avoid and control pain keep you safe from physical harm,
but this strategy backfires when you use it with psychological pain. Why?
Avoiding psychological pain:

Is a short-term solution, and what you’re avoiding will return

Can intensify the very experiences you’re trying to suppress
Consumes resources that you could be using for other things that
matter to you
Restricts positive emotions
Introduces a whole new set of problems
Loops us in a cycle of psychological suffering

Experiential avoidance sends us around and around the roundabout of

suffering. When we keep turning away from discomfort, we can end up in
what Kevin Polk and colleagues (2016) call “stuck loops.” These loops of
experiential avoidance contribute to the development and maintenance of
many of our mental health problems (Chawla and Ostafin 2007). Notice in
the following examples how nonacceptance not only keeps one stuck but
also blocks the opportunity for growth:

You feel anxious about a work assignment, so you procrastinate, only

to be more anxious.
You’re critical about your body, so you don’t buy new clothes, only
to feel worse about how you look.
You feel embarrassment, so you don’t speak up in social settings,
only to feel less confident.
You feel guilty about your alcohol use, so you drink to make that
feeling go away, only to feel more guilty in the morning.
The Path of Acceptance
Are you stuck in a roundabout with your feelings and behaviors? Want a
way out of this pernicious cycle? Do you want to get your life moving
toward your values, even when the discomfort of living shows up?
Acceptance is your path through.
Rather than pushing away painful private experiences, you move
toward them willingly. You open yourself to the possibility that there’s
freedom in accepting your full life experience. As you become more
comfortable accepting aspects of your internal experience, good and bad,
you might find that acceptance offers you gifts, such as peace,
understanding, and deeper meaning.
Acceptance also benefits the people around you. Imagine how you
would engage your friends, your family, or even yourself differently if you
accepted your inner experiences more fully.
This week you’ll uncover the costs of nonacceptance and practice a
path forward—one that involves courage and willingness. We hope you
also uncover the gifts of saying yes to your full life experience.
 Day 1: “Just Be Happy”
When someone asks, “How are you?” do you sometimes say “good,”
even when you’re not? How about when someone asks, “What do you
want?” Do you sometimes say, “I don’t care” when you really do? We
are all born with strong feelings and wants, and we freely express
them as babies. But over time most of us learn that some types of
inner experiences should be controlled, should not be shown in public,
or should be modified to meet others’ expectations. Certain thoughts
and emotions are considered undesirable, signs of weakness, or
things to be suffered alone. We’re given messages like “just be happy,”
“boys don’t cry,” “keep it together,” and over time we learn to control or
hide what’s deemed unacceptable. Sadly, hiding or suppressing our
feelings also often means we cover up what matters to us, including
our very selves.
Debbie: Like many girls, I learned that expressing anger wasn’t okay. When
tempers flared, I felt scared and unsure of how to respond. Even while
training to become a psychologist, I felt uncomfortable whenever a client
expressed rage in the therapy room. I was disconnected from feelings of anger
and had trouble expressing anger in a healthy way. I’m still working on it, but
now I can see how believing these messages about anger have kept me from
openly feeling an emotion we all have. I’m learning to stay in the presence of
anger and to express it myself when necessary.
You have a diversity of feelings and sensations “under your skin.”
Some you may like and want to keep around, others not so much. But,
as opposed to society’s messaging, we have much less ability to
control these private inner events than we think.
The acronym TEAMS (Robinson, Gould, and Strosahl 2011) is a
useful way to look at our inner experience:
Thoughts such as judgments, rules, plans, or worries
Emotions such as fear, excitement, love, or embarrassment
Action tendencies such as urges, longings, or cravings
Memories such as past events or interactions
 Sensations such as physical pain, comfort, or pleasure
Let’s explore the messages you’ve received about your TEAMS.

ACT Daily Writing: Your TEAMS

What did you learn about expressing your thoughts and feelings
growing up? Which TEAMS were “acceptable” to show? Which
weren’t? How were these messages influenced by your culture of
origin or other identities, such as gender, age, race, physical ability, or
sexual orientation?

Do these messages influence you now? How do you want to

approach your difficult TEAMS?
 ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,
Reflections

Today’s Practice
Pay more attention to what’s happening “under your skin.” Check in
often and notice what TEAMS you’re experiencing. Notice times you
experience an inner state you don’t want, and how you try to get rid of
it. What would happen if you did something different?
 Day 2: Experiential Avoidance Roundabouts
Diana: People are really more similar than different. Whether I’m working
with a teenager who binge eats or a dad who binge drinks, underneath is a
desire to avoid the unease of living. I get it. I have my own avoidance
strategies. ACT helps us spot our tendencies to avoid and then gently redirect
ourselves toward our common longing to live well.
We all numb out, distract ourselves, or check out of life sometimes. Do
you grab your phone when you’re bored? Snack when stressed?
Online shop when you’re down? Nir Eyal (2019) argues that a primary
reason technology is so captivating is that it helps us avoid life’s
discomfort.
Experiential avoidance strategies aren’t always harmful. But
problems can arise when they pull you away from valued living. It’s
fine to pull out your phone while waiting in line, but spending hours on
it every day, or checking email while in a heartfelt conversation with a
good friend, could definitely be a problem.
If you’re aware of your common avoidance strategies, you can
recognize when they’re destructive and keeping you in stuck loops.
Circle the experiential avoidance strategies you use frequently
(adapted and expanded from Harris 2019):

Numbing: Do you overeat, restrict food, drink, use

substances, overexercise, or harm yourself?
Bracing your body: Do you tense up, clench your jaw,
tighten your belly, or hold your breath?
Distracting: Do you fantasize, think about something
else, make jokes, thrill seek, multitask, or overuse
technology?
Giving up: Do you avoid signing up, isolate, sleep too
much, say no, cancel, or hide?
Rushing through: Do you overwork, stay constantly
busy, strive for more, talk quickly, or move quickly
through life?
 Overthinking: Do you intellectualize, ruminate, worry,
mentally problem solve, or overanalyze?
Blaming: Do you point fingers, judge, or criticize
yourself or others?

ACT Daily Writing: Your Experiential

Avoidance Patterns
Explore the avoidance strategies you circled above. Do they help you?
Do they ever cause you to miss out on anything important? Are there
short-term benefits? What about long-term costs?

Try It Now: Name Your Roundabout

Try this strategy (Polk et al. 2016) to unhook from your stuck loops.
Pick one of the avoidance strategies from the list above that causes
you the most harm. What would you name it? Now say out loud: This
is [your name], in an avoidance roundabout called .
Here are a couple of examples:
This is Diana in an avoidance roundabout of overscheduling.
This is Debbie in an avoidance roundabout of distracting with
my phone.

Say yours a few times. What happens?

ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,

Reflections

Today’s Practice
Be on the lookout for ways you avoid difficult thoughts and emotions.
When you spot an experiential avoidance roundabout, think about the
short- and long-term consequences. Name your experiential
avoidance roundabout out loud, and ask yourself if there’s another
direction you’d like to head instead.
 Day 3: The Fixing Trap
Diana: When I’m stressed, I go through my day seeing everything that’s
wrong. I’m behind on paperwork, my clothes are out of date, my dog jumps on
people. The more I focus on problems, the more problems I see, especially in
myself. So, I try to “fix” my irritation by rushing around, nagging my family,
myself, even my dog. There is a cost to this “fixing”—I miss out on seeing the
good that sits alongside my messy life.
Often when things aren’t the way we want them to be we immediately
try and fix them. We turn to our “righting reflex”—that is, our “built-in
desire to set things right” (Miller and Rollnick 2012)—to fix the
uncomfortable feeling that things aren’t quite right.
Do you turn to fixing or self-improvement as a solution when faced
with discomfort? Do you tell yourself that if you just got in shape,
painted the walls, worked harder, or bought something new, then you’d
finally feel better? It sounds good and healthy to try the latest self-help
program, strive for spiritual enlightenment, go to therapy, or try a new
diet or exercise program. As Pema Chödrön (2001) notes in The
Wisdom of No Escape and the Path of Loving-Kindness, sometimes
trying to change yourself can be a form of self-aggression. There’s a
dark side when self-improvement becomes fixing yourself, as though
there’s something fundamentally wrong with you. When you believe
this, the very doubts and insecurities that spurred you to change grow
stronger, and your dissatisfaction with yourself amplifies.

ACT Daily Writing: Your Fixing Trap

What are some of the qualities you try to “fix” about yourself? What do
you do to try to improve yourself? Are there times when trying to fix
yourself doesn’t help?
 Instead of rejecting yourself as not being good enough as you are,
what else could you do?

Try It Now: Spotting Sunsets

Think of something in your life that you’ve been trying to fix or solve,
such as your body, your anxiety, or your negative thoughts. What if this
is not a problem to solve? Try looking at this inner experience as if it
were a sunset—something to be observed and enjoyed—rather than a
math problem to be solved (Wilson and DuFrene 2009). What can you
appreciate about your experience? How is it beautiful in its own right?

ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,

Reflections
 Today’s Practice
Notice your tendency to get caught in the fixing trap—an urge to fix
inner feelings about yourself and the environment around you. What
does it feel like to engage in fixing? What happens when you drop the
idea of setting things right?
 Day 4: Willingness
If we want to stop trying to control, avoid, or fix our experience, what
can we do instead? Develop willingness! In ACT, willingness is the
courage to experience our unpleasant TEAMS in order to do the things
that matter to us (Hayes, Strosahl, and Wilson 2012). You practice
willingness every time you move outside your comfort zone.
Debbie: I enjoy swimming laps, but I hate the sensation of getting into the
pool. The water is chilly, and the first minute feels like shock. I’ll spend hours
dreading that one minute, mentally debating whether it’s worth it. Sometimes I
want to avoid that sensation so much that I go for a walk instead, or even skip
exercising altogether. If I want to enjoy a swim, I have to be willing to feel the
shock of cold water. When I do, it only lasts a minute, and then for the rest of
the day I get to enjoy the benefits of swimming.
As ACT therapists, we often feel like “willingness personal
trainers.” We help our clients start small—Are you willing to feel
anxiety right now?—and work our way up to higher-intensity moves—
Are you willing to feel anxiety while asking your boss for time off? It’s
inspiring to see willingness in action. It takes courage to turn toward
painful things and to step into uncertainty or discomfort.
You probably already know what willingness feels like:

Have you attended a function where you didn’t know

anyone?
Have you asked for what you need in a relationship?
Have you gotten out of bed even when you didn’t feel
like it?
Have you resisted a temptation or an urge?

These uncomfortable activities show that you can have your

TEAMS and choose to engage anyway. Today you’re going to
strengthen your willingness muscles by deliberately stepping outside
your comfort zone.
 ACT Daily Writing: Your Comfort Zone
It takes courage, willingness, acceptance, and self-compassion to
make a move outside your comfort zone. When have you stepped out
of your comfort zone and what was the result?

In the circles below, write some actions that are inside and outside
your comfort zone now.

What do you miss out on when you stay in your comfort zone? What
could you gain if you stepped outside it?

Try It Now: Make Room for Courage

Think about a courageous move you’ve wanted to make. Are you
uncomfortable just thinking about it? Notice the discomfort inside your
body. Imagine yourself as a soft, flexible container for these feelings.
Instead of trying to squash or evict them, make room in your container
—the bigger the discomfort the bigger the space. Imagine carrying
these feelings with you as you step out with courage and self-
compassion.

ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,

Reflections
 Today’s Practice
Flex your willingness muscles by choosing an uncomfortable task
you’ve been avoiding—and take a step toward it. Choose something
important that requires courage. Make space for the feelings that show
up, and remind yourself you’re doing willingness strength training!
 Day 5: From Closing Off to Opening Up
Debbie: One day in a parking lot I opened my car door too far and it lightly
bumped the car next to me. No damage was done, but a man who saw my
mistake made a rude comment. I immediately felt angry, and hours later I was
still stewing. What a jerk! I kept trying to let the experience go, but it was all
I could think about. At some point I realized that the real emotion I was
feeling was embarrassment. I had made a careless mistake, and he saw me.
When I turned toward my more vulnerable emotion of embarrassment I finally
got unstuck.
We can feel vulnerable when opening ourselves to the emotions we’ve
been trained not to feel. If you’ve received the message that certain
emotions are scary or even a sign of weakness, you might have
learned to run away from them. Or maybe you turn your feelings
outward, as Debbie did with the man in the parking lot, mistaking
embarrassment for anger. That, too, is a form of avoiding emotions
you think you shouldn’t feel.
Despite what society may have taught you, there can be a lot to
gain by turning toward your emotions and sensations. Your emotions
serve a purpose; they can provide you with information about your
needs and motivate you to make changes. Emotions such as anger,
sadness, and guilt maintain our social fabric and connection. Imagine
how difficult it would be to connect with a person who had no emotion.
Not accepting emotions has consequences. We punish ourselves
for what we feel without even realizing it. We don’t take risks. We live
smaller, more painful lives. By opening up to and getting curious about
our inner world, we can better use our experience to navigate our
outer world effectively. Willingness and acceptance aren’t just about
purposely doing things that feel difficult; they also help us face our
TEAMS when we are taking values-based actions.

ACT Daily Writing: Open Up

Write about something unpleasant you’ve been closing yourself off to
or running away from. What do you miss out on when you close
yourself off? What emotions would you likely feel if you were to move
toward and open up to this situation instead?

ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,

Reflections

Today’s Practice
Today notice your urge to close yourself off to unwanted inner
experiences and situations. Instead practice gently opening yourself to
them. You can open up with your:
Body—gently contact the uncomfortable feeling, and allow it
with your body.
Mind—imagine yourself saying yes to what is.
Behavior—take an action that moves you toward what you care
about even if it’s uncomfortable.

The more you practice opening up, the more freedom you will
experience.
 Day 6: Sea Creatures and Pain— Hold Them
Lightly
Diana: Sometimes I’ll ask teenage clients, “Are you a sea urchin or a sea
anemone?” After their eye roll, I continue: “You see, sea urchins protect their
tender insides with sharp spines. Sea anemones wear their tenderness on their
skin and close up when threatened. It helps me to know because it’s best to
hold sea urchins lightly and approach sea anemones with gentleness.”
Are you a sea urchin or sea anemone? Do you get prickly or close up
when you’re feeling pain? We all defend ourselves against discomfort.
You may have even noticed this this week as you’ve been working on
acceptance. Just like engaging in therapy with a prickly teenager,
maybe it would be more effective to approach your tender spots more
gently and hold them lightly. Holding your pain lightly changes your
experience of it:

Letting go of muscle tension can change the quality of

physical pain.
Gingerly exploring memories of a trauma facilitates
healing.
Bringing humor to your vulnerabilities can help you take
yourself less seriously.
Sharing a painful experience with another lightens the
load.

Today we’ll work on ways you can hold your discomfort more
lightly.

ACT Daily Writing: Loosen Your Grip

What kind of sea creature are you? Do you tend to prickle in response
to pain, or shrink away from it? What would you like to do instead?
Would it help to loosen your grip, bring a little humor to it, or connect
with someone?
 Looking at the day ahead, what do you anticipate will be hard? Is
there something you’re likely to resist, brace against, or close off to?
How could you hold your inner experience more gingerly in this
area?

Try It Now: Holding Pain

Cup your hands. Imagine that inside them you hold something—a
relationship, a physical pain, a difficult situation—that is painful to you
right now. Close your eyes and imagine yourself holding it like you
would a delicate sea creature. Take three breaths as you hold your
pain lightly and with care.
 ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,
Reflections

Today’s Practice
Today notice when you’re getting prickly or closing up in the face of
discomfort. Pay attention to yourself locking your jaw, holding your
breath, or tightening your shoulders. When you notice yourself
resisting with your body, take a deep breath and loosen your grip a bit.
Recommit to holding your experience lightly in your heart and body.
 Day 7: Values and Pain Joined at the Hip
This week you’ve been brave. You’ve looked deeply at your
experiential avoidance roundabouts and tried a new approach:
acceptance. You’ve worked on your willingness to stop fixing, on
stepping outside your comfort zone, and on holding your pain with
care. By cultivating acceptance you’ve given yourself a beautiful gift.
By being willing to accept pain, you’ve freed yourself to pursue what
really matters to you. Pain and values are joined at the hip; you can’t
have one without the other. As Steven Hayes writes, “You hurt where
you care, and you care where you hurt” (2019, 24).
Debbie: No experience has been more challenging to me than parenting. I
sacrificed many of life’s pleasures for my children, such as lingering in bed
with coffee and a good book on Saturday mornings. I’ve never cried more
than when my newborn daughter was in the hospital. I’ve felt impatient with
my kids, bored by tedious children’s board games, and exhausted from sleep
deprivation. I worry about parenting decisions, and whether I’m messing up.
I’d love not to feel any of that, but would I give this experience up? Of course
not. I love them deeply, and my pain is a consequence of caring so much.
Think about something you care about deeply. Do you notice that
it also comes with pain? What about something that is painful for you?
Is there something you care about hidden underneath? If you didn’t
care, it wouldn’t hurt as much. Acceptance gives you the flexibility to
pursue what and who is most important to you, even when the pain of
caring shows up.
Choosing to live your values means choosing to have pain.
As the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu have said, “Nothing
beautiful comes without some suffering” (Dalai Lama, Tutu, and
Abrahams 2016, 43). What beautiful things might happen in your own
life if you’re willing to care?

Daily ACT Writing: Exploring Values and Pain

Note a time in your life when you experienced pain and hardship. What
did that experience tell you about what is most important to you?

What in your life is painful for you today? What does the pain say
about what is important to you right now?

ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,

Reflections
 Today’s Practice
Consider an area of your life that you care about but have been
avoiding in some way. For instance, avoiding caring for your health,
procrastinating on work, or distancing yourself from someone you care
about. Remind yourself that it’s uncomfortable because you care.
Identify what you care about in this area and use values as a motivator
to take a small step toward meaningful action today.
Final Reflections
This week you learned about some of the ways you might have avoided or
tried to fix aspects of your experience. You practiced courage, willingness,
openness, and acceptance as an alternative to experiential avoidance. You
looked to your discomfort to learn about your deeply held values. All this
will be helpful as you move on to the weeks ahead, in which you’ll unhook
from the stories you tell yourself and take action where it matters most to
you.
 Week 5:

Perspective Taking—Take In the View

Diana: Summer mornings can get fogged in here in coastal Santa Barbara.
Locals call it “gray May,” “June gloom,” and “August fogust.” Tourists who
pay lots of money for oceanfront views crawl back into bed disappointed
when they wake up to drizzle. Meanwhile, locals are busy packing their beach
bags and putting sunscreen on their kids. What locals know is that fog is
temporary, and by most afternoons it will have burned off to reveal big clear
skies.
Our mind can be a bit like a tourist who’s new to an area and doesn’t know
what to expect there. The fog of predetermined beliefs about ourselves and
the world filters our experience and blocks a bigger view. We humans
construct stories to understand the world and find our way of belonging in
it. But when our stories are inflexible, or we can’t see past them, they skew
our experience. We defend our self-image at the cost of real connection
with others or build up our self-esteem at the cost of falling hard when
we’re deemed “average” (Neff 2015). Humans yearn for connection and
belonging (Hayes 2019), and our conceptualized self-stories prevent us
from learning, experiencing intimacy, and seeing our part in a greater
whole.
Have you been caught in a self-story? Check any of the following
scenarios that apply to you:

Have you believed the story that you aren’t “good” at something, so
you didn’t even try?
Have you believed the story that you’re “really good” at something,
so you were self-critical when it became challenging?
Have you been so stuck in making a good impression that you didn’t
hear the person you’re with?
 Have you been boxed in by a story and missed other factors
contributing to your experience?

There are often consequences of being boxed in by self-stories:

You miss out on the here and now.

You don’t see how context is influencing your behavior.
You’re inflexible in your behaviors and beliefs.
You seek out evidence to confirm what you already know.
You lack the ability to take others’ perspectives and offer empathy.
You create self-fulfilling prophecies and miss opportunities to learn
and grow.
You feel disconnected from a greater whole.

You are more than the stories your mind creates. All of your inner
experiences, including your self-stories, are phenomena that arise in the
field of your attention and, eventually, pass, just like the weather. There’s a
version of you that can hold these experiences like the sky holds a passing
weather system.
We want to direct your attention to the sky itself. The sky is a
transcendent you: not your story of who you are, but the version of you
who observes all the thoughts, emotions, and stories you have. This
transcendent you was behind your eyes at age five and will be behind those
same eyes at ninety-five. You will have many experiences in life, but you
cannot be completely defined by any one of them; there is a version of you
who transcends them.
This week you’ll use perspective-taking skills to make contact with
this transcendent version of you. You’ll identify your self-stories and
observe your experience from a new point of view. You’ll move beyond
defining yourself by the content of your story to having a more holistic
view of yourself as someone shaped by the context of your learning history
and the world around you. Doing this will help you respond more flexibly
to life’s challenges, see your experience with greater clarity, connect more
deeply with others, and imagine new possibilities for yourself. Sound
good? Let’s get started!
 Day 1: I Am, I Can’t, I Always…
Humans are prone to creating self-narratives. These narratives provide
a coherent sense of self. They help us communicate to others and
understand our place in the world (Villatte, Villatte, and Hayes 2016).
But our verbal, storytelling brains can cause us problems when we
they box us in. Look at these examples:

I am intelligent.
I never lie.
I can’t handle stress.
I am an extrovert.
I am an anxious person.
I am the type of person who…

Notice a pattern? Phrases such as “I am,” “I never,” and “I can’t”

are clues that you’re boxed in by a self-story. Instead of seeing that
who you are is shaped by the context you’re in (self-as-context),
you’ve overidentified with the content of who and what you are (self-
as-content; Hayes, Strosahl, and Wilson 2012). In reality, we are more
nuanced than the stories we tell ourselves (McHugh, Stewart, and
Almada 2019), but sometimes we forget this and get trapped by them
—even by the positive ones.
Debbie: I’ve been told I’m friendly. I like my I’m friendly self-story because
I value being kind. But the truth is, I’m more complicated than that;
sometimes I’m not friendly. And sometimes this story can box me in. When I’m
caught in my I’m friendly story, I tend to want to please others, and I struggle
to set limits with everyone from close friends to salespeople.
By becoming aware of self-stories, you can notice how your
actions are constrained by them. Welcoming a broader perspective
gives you the room to choose your actions, rather than your stories
choosing for you.

ACT Daily Writing: Putting Yourself in a Box

Using the self-story stems below, write down some of the beliefs you
have about yourself.
I am .
I never .
I always .
I don’t .
I can’t .

Now, take a closer look. Are these stories always true of you, or
are you more complicated than that?

Pick a statement from your list above. Give an example of a time

this story was true for you and a time it wasn’t.

What situations or contexts trigger this story?

How do you act when it shows up? How does this story limit you?
Does it prevent you from connecting with others or taking valued
action?
Rewrite this story to include more context, nuance, and flexibility.

ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,

Reflections
 Today’s Practice
Catch yourself telling self-stories. Be on the lookout for clues that
you’re boxed in, such as “I am,” “I always,” “I never,” and then step
back and take a broader view.
 Day 2: Meet Your Story
Our minds aren’t always objective. As a politician’s press secretary can
bend “facts” to tell a particular story, our minds can take in information
from the environment and alter it based on past experiences and
predetermined beliefs. This self-story filter can interfere with our ability
to see our present experience clearly. It can be helpful, instead, to
develop skills that help us remove the storytelling filter and see things
with greater clarity.
Diana: Sometimes I play a game with my clients. I have them write down the
day’s problem on a note card but don’t let them tell me what it is. Then I
interview them about the story they have about the problem. “What story does
your mind tell you about this problem? How long has this story been around?
What percentage of the day are you entangled in it? If your best friend had
the same story, what would you say to this person? What if a child you love
had that story?” After the interview I ask them to reveal the problem. I find
that we can get a lot done in therapy when we step back from stories, and the
same is true of getting things done in life.
A first step toward a more flexible view of yourself is to pay
attention to your direct experience as it is, instead of through the self-
story filter. Much like Diana does with her clients, you can use the skills
you learned for being present in Week 2 to observe the story
somewhat objectively. As ACT expert Dr. Rhonda Merwin (2020)
shared on episode 128 of our podcast, you can “have your narrative
without your narratives having you.” Observing your inner narrative
gives you a little wiggle room to help you get unstuck from even your
stickiest self-stories.

ACT Daily Writing: Interview Your Self-Story

Distill in one to two sentences a self-story you’re struggling with.
 Now, interview yourself about the story. How long has it been
around? What percentage of the day are you entangled in it? What
would you say to a best friend or a child you love who has the same
story?

Try It Now: Just the Facts

Take the story you listed above and try describing and labeling it as a
problem without a story attached. Out loud, finish these prompts and
describe your problem with just the facts: “I am feeling…,” “I am
thinking…,” “I am experiencing…” You can have your story without
your story having you!
 ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,
Reflections

Today’s Practice
Notice when you’re caught in a problem, big or small. Step back and
identify a self-story linked to it. Try observing and describing your
experience (your behavior, thoughts, emotions, sensations). Instead of
using self-statements such as “I am,” make observations like “I am
feeling,” “I am experiencing,” or “I am thinking.”
 Day 3: Flexibility Training
Diana: We don’t have chairs or couches in front of screens in our home. We
got rid of them to build in more “nutritious movement” (Bowman 2017).
Without a predetermined place to sit, my family gets creative about what to do
while watching a show or working. My boys toss a football while watching
sports. I stretch my calves while editing podcasts. We’ve set up our home
environment to build our physical flexibility.
Just as having a flexible body makes you more resilient and better
prepared to respond to life’s obstacles, so, too, does having a flexible
mind. Resilience is not about avoiding bad things, but about how you
respond to them. By learning to flexibly shift out of the stories that box
you in, you’ll be better able to respond to life’s challenges.
Self-stories can limit your range of effective responses—especially
if your stories about yourself aren’t consistent with the person you
want to be. This may seem obvious with harsh or critical self-stories,
such as I’m unlovable. If you believe that to be true of yourself, you
might not go out on dates—a prerequisite to meeting a romantic
partner. But it’s also true with seemingly positive self-stories. For
example, research shows that kids who are told they are smart are
more likely to give up when problems are challenging (Dweck 2016).
You just might be surprised by what you can do when you look
beyond what you believe to be true about yourself.

ACT Daily Writing: Mind Stretching

What story are you caught in right now? How is it limiting your range of
motion? How can you stretch your mind a bit? What are some more
flexible moves you could make?
 ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,
Reflections

Today’s Practice
Choose a self-story that’s been around a while. Today practice
flexibility by deliberately doing the opposite of what the story says. If
you tell yourself you’re shy, talk to someone new. If you fancy yourself
a night owl, go to bed early. If you tend to be a tidy person, leave some
dirty dishes in the sink all day. Prove to the world that you are a
complex person! Notice how this changes your perspective about
yourself.
 Day 4: Finding Sky Mind
Colorado is known for its big, clear skies, but on even the sunniest of
June days afternoon thunderstorms can dramatically roll in, drenching
hikers. Our mind is a lot like these Colorado skies. One moment our
mind is big and clear, and the next it’s stormy with self-stories. Just like
the weather, no matter how bad or good our mind state is, it won’t last
forever. And, no matter how loud the thunder of our thoughts and
emotions, it can’t harm the sky.
Remember, behind every weather system there’s always a
big sky that remains unchanged.
Today you’re going to step into a broader mind state, one we call
“sky mind.” Sky mind is the ability to open to all of your inner
experiences, even the stormy ones. Sky mind doesn’t shame anxiety
thunderstorms or attach to happy rainbows but makes room for every
system that passes. When you’re using sky mind you have a grander
perspective and feel more connected to people and the world around
you. You may have experienced sky mind when hiking to the top of a
mountain, engaging in spiritual practice, caring for a loved one, or
being part of a group.
Your brain is constantly shifting between self-focus and a broader
perspective, and there are evolutionary benefits to both (Hanson
2020a). But our modern Western culture overstimulates our self-focus.
That’s one reason why it’s beneficial to deliberately practice shifting
into sky mind. When you’re in this mind state, you observe the
panorama of your experience, rather than being caught up in the
content of your daily life. This fosters cooperation, flexibility, and the
feeling that you’re part of a larger whole.

ACT Daily Writing: Your Sky Mind

Write about a time you experienced sky mind. What helps you find it?
Where in your life would sky mind be helpful?
 Try It Now: A New Horizon
According to neuropsychologist Rick Hanson, when your eyes are
focused on close objects, more self-focused egocentric brain areas are
activated (2020a). But when you look at the sky or the horizon, your
brain shifts to an allocentric perspective, one that moves beyond you
to seeing yourself as part of a bigger whole. Let’s try this form of
perspective taking:

1. Look at things that are close to you—the words of this

book, your hands holding it.
2. Now, shift your eyes to the horizon or sky. Look out a
window if you’re inside. Follow a bird, or look for a tree or a
building far away.
3. What happens to your perspective?
 ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,
Reflections

Today’s Practice
Notice when you’re caught up in the weather of a self-story. Move out
of the content of what you’re thinking and into the process of your
experience. Look out at the horizon and see the bigger picture.
 Day 5: Transcending Time
Think back over the past year. Remember all the ups and downs you
experienced—how world events impacted you, your personal
achievements and struggles, how you dealt with your daily problems.
You had countless thoughts in your mind, emotions came and went,
your body aged a year, and you took breath after breath. Through the
year one thing remained constant—you! You were there, experiencing
every bit of life along the way.
When we get caught up in our mind’s chatter about ourselves and
our current problems, we can lose track of our life over the course of
time. It can help to zoom out one’s perspective and see life as
unfolding over time. Seeing a city from an airplane window can change
our point of view, as does seeing the flow of our experience from a
zoomed-out perspective. What looks like overwhelming chaos from the
street looks quite different from ten thousand feet in the air. As Robyn
Walser puts it, “As our consciousness stretches across time, we see
change, we see the ongoing flow of life” (2019, 80).
One way to transcend time and to step into sky mind is to look at
your own life from a zoomed-out perspective. We can feel both relief
and sorrow when we recognize the subjective and impermanent nature
of time. The best vacation will come to an end, and so will the pain of a
sleepless night. And we are there to experience both, as well as all the
ups and downs along the way.

ACT Daily Writing: Future Self, Past Self

Take a moment to zoom out on your life. Imagine visiting your five-
year-old self. What would you like to say to this younger version of
you? What would your younger self say to you now?
 Now zoom out to your ninety-five-year-old self. What would your
future self say to you now? What advice would your elder self give
you?

Try It Now: Zoom Out

On this time line, imagine your life from birth to death. Take a guess
where you are now and mark it with an X.

Think of all of the major events that have happened—your personal

highs and lows that would zigzag up and down this line. Notice how
your perspective changes when you look at your life from a broader
vantage point.
 ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,
Reflections

Today’s Practice
Take this grander zoomed-out view as you go about your day today.
How would a zoomed-out view change your sense of what matters
most?
 Day 6: Connect, Relate, and Belong
Debbie: Over coffee with a friend, she shared with me about a painful
problem. Without realizing it my mind drifted away, and I became
preoccupied by my own worries about a similar problem and with mentally
comparing myself to her. I was halfway tuning her out, caught in my own self-
stories. When I realized this, I reoriented myself to focus on her struggle and
to be the friend I want to be.
At the heart of being human is the desire to relate, connect, and
belong. The human brain is a social one, with areas devoted to social
connection, perspective taking, and compassion. At times, when we’re
caught up in a self-story and our own ego, it can be hard to truly
connect in relationships. Self-stories can fuel disconnection when you:

Are preoccupied with comparing yourself to others

Worry about fitting in and unintentionally push others
away
Interpret others’ behavior through your own filters and
assume the worst
Don’t take others’ perspectives, making it difficult to
have empathy and compassion

When you use sky mind, practice perspective taking, and step
back from your own story you better connect with others. Perspective
taking lies at the heart of conflict resolution, compassion, social justice,
and authentic relationships. In A Liberated Mind, Steven Hayes writes,
“As you emerge behind your eyes, you begin to see behind the eyes of
others. You begin to find that you’re making more thoughtful
connections with people all the time… Empowering us to be more fully
ourselves and yet deeply related to others” (2019, 176).
To show up fully in relationships and connect deeply, we must see
past our own point of view to take in the richness of another’s
perspective.
 ACT Daily Writing: Find Connection
Are there people you have trouble connecting with because you are
caught in a self-story? What’s another perspective you could take?
How might you let go of this self-story and open up to more
connection?

ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,

Reflections

Today’s Practice
Choose a social interaction you will have today and commit to
engaging it with sky mind. Step back from your self-story and get
behind the other person’s eyes and engage their worldview. Listen with
every ounce of your being while they talk. Open up to them in a
genuine way. Bring your focus back to the person every time your
mind drifts away.
Notice how this type of connection feels different compared to
times when a self-story pulled you away from relationships.
 Day 7: Exploring Possibility
When you’re stuck in a self-story, it can be hard to see all of life’s
possibilities. At times, you can get so focused on protecting your self-
esteem, defending your self-stories, or achieving the outcome you
want that you miss a chance to live out your dreams.
Debbie: I have a holiday tradition of going to The Nutcracker ballet, and
during the month of December I can be found twirling and leaping around my
living room. One year, my husband watched my enthusiasm (and lack of skill)
and said, “Maybe you should take a ballet class.” A little seed of possibility
was sparked. Me? Ballet class? I haven’t done that since I was nine
years old! My mind went through every self-story: I’m too old, I don’t have
time, I’m not flexible enough. But I couldn’t shake the idea. Soon I found a
small ballet studio that caters to beginner adults. Before I knew it, that seed of
possibility had grown into something, and there I was at the barre, practicing
pliés!
Most of us can come up with plenty of reasons why trying
something new won’t work out. But what would it be like to explore the
realm of possibility? Imagine taking a new perspective and thinking
broadly about what life could be if you weren’t bogged down by self-
stories. What are you longing for? What do you dream about? What
would be possible if you were free to choose what to do with no
limitations? As Dr. Helen Neville (2020) notes on our podcast, “We
should always be thinking about not what is logically possible, but what
is impossible that we can make possible.”

ACT Daily Writing: Exploring Possibility

Make a list of things you would secretly like to do. It’s okay to note
things that may never happen! We’re working in the realm of
possibility, not strictly in reality.
What does your list tell you about what you’d like to be doing? What
are you longing for? What possibilities arise when you free yourself
from the limits of reality?

ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,

Reflections
 Today’s Practice
Today, step out of a self-story and live in the realm of possibility. You
might even do one of the things on your list of things you’d secretly like
to do. Whatever you do, however big or small, notice the magic that
resides in possibility!
Final Reflections
Now that you’ve stepped back from your self-stories, found your sky
mind, and discovered new possibilities, it’s time to explore the directions
you want to take your more flexible self! Take your new perspective with
you as you move on to the rewarding task of exploring what and who
matters most to you, and how you want to be in the world.
 Week 6:

Values—Choose Your Direction

A lot of self-help books will tell you how to change your life for the better
and give you strategies for doing it. But we’re not going to do that. Instead,
we are going to make sure the changes you strive for are the ones you care
deeply about.
What if instead of pursuing pleasure or unimportant goals, you
focused on living your life in a way that provided a sense of meaning,
purpose, and vitality? As Robyn Walser writes in The Heart of ACT, living
according to our values “is deeper than daily activities that fill up our lives.
It’s deeper than a single goal or set of goals. It is about orienting our lives
to a set of larger aspirations linked to creating personal meaning” (2019,
50).
Values are the glue that cements our daily actions to something
greater than ourselves and our struggles. What does it mean for you to have
a meaningful, fulfilling life? What type of friend, sibling, partner,
community member, or worker do you want to be? If you had six months
to live, what would matter most to you? These kinds of questions can
guide our actions to take us toward a richer life. In our podcast, Jenna
LeJeune (2019) comments that she’s not interested in helping clients
discover the meaning of life, rather she’s interested in helping them
discover what is meaningful for them. Our goal is the same in this journal.
Values
What exactly are values?

They are about creating meaning, not seeking happiness.

They provide a direction to guide you rather than being goals with
end points.
They are deeply personal and freely chosen by you and not based on
expectations, predetermined moral standards, or social approval.
They consist of qualities of action (e.g., forgiving) rather than
domains in which you act (e.g., family).
They won’t guarantee a pain-free, pleasure-filled life.
They are linked to vulnerability and won’t prevent you from
experiencing loss.

Even if we already know what’s important to us, we might be waiting

to act on it. We might think we need conditions to change, to feel “better,”
or for something about us to be “fixed” or improved before we can take
important, values-driven steps. Here are some of our examples: Diana: I’d
like to play more with my kids, but I feel guilty about unfinished work.
Debbie: I want to write an article but am not confident enough to
start.
Diana: I want to host more podcasts on what we can do about
racism, but it can be so uncomfortable.
Debbie: I want to exercise more, but I’m waiting until I’m more
motivated.
We can spend far too much time not doing the things we care about.
In ACT, you don’t have to wait for anything to change in order to start
living your values (Hayes, Strosahl, and Wilson 2012). There are always
small, meaningful moves available to you, and you can start making them
today.
 This week you’ll clarify your deeply held values and work toward
bringing more of these qualities into your daily life. Much as an art curator
would thoughtfully choose pieces to create an exhibit, you get to choose
which values and values-based actions fit the kind of life you want to
create—a life you can feel proud of, whatever your current circumstances.
 Day 1: Pleasure or Meaning?
Debbie: One day, feeling especially drained from work, I watched the people
behind the counter at a bagel shop joke around and listen to music while
making bagels. It looked fun! I imagined quitting my job as a psychologist
and working there, where I imagined the emotional weight wouldn’t be as
heavy. I realized, though, that if I quit, I’d miss everything I love about my
work.
Most of us want to feel good. We might constantly seek pleasurable
states, such as happiness and calm, hoping that someday they’ll stick.
But pleasurable feelings are fleeting. Engaging in activities just for the
sake of pleasure may feel good for a while, but it doesn’t lead to
longer-term well-being (Huta and Ryan 2010). Over time, focusing
narrowly on feeling good can lead one to feel adrift without purpose.
There’s a more fulfilling path: the pursuit of a meaningful life.
Think about your most impactful life experiences. Perhaps it was
working hard for a degree, volunteering for a cause you care about,
traveling, or even recovering from an injury or addiction. These
experiences likely included some degree of stress or emotional pain,
but in the long run living with meaning fosters a deeper form of
satisfaction (Smith 2017) than seeking pleasure alone can. Meaningful
engagement provides a sense that your actions matter. Even months
later, people who engage in meaningful activities report having more
positive moods, feeling more enriched, and having a sense of being a
part of something greater (Huta and Ryan 2010). Having a sense of
purpose in your life also predicts resilience in the face of adversity
(Tedeschi and Calhoun 2004) and a longer life (Buettner 2008).

ACT Daily Writing: In Pursuit of Meaning

Jot down something that gives you pleasure but isn’t that satisfying.
 Now write about something you do that feels important or fulfilling,
something that gives you a greater sense of purpose but isn’t
always enjoyable.

How is your experience different when you engage in what matters?

Are there hard parts about engaging in this way?

How might you pursue meaning in your life now more often?

Try It Out: A Meaningful Moment

If you were to rewind your day yesterday and pause on a moment that
stood out as rewarding to you, what would it be? What does this
moment show you about what matters most in your life right now?

ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,

Reflections
 Today’s Practice
Do one small thing today that’s bigger than yourself, that makes a
difference in the world and feels worthwhile to you. It could be caring
for someone else, taking an action that is good for the environment, or
contributing to a cause that matters to you. Pay attention to how it
feels to do this thing.
 Day 2: Your Life Motto
In ACT, values are defined as qualities of how we live our life. We want
to act in ways that feel consistent with the person we want to be in the
world. When your actions aren’t guided by your values, you can end
up reacting to life’s events randomly, with no consistent framework for
how you would respond at your best.
Debbie: You know how some emails have a quote or motto below the
signature line? After feeling inspired by one I saw, I tried writing a little motto
for myself. I thought about it a while and wrote: “Be Kind. Be Brave. Live
Fully.” To me, these words pretty much sum up how I want to live. This motto
has stayed with me, and I think of these words when I need a reminder of my
values.
A good first step to pinpointing your personal values is to think
about how you want to live and to clarify the qualities that matter to
you. Here are just a few examples of the many qualities you might
choose from: Compassionate
Courageous
Curious
Fair
Funny
Generous
Hardworking
Humble
Independent
Kind
Loving
Loyal
Open
Responsible
 Serious

To discover your own truest values, think about the most important
qualities that you want to cultivate in your life. These are the qualities
that would make you proud if others used them to describe you.

ACT Daily Writing: Qualities to Cultivate

Think of someone you admire—someone you know, or perhaps a
famous or spiritual figure. What are the qualities you admire most
about them?

Imagine that an important friend or family member was describing

you to someone you’d never met. What qualities would you most
want them to say about you?
 Try It Now: Create Your Own Motto
If you were going to write a life motto for yourself, what would it be?
What words or phrases would you be sure to include?

ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,

Reflections
 Today’s Practice
Think of one quality you’d most like to exhibit through your actions
today. If you’ll have trouble remembering it, write it down on a little
piece of paper and carry it with you, or post it in a place where you’ll
see it frequently. As much as you can today, focus on bringing this
quality out in small (and maybe big) ways in your actions and
interactions with others.
 Day 3: Values Where They Matter Most
Diana: When Debbie and I decided to write a book together, I was secretly
elated because it meant I’d get to spend more time with her. I tend to work
alone, and I long to connect more often with close friends. By working on this
journal together I engaged in my values of authentic friendship and doing
impactful work that can improve people’s lives. I call this taking “values-
rich” actions, in which I can live out many values at once.
When pinpointing values, people often say “I value my health” or “I
value my family” and stop there. But what happens when you “value
family” and choose to work late because you have a big deadline? Or
maybe you value health but choose to eat cake to celebrate your
friend’s birthday? Are you giving up on your values? Of course not!
Ultimately, important areas of your life, such as family, work, and
community, are domains in which you live out your values in different
ways, depending on the circumstances.
Sometimes it might feel like your values conflict. While it’s true
that you have to make choices about where you put your time and
energy, this “conflict” is really an issue of prioritizing which value or
quality to express in the moment. Your values usually overlap across
multiple domains at any given moment, and you don’t have to resolve
domain conflicts, rather you can look to how they can enrich each
other (Schonbrun 2014; Schonbrun and Corey 2020). Don’t forget that
you can also live out many values at once within each domain, as
Diana does with her values-rich actions. It’s not always easy, but we
can find ways to show up with our values where it’s important.

ACT Daily Writing: Revitalize with Values

Circle a few areas of your life that feel important to you right now,
perhaps ones you’ve been neglecting:
Family
Romantic partner
Work or education
Community
Leisure
Physical self-care
Creative expression
Spirituality
Environment
Friendship
 Personal growth
Other:

What do you care most about in these areas?

What actions could reflect your caring?

How could this caring spread to other life domains? How could you
make your domains more values-rich?
ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,
Reflections
 Today’s Practice
Choose a domain of your life to reinvigorate. Bring more caring,
creativity, and vitality to this domain by acting on your values. Notice
what it feels like to engage in this way.
 Day 4: A Place for Love to Go
Diana: Santa Barbara is known for its beaches, but also its wildfires. When I
was seven, I remember my mom packing up the car with our dog and bird and
driving us through smoke to a friend’s house to watch the fires on TV. In 2017
it was my turn as a mom to pack up my family and make our way through the
smoke to safety. We gave each kid a shoebox to fill with his most special
things. The chickens had to stay. Driving away I looked back at our house and
knew that no matter what burned, my value of loving was coming with me.
Have you had the experience of going about your life as usual and
then everything changed quickly because of a big and unexpected life
event, such as a job change, a natural disaster, war, a death or an
illness, a car accident, or a pandemic? How did such an event change
your perspective? Did it help you see what you love most in a new
light?
Most of the time, values boil down to love.
You don’t have to wait for an evacuation warning, a medical
diagnosis, or losing a job to remind you of this. Instead you can take
action every day as if love is the thing that really matters. Today you’re
going to explore the value of acting on love and create a few concrete
reminders to add to your day.

ACT Daily Writing: What Would You Pack?

Imagine you had to evacuate your home quickly. What important items
would you pack up? What do these objects show you about what you
love most?
How could you act on that love today?

ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,

Reflections
 Today’s Practice
Values can be represented in words, pictures, objects, and sounds.
Create something that depicts your values and will remind you to act
from them. Here are some examples:

A photo on your desktop

A meaningful ringtone
A note in your wallet
A meaningful trinket or jewelry
A sticker on your water bottle
An email signature
An object by your nightstand
A really nice ACT Daily tattoo (we tried)

Be sure that this representation is something you’ll engage with

regularly.
 Day 5: Choose a Direction
Values are often described as directions you can choose. No matter
where you stand on the planet you can always point yourself north,
south, east, or west, and no matter what’s going on in your day, you
can head toward a value. Goals, on the other hand, are the mountains,
deserts, or rivers you cross along the way. Let’s say you want to head
in the direction of your “physical care” values, so you set a long-term
goal of running a 10K and start training. But what if the race gets
cancelled, or you get injured? Can you still point yourself in the
direction of physical self-care? Of course! You may just need to adjust
your goals.
Debbie: I have had many clients who identify partnership or marriage as a
goal and get discouraged when dating isn’t going very well. I like to remind
them of the deeper values, such as love, respect, and companionship,
underlying their relationship goals and encourage them to live those values in
every situation they can—with friends, at work, and on dates.
You won’t be able to live according to your values perfectly all the
time. Sometimes you’ll meet your goals, other times not, but you can
always reorient yourself toward what you care about. We may aspire to
reflect a quality we value and rarely feel like we are 100 percent where
we want to be.
Go easy on yourself.
Part of the journey is reorienting, adapting, and carrying on.
You’ve spent the last few days exploring directions you want to head.
Today you’ll identify some goals to help motivate you along the way.
Next week you’ll work on committed actions to achieve your goals.

ACT Daily Writing: Mountains to Climb

What are some important directions you want to head in your life?
What are a few concrete goals you could reach along the way? Do you
have a time line for reaching those goals?
Direction I want to head:

Goals along the way:

Direction I want to head:

Goals along the way:

Direction I want to head:

Goals along the way:

 ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,
Reflections

Today’s Practice
Choose one of the directions you wrote about above and make a
meaningful move (big or small) in that direction. Sign up for a race, call
a friend, or get some art supplies. Take the first meaningful step in a
direction that matters.
 Day 6: Your Values Compass
Debbie: Remember how my life motto includes the phrase “be kind”? Well, I
have room for improvement, even regarding the people I love most. One day
(okay, a lot of days) I was tired and irritable. My husband was trying to chat,
but I was tuning him out, except to gripe at him. Later that night I felt guilty
for having acted that way. I remembered that I want to be a kind and
connected partner, even on my bad days. The next morning, I made sure to
stop what I was doing, look straight at him, and “tune in.”
Sometimes in life we get off track. We all do. When that happens,
tuning in to your values is like using a compass. A values compass
helps you flexibly find your way no matter where you stand. With a
values compass, you don’t need to follow a premarked trail, so you
have more freedom to venture into life’s wilderness!
When you’re setting your compass in the right direction, emotions
and sensations can be guides, if you pay attention to them. Inner cues
such as vitality, longing, regret, nostalgia, loss, or the pain of missing
out can guide you. And when something “feels right” deep inside your
body, it may indicate that you’re headed in the right direction.
With your values compass set properly, you can stay on course
and adapt to new terrain, navigating unexpected river crossings such
as job changes, new relationships, conflicts, illness, loss, or relapse. In
the end, it’s not a question of if you’ll stray from your values—we all do
—but of what you do when you’re off track.

ACT Daily Writing: Setting Your Compass

Write about a time when you were on track with your values. What did
that feel like inside and out?
Now, thinking about your week so far, when have you acted in a
way that felt off track from your values?

What does this tell you about how you might adjust course? How
can you use ACT processes to adapt to unexpected obstacles? In
what direction do you want to point your values compass in the
week ahead?

ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,

Reflections
 Today’s Practice
Pay attention to inner cues today, such as sensations and emotions.
Ask yourself what those cues teach you about how your life is going
relative to your values. Notice if they point you in a direction you find
fulfilling, and what it feels like when you’re off course.
 Day 7: Everything Will End
Diana: There’s a hugging meditation I learned while on a retreat with Thich
Nhat Hanh (2003). He told us to hug someone we love with our whole being.
Breathing in, we were reminded to remember that they are alive, and
breathing out, to think about how good it feels to be alive together. On the
next in-breath, we were to remember that we will grow old and die. Breathing
out, we were to remember that our loved one, too, will grow old and die.
While we hugged our loved one, we were told to breathe in the preciousness
of this moment.
Connecting with a sense of life’s impermanence can reveal your
deepest values. And, when you uncover your values, you cannot help
but feel the inherent risk in living them. Living your values reveals the
vulnerability of caring, the grief associated with change, and the
certainty that everything will end. As Robyn Walser writes, “Awareness
of death has the potential to instigate a radical shift in life perspective
and motivate us to engage in being alive in the moment and commit to
actions that serve our value” (2019, 75). Opening your heart wide to
care deeply can feel terrifying; it requires touching unavoidable
impermanence.
When you make intimate contact with your values, there’s no
going back to unknowing them. You feel their tug when making
important decisions, their call when you stray from them, and their
urgency when waking to your own mortality.
Today you’ll explore how touching impermanence and vulnerability
can help clarify what a well-lived life means for you.

ACT Daily Writing: Touching Impermanence

When you think about caring more deeply in your life, what
vulnerabilities show up? What are you most afraid of losing? What are
you most afraid of feeling?
 What would it take to look back at your life, at the end, and feel
satisfied that you’d lived well? What would give you a sense that
you had lived fully?

Try It Now: A Year to Live

If you had a year to live, what would you most want to do?

What about a month to live? What would you do?

How about a day to live? What would it look like?

 What about an hour to live? What would you do with your last hour?

And…what if the next minute was your last?

Choose some of the actions above and put them in your calendar
—to be done over the following week, month, and year. Then take the
next minute and do that most important thing.

ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,

Reflections
 Today’s Practice
Today, remember the impermanence of all things. Take an hour and
live it as if it were your last. Use impermanence to guide your actions.
Remind yourself of what a well-lived life would look like for you, and
make a conscious choice to live well today.
Final Reflections
This week you clarified your values by looking at the qualities you would
like to express in your life and the domains that matter most to you. You
looked at areas of life where you might want to adjust course or set values-
consistent goals. And you considered the big picture of what matters most
to you when it’s all said and done.
Anchor yourself in these values and carry them with you into your
next ACT process.
 Week 7:

Committed Action— Fall on Purpose

Diana: I’ve always been afraid of falling. As a kid I wouldn’t climb trees and
never made it past the bunny slopes skiing. In yoga I conveniently step out to
use the bathroom when it’s time for headstands. Then I learned that falling is
part of committed action. In an ACT workshop, Kelly Wilson stood, wobbling
in a yoga tree pose, and said, “What if falling were part of the pose?” Falling
on purpose was radically freeing for me. If I fell on purpose it meant I could
try all sorts of things! Surfing, a podcast, homeschooling, starting new
friendships. Today committing to falling on purpose opens my life to fresh
opportunities.
It’s human to have yearnings to grow, build mastery, and live in ways that
matter (Hayes 2019). It’s also human to be imperfect, fumble, and get
derailed. As you’ve probably noticed in filling out this journal, progress is
rarely linear. Some days you may read through the pages without writing
anything, others you skip altogether, and yet for others you give 100
percent effort. Perfectly following the plan for a given day isn’t what
makes a difference in doing this journal, rather it’s your action of picking it
up, over and over again, and keeping at it. This is committed action.
Committed action involves three components (Moran, Bach, and
Batten 2018):

1. Taking action: engaging in a behavior—not just thinking about it

or talking about it, but acting on it
2. Connecting to values: acting in ways that are meaningful to you,
personal, chosen by you, and intrinsically motivating
3. Carrying on in the face of obstacles: returning again to acting
even when you stumble, are derailed by thoughts, or unsettled by
 urges and emotions

When people first learn about ACT, some think it means just
accepting everything as it is and not changing anything. This is not true! In
ACT, changing the things that aren’t “working” in your life, and taking
action to move toward what’s most important to you, can be as important
as acceptance.
This week you’ll muster all of your psychological flexibility skills to
create a compassionate, flexible committed action plan for yourself. Along
the way you will:

Explore your personal obstacles to change

Use values to guide your actions
Apply the science of behavior change to create contexts that support
meaningful changes
Practice flexibility with yourself

Are you ready? Sharpen your pencil and let’s get to committed action!
 Day 1: Motivate with Values
Debbie: I try to take ten thousand steps daily. I feel pride on the days I make
my goal. But some days the battery on my fitness tracker runs out, or I forget
to put it on, and I don’t bother to take the extra steps that would get me all the
way to my goal. Who cares if I sit around all day? Steps I don’t track don’t
“count,” right? But if I go on a long walk with my family, or take a hike in the
mountains, I’m intrinsically motivated because movement is tied to something
more important to me than a number. Taking steps can be an arbitrary
external goal, or it can be connected to my values.
Say your roommate wanted to motivate you to clean your dishes. She
could pay you $1 per dish. Will this work? You bet! But what happens
when she can’t pay, or she’s over it?
Committed action takes a different approach to motivating
behavior change: instead of relying on extrinsic (outside) motivators, it
relies on values for inspiration. What you care about deep inside is
intrinsically motivating and always with you, and therefore it is more
sustainable in the long run than gold stars or fleeting praise.
What if you decided to wash dishes because you cared about
contributing to your household? You may not jump with joy at the task,
but you’re likely to keep doing the dishes, even when your roommate’s
not around. As you’ll learn, affirming your value of contributing could
also have broader impacts on your life beyond clean dishes.
Today you’re going to identify reasons to change that are
personal, chosen by you, and always with you.

ACT Daily Writing: Digging for Values

Let’s uncover your intrinsic motivation for change. Write down three
changes you’d like to make.
 Why might these changes really matter to you? How would they
enhance your life? What would make them worth it even when they
feel hard?

Distill your thinking even more. What are three values underlying
the changes you want to make?

Try It Now: Valued Action

Consider the values you wrote above. Translate one of them into the
smallest committed action you could take right now and do it. For
example:
 If you value caring for your body, take a moment to
stretch.
If you care about the environment, reuse something.
If you care about being loving, give someone a call or a
hug.

ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,

Reflections

Today’s Practice
Build your intrinsic motivation by using the savoring skill from Week 2.
Really pay attention to how good it feels to act on your values. Notice
when you act in ways that align with what you care about, and when
you do so, take in the satisfying feeling of valued action.
 Day 2: Actions Not Outcomes
Diana: My family likes to make salsa in a molcajete, a Mexican mortar and
pestle made from volcanic rock that we use to grind peppers, tomatoes,
onions, garlic, and cilantro. Our salsa is less predictable than store-bought,
but the result isn’t really the reason we make it this way; it’s the process of
involving our kids, working with our hands, and exploring a different culture
that we value.
ACT is a behavioral psychology, meaning its focus is on the behaviors
you can do with your hands and feet more than on the outcomes these
behaviors produce. Keeping your attention on actions instead of end
points will help you sustain a behavior, especially when it’s messy.
Why? We have a lot less control over outcomes than we do over our
behavior. If you only focus on results when learning a new skill, you’ll
likely get discouraged when you fumble, or possibly stop doing it once
you reach your goal. As Diana’s friend who teaches a noisy high
school band class says to people who complain about the noise: “This
is what learning sounds like!”
Behavioral research also shows us that small, slow change is the
most sustainable type. According to Stanford professor and habit guru
B. J. Fogg (2019), motivation comes in “waves,” and it’s best to design
habits that you’ll do even when motivation is low. Although it can feel
exciting to make a big jump, drastic changes can be unsustainable.
When you use what Fogg calls “tiny habits” to grow a new behavior
you’re more likely to keep at it even when you’re weary and life gets
busy.

ACT Daily Writing: Make It Smaller

Write down a behavior you’ve been trying to grow.

Are you focusing on any particular outcomes (instead of action)?

 Take the behavior you want to grow and commit to an action that is
so small you’re certain you can do it. For example, if you wrote
“Meditate for ten minutes a day,” how about three minutes instead?
Rewrite the modified behavior.

Try It Now: Imaginal Practice

Like a basketball player imagining shooting hoops before bed, you can
use the skill of imagery to “practice” a values-based action in your
mind. Mentally rehearsing a behavior helps encode it in your mind and
later recall the skill in real life (McKay and West 2016). Picture
yourself:

Taking a small values-based action

Accepting difficult emotions, urges, and thoughts that
show up for you
Continuing to take small steps toward your values
 ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,
Reflections

Today’s Practice
Pick three small values-based actions to commit to today. Write them
down, let go of their outcome, and focus on taking action!
 Day 3: Obstacles to Change
Diana: I have a drawer of half-filled journals. Each represents a time when I
aimed to “start again” at daily journaling. Inevitably after a few weeks of
daily writing I lose motivation, stop, and store the journal away unfinished.
For a long time I felt like a failure every time I looked at that drawer. Why
couldn’t I keep my commitment to daily journaling? What’s wrong with me?
Now I see the drawer differently. It’s packed with my commitment to
journaling. It shows all the times I had the stamina to start again and holds
my treasured collection of imperfect, ongoing committed action.
Learning a new skill involves facing both internal and external
obstacles. For example, if you can fry an egg, you overcame many
obstacles as you learned this skill. External obstacles may have
included things like being tall enough to reach the stove and having
eggs in the house. Internal obstacles may have included things like the
fear of burning yourself and breaking the yolk by accident.
Whereas external obstacles are best tackled with problem
solving, internal obstacles benefit from ACT processes, such
as acceptance, being present, perspective taking, cognitive
defusion, and compassion.
Today we’re going to explore some of the obstacles you face in
taking committed action. We’ll unpack past attempts to change and
point you to skills that may help you when you get off track.

ACT Daily Writing: Obstacles

Write down a behavior you’ve tried to change in the past but “failed” at,
according to your mind.

What external obstacles made this behavior more difficult?

How might you overcome these obstacles in the future?

What about internal obstacles? What TEAMS—thoughts, emotions,

action tendencies, memories, or sensations (see Week 4)—made
this behavior more difficult?

What ACT strategies might you use to flexibly respond to these

internal obstacles? For example, would it help to defuse from your
thoughts, accept your emotions, or practice self-compassion?
 Try It Now: Feeling Pride
Committed action can activate feelings of mastery and pride. Think
about a behavior that makes you proud. Choose one that can be hard
for you but is linked to your values. Now think about the many times
that you faced obstacles yet returned to the behavior. Recall the
feeling of pride and mastery when you took that committed action.

ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,

Reflections
 Today’s Practice
Greet your obstacles to committed action by, first, preparing for and
problem solving the external obstacles, and, second, meeting your
internal obstacles with ACT skills. When you face an obstacle today,
see it as an opportunity to build strength, adapt, and grow.
 Day 4: Creating Contexts
The context we live in shapes our behavior. Although a lot of contexts
are out of your control, there’s a lot you can do to structure your
environment to support your valued actions. One way to shape context
is to design cues that trigger the behaviors you want to grow. Behavior
occurs in a three-step sequence: Cue  Action  Consequence
Cues are what spark a behavior.
Debbie: When the TV is on, I inevitably start watching, even though I don’t
like to spend much time that way. I keep the only TV in my house in an extra
bedroom in my basement, so that TV-watching becomes an infrequent event.
Removing the cue of the TV structures my environment in a way that
decreases an undesired behavior.
Here are a few helpful tips for designing cues for a new behavior:

Structure your environment: Make it easier to engage

in the behaviors you want to grow and harder to engage
in the ones you don’t. For example, charge your phone
far away from your bedroom at bedtime, store your
alcohol out of sight in a closed cabinet, put your
sunscreen in a visible location.
“Pancake” your habits: Just like you stack pancakes,
layer a new behavior—or behaviors—on top of
something you already do daily. For example, if you
drink coffee in the morning (existing habit), and you
want to remember to take your medications in the
morning, place your meds by the coffee maker (cue)
and take them with your coffee (pancake habit).
Do your future self a favor: Your motivation will
inevitably fluctuate. Try designing contexts that will
make it easier for your future, unmotivated self to
engage in a valued behavior. For example, if you want
to eat healthier but feel too tired to make food after
work, batch-cook healthy food on the weekend.
 Today you get to design contexts that spark your values-based
behaviors. Tomorrow we’ll add some consequences to keep the flame
alive.

ACT Daily Writing: Spark the Flame

Think about a behavior you want to build. How can you structure your
environment to spark this behavior?

Pancake your habits. What daily activities can you stack your new
behavior on top of?

How can you do your future self a favor by making this behavior
easier to start in the days ahead?

ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,

Reflections
 Today’s Practice
Prepare your environment to support your valued behaviors. Create
cues—change your living environment, set up reminders, or rearrange
your technology—that spark future success.
 Day 5: Will Wake for Coffee!
Debbie: I used to have a snooze habit. I’d hit that tempting button five or six
times before getting up most mornings, avoiding the unpleasantness of
starting my day. I wanted to start getting up earlier, so I focused on
reinforcing aspects of the morning—a cup of coffee and quiet time to write or
read—to change my habit. Now when my alarm goes off, I think about the
meaningful moments, and the jolt of caffeine, that await me downstairs and
get out of bed without hitting snooze even once.
Yesterday you focused on creating cues to support new behaviors.
Today, let’s focus on reinforcing the behaviors you want to grow, like
how Debbie reinforces waking up with coffee. Going back to the cue-
action-consequence sequence, whether you start a behavior depends
on cues, but whether you repeat it depends on consequences.
Your brain tends to focus more on short-term consequences over
long-term ones because it evolved from ancestors whose survival
depended on it. If your ancestors prioritized short-term consequences
(Will this berry kill me?) over longer-term ones (Does this berry have
the right blend of antioxidants?), they lived to pass on their genes.
But in today’s world it’s the ability to stick with discomfort and
focus on the long term that supports our most important goals. The
good news is that you can use newer parts of your brain to reorient
yourself toward your values and long-term goals. For example, you
can deliberately design consequences to reinforce your long-term
goals, track your progress, and focus your attention on savoring the
benefits of your values-based actions.
Try out the following with a behavior you want to grow:

Imagine yourself reaching your long-term values-based

goals to make short-term steps more reinforcing
Track your new behavior by writing it down or by using
a habit app on your phone (self-monitoring increases
awareness and is reinforcing)
 Focus attention on your values while accepting some
unpleasant experiences in the short term
Savor the feeling of building competency and creating
meaning

ACT Daily Writing: Short Term, Long Term

Think of something that you’re currently working on changing. What’s
hard about engaging in this new behavior in the short term? What are
the long-term benefits to making this change?

What values do you want to remind yourself of and savor when

doing your new behavior? Make a list.
 ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,
Reflections

Today’s Practice
Create consequences to reinforce the behaviors you want to increase.
Set up a way to track a new behavior, and when you engage in it
picture your longer-term goals and remind yourself that you are doing
this for a reason.
 Day 6: Your Dream Team
Diana: I love my private practice. It’s empowering to be my own boss, create
my own schedule, and pick out my own throw pillows. But by working alone I
miss out on the creativity, accountability, and collective strength of a group.
Podcasting with Debbie and our colleagues fills that need. My cohosts give
me the courage to take professional risks, carry the load when I’m exhausted,
and weave their ideas with mine to create something better than I could have
alone.
Sometimes you might set a goal and tackle it alone. That can work
fine. But when you’re trying to expand an important area of your life,
support from others can help. People thrive in supportive networks,
and activating the social engagement systems of your brain
contributes to the positive emotions of affiliation and feeling secure
(Gilbert 2017). Kelly McGonigal (2019) describes the synchronicity and
delight that people share on sports teams and while engaging in group
exercise as “collective joy.” What’s more, research is clear that having
support increases your chances of successfully changing a behavior
(Greaney et al. 2018).
There are a lot of ways to build support:

Recruit a friend or family member to join you in

reaching a values-based goal.
Join a group that’s already doing something that you
want to do.
Find an online community that has shared values.
Tell friends and family about the changes you’re
making.

You can then use your social group for accountability, support,
and problem solving when those pesky internal and external obstacles
arise. Working with others can enhance relationship values and make
behavior change a lot more fun, both added benefits.
 ACT Daily Writing: Who’s on Your Team?
What person, or group of people, can support you in meeting your
goals?

What support do you want from them?

If you and your support group were members of a team, what roles
would each person play? Who’s best for keeping you accountable,
teaching you new skills, helping you face obstacles, or being a
compassionate coach?

Try It Now: Team Huddle

Imagine the members of your team huddling around you in support.
Take in the feeling of being cared for and held by this group. When you
feel alone in your behavior-change efforts, use this image for
encouragement and strength.

ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,

Reflections

Today’s Practice
Build your support network by joining an online community or reaching
out to a current friend or family member and letting them know what
you’re working on.
 Day 7: Your Action Plan
Debbie: When I was a young student, I experienced a lot of anguish trying to
figure out my future career path. I felt pressure to make the “right” decision,
imagining I would choose a profession, work hard, and go straight from point
A to point B—and stay there. In reality, my career path has meandered
through direction changes, unexpected opportunities, and setbacks—with
many ups and downs along the way. I could never have predicted how things
would unfold. The journey itself has been empowering, and I’m curious to
discover what will happen next!
The in-flight screen mapping a trip from LA to New York shows a
straight line from takeoff to landing. But this is not the airplane’s real
path. The plane will head south to avoid storms, north to catch a
tailwind, and circle above its destination while waiting for an open gate.
If you’ve learned anything this week, it’s that committed action is not a
straight path, and it has no real destination. It’s a series of ongoing,
values-guided behaviors that are never truly finished! Today you will
put all of your committed action practices together to launch a flexible
flight path toward a long-term goal in a domain you care about.
We hope you use your flight path as a guide and adjust course as
needed, just like a skilled pilot would do.

ACT Daily Writing: ACT Daily Action Plan

Use the skills you learned this week to write an action plan for an area
of life you care deeply about. Use this plan as a template any time you
want to put your values into action! (This template is available for
download at this book’s website: http://www.newharbinger.com/47377.
See the back of the book for more details.) Step 1: What change do
you want to make in an important domain (such as family, romantic
partner, work, community, leisure, physical self-care, creative
expression, spirituality, or the environment)?
Step 2: What values motivate this change?

Step 3: What actions can you take to demonstrate your values?

Step 4: What inner and outer obstacles do you anticipate? What

problem-solving skills and ACT processes will help you overcome
them?

Step 5: What contexts and cues can you create to support your
actions?

Step 6: How will you reinforce your actions? What could you do to
keep the flame alive?

Step 7: Who’s on your support team?

Step 8: How can you flexibly respond when you find yourself off
course?
 ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,
Reflections

Today’s Practice
Try out your action plan today. Be flexible and adapt as needed to
execute your plan. And take time to revise your plan based on how
things go.
Final Reflections
This week you learned about some of the behavioral science related to
making behavior changes stick. You learned how to self-motivate with
values and create contexts that will cue new behavior. You learned the
importance of reinforcing your actions and building a support team to keep
you motivated over the long term. Finally, you created an action plan. We
hope you keep these ideas in your back pocket to use again in the future.
Next week we’ll focus on integrating all that you’ve learned in order to
take your behavioral skills to the next level. You will go beyond focusing
on your individual well-being to using ACT processes to contribute to the
well-being of all.
 Week 8:

Flexible Integration—Hive Mind

When Diana became a beekeeper, she learned to give her hive a singular
name, such as Hadley or Henry. Honeybees are such an interconnected
species that the fifty thousand or more of them in a hive are considered a
single superorganism. They’re ultrasocial, meaning they cooperate and
depend on each other to survive. Some bees guard the hive’s door while
others care for the young, and they ­“festoon” by joining legs to reach the
low spots when making honeycombs.
ACT works similarly. The core processes of ACT are interrelated and
work best when practiced together. Over the last seven weeks you’ve
worked your way through the core processes of ACT, one at a time. But
you’ve probably already noticed that they overlap. When you get present,
as you did in Week 2, you started to notice your buzzing thoughts, which
you then defused from in Week 3. When you explored acceptance and
emotional willingness in Week 4, you probably unveiled your deepest
values (Week 6). And on and on it goes!
When woven together, the core processes of ACT create a humming
hive of psychological flexibility.
This week, we’re going take your daily ACT practice to the next level
by learning more about how these processes enrich each other and can be
applied beyond oneself. Just like bees, humans are an ultrasocial species
(Tomasello 2014). We cooperate, work best in groups, and depend on one
another. As you work on integrating the ACT processes this week, you can
use them to go beyond yourself and promote a kinder, more flexible, and
socially responsive world.
 Day 1: Take Stock
Whether you started this journal eight weeks or eight months ago, we
hope it has helped you live more from your heart, be pushed around
less by your head, and take action with your feet. Today is your chance
to go back through your work, reflect, and review what was most
impactful. You might notice that some areas were especially important
in your own personal growth. You might also consider which practices
you want to keep working on as you move forward.
Below is an overview of the processes you’ve been working on, to
refresh your memory. Take stock of your meaningful, hard work!

Week 1. Compassion, self-care, and intentional use of time: you

cultivated a compassionate inner advisor, kinder self-care practices,
and more intentional use of time.

Week 2. Being present: you learned to move from autopilot to

savoring the present moment.

Week 3. Cognitive defusion: you stepped back from your chatty

mind, wacky thoughts, and judgments and learned to water more
helpful thoughts.

Week 4. Acceptance: you learned how emotional avoidance keeps

you stuck, and how to open up to all of your inner experiences.

Week 5. Perspective taking: you gained a new view of self-stories

and explored the possibility of stepping out of these stories into
timelessness, connection, and belonging.

Week 6. Values: you explored what matters most to you in

important domains of your life and the actions that reflect your
deepest caring.

Week 7. Committed action: you learned about the science of

behavioral psychology and how to take small steps toward
meaningful change.
 ACT Daily Writing: Let’s Review
Go back through your journal and review your writing. For each
section, reflect on the most impactful lessons, and note the practices
you want to carry forward.

Compassion, self-care, and intentional use of time:

Being present:

Cognitive defusion:

Acceptance:

Perspective taking:
 Values:

Committed action:

Try It Now: And…Breathe

Take in three slow breaths. One breath for your past self who has done
this courageous work. One breath for your current self, practicing
psychological flexibility right now. And a last breath for your future self,
committed to psychological flexibility and the change to come.

ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,

Reflections
 Today’s Practice
Choose some practices from your journal review to practice again
today. See if you can point out the different ACT processes working
together. For example, if you choose to pause and take in the
perspective of another, can you notice how you are tapping into the
present moment and your values?
 Day 2: Adapting with Psychological Flexibility
Psychological flexibility is about adapting over time and as
circumstances change. The ability to adapt is essential for our survival,
allowing us to:

Take in new information

Hold our assumptions lightly
Let go of unhelpful patterns
Weather unavoidable emotions
Learn and grow
Adjust course when necessary to do what’s most
effective

Debbie: Some of my most meaningful work involves helping the “helpers,”

such as health care professionals and caregivers who do the important work
of caring for others, even in the face of extraordinary stress, adversity,
trauma, and grief. These helpers put aside their own needs for others,
navigate unfathomable scenarios, and make life-and-death decisions. It can
be exhausting and depleting. As a “helper of helpers,” my work is to support
them in adapting flexibly, tending to their own well-being, reconnecting with
purpose, and finding personal growth in the face of it all.
We can’t change unchangeable circumstances, but we can do our
best to adapt flexibly using ACT processes. At times, flexible change
can happen slowly, such as you growing to accept your parents as
flawed humans, or rapidly, such as first responders adapting to the
new demands of a disaster. Sometimes it’s more adaptive to not adapt
to a new circumstance that goes against your values (such as
remaining in a toxic or abusive situation) but to remain firm in your
stance. And the outside world may not always praise the changes you
make that move you toward your values. ACT is a personal and deep
inquiry into how you want to use your time on this planet, and then
organizing your actions around that.
 Part of the reason ACT is so wonderful is that you decide what really
matters to you, and you can live those values every day.

ACT Daily Writing: Adapt and Grow

Explore some of the ways you’ve flexibly adapted over time. When
have you become more accepting? More forgiving? More flexible?
Wiser? Take a moment to appreciate (and write about) your growth.

What unhelpful old beliefs and patterns have stuck around? How
would you like to further evolve?

Try It Now: The History in Your Hands

Take a look at your palm. Make a fist and open it again. Notice where
the lines are. These lines and wrinkles are the history of your hand’s
many movements over time. What have you held, touched, made, and
written to form these lines? What do you want to do with this hand
today?

ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,

Reflections

Today’s Practice
Today see yourself as an ever-evolving, adaptable being. Notice how
you navigate life’s unexpected challenges. See if you can be more
flexible and wiser in your life.
 Day 3: Sidetracked from Values
Diana: In third grade I cheated in a multiplication contest. My gut still drops
when I think about my teacher announcing that I had won. She gave me a pin
that said, “The truth will set you free.” I don’t know if she gave me that
particular pin because she knew I had cheated, but I’ll always know what it
feels like to stray from my truth. Now when I feel that same gut check, I’m
grateful for the inner reminder to reorient.
We all stray from our values sometimes. When you’re stressed, caught
up in a craving or in striving, or challenged by adversity, there’s a good
chance you’ll lose sight of your values and get stuck in unhelpful
patterns. When strong emotions and sticky thoughts push you around,
it can be all too easy to get sidetracked and react impulsively:

Your partner annoys you, so you say something hurtful,

even though you care about treating her with respect.
At the end of a hard day, you numb out with
substances, technology, or food when you could instead
use the time productively.
You procrastinate on important projects you’re worried
about.
You close off from a friend who needs support because
the conversation might feel sad or painful.
You don’t read articles about racism, the environment,
or politics because you might feel guilty, sad, or angry.

Even in hard times it’s possible to choose how to respond based

on the person you’d most like to be. You can always pause, notice
your thoughts and emotions, ask yourself how you’d respond at your
best, and make that choice. By doing this, you can connect with
meaning, even in the most stressful of life’s circumstances. And when
you get it wrong, all you can do is keep moving forward and do better
next time.

ACT Daily Writing: Sidetracked

Write about a struggle that sidetracks you from being the person you
want to be. What tend to be your automatic reactions when your
thoughts and emotions push you around in this struggle? What
choices could you make that would be more consistent with your
values?

ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,

Reflections
 Today’s Practice
Pay special attention in the hard moments today—perhaps a stressful
moment at work or school, a moment of boredom or tedium, or a
struggle you encounter. Pause there and see what you notice. What
habits or urges show up? See these moments as opportunities to
choose a values-consistent response.
 Day 4: Get Uncomfortable, on Purpose
Debbie: Years ago, while teaching a lecture course at Harvard, I included a
unit on racism. I felt like I was out of my league; as a white woman, my
experience with racism has been limited by my privileged perspective. Who
am I to teach others about something I don’t fully understand myself? I
wondered. I was afraid I’d mess up and, worse, offend some of my students. I
worked hard to prepare and stumbled through awkwardly, unsure whether I
was up for the task. I probably got some things wrong, but I’m glad I took the
risk. I value speaking out about all forms of oppression, including racism, and
feel proud that I taught a course about something important, even if I felt
uncomfortable while doing it.
As you’ve learned in your ACT practice, it’s natural to want to turn
away from discomfort. But the magic happens when we turn toward it.
A lot of self-help books are about self-improvement: How can I get
stronger, richer, more productive, thinner, better? But ACT is different.
ACT is about getting out of our own way so we can show up and move toward
something that matters more than personal comfort or success.
It takes psychological flexibility for real transformation to occur in
your life, and on this planet. To move forward and do the right thing,
sometimes we need to step back from inflexible beliefs and enter into
difficult feelings, conversations, and actions. Whether you’re moved to
start some uncomfortable conversations, take action toward social
justice, or try something new, you can stock up on your ACT tools and
put what you’ve learned to good use.

ACT Daily Writing: Fuel Up with Courage and

Action
Identify an area that’s important to you, one in which you tend to shy
away from conversations or actions because they’re uncomfortable.
What TEAMS (see Week 4) show up as you consider taking a step
toward your values in this area?

What ACT skills can you fuel up with to get out of your own way?

What difficult emotions and sensations are you willing to accept in

order to take action?

What action steps can you take that would reflect courage, dignity,
and love in this area?
 ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,
Reflections

Today’s Practice
Today, choose to get uncomfortable in the service of your values.
Actively choose an area that matters to you and try:

Starting a difficult conversation and staying in it longer

than usual
Exposing yourself to uncomfortable media or other
perspectives to broaden your point of view
Taking an action step out of your comfort zone that will
make a difference
Using psychological flexibility skills to empower yourself
to do something that matters in the world
 Day 5: Our Common Humanity
Recognizing our shared, common humanity promotes understanding,
forgiveness, and kindness. A foundational stance in ACT is that we’re
all human—therapists and clients alike. We all make mistakes, get
caught in all-too-human struggles, and are doing the best we can.
Diana: One day while rushing out of a parking lot I pulled into the sidewalk
in front of a jogger, almost hitting her. I rolled down the window to see if she
was okay. She waved with a look of understanding and said, “I’ve done that
before.” The jogger’s unexpected kindness motivated me more than any dirty
look would have. I still think about her and use her mantra when a friend
needs to cancel plans, or my kid spills something on the carpet. “I
understand. I’ve done that before.”
Psychological flexibility can support prosocial behaviors—
behaviors that benefit others and society as a whole (Atkins, Wilson,
and Hayes 2019; Biglan 2015):

With perspective taking and values, we can choose to

respond with more kindness, forgiveness, and
cooperation.
With compassion and acceptance, we can hold the pain
of being hurt or disappointed even when others are at
their worst.
With cognitive defusion and perspective taking, we can
express empathy and give others the benefit of the
doubt.
By being present and taking committed action, we can
offer good wishes and a warm heart, even in the most
difficult conversations.

In return, prosocial behaviors can improve relationships, making

us happier and healthier (Diener and Seligman 2002; Holt-Lunstad,
Robles, and Sbarra 2017). Kind and generous behaviors unite us as a
species (Lynch 2018), triggering our nervous system to make us feel
safe with others (Porges 2011).
 Prosocial actions, even small ones, create greater human
thriving and might just make the world a better place for all
of us.
Today, let’s build a better world by acting prosocially, together.

ACT Daily Writing: Loving-Kindness

Which people or groups do you feel most loving toward right now?

And which people or groups do you feel less connected with, or

more judgment toward, right now?

How might you build more kindness, empathy, forgiveness, and

connection related to people in both categories?

What kind actions might you take today?

 ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,
Reflections

Today’s Practice
Take some mindful breaths and read this beautiful meditation from
Awakening Together by Larry Yang (2017, 151):
May I be as loving in this moment as possible.
If I cannot be loving in this moment,
may I be kind;
If I cannot be kind,
may I be nonjudgmental;
If I cannot be nonjudgmental,
may I not cause harm;
And if I cannot not cause harm,
may I cause the least amount of harm possible.
 Day 6: Bigger than Me
Psychology tends to focus on individuals, underemphasizing the
cultural and systemic contexts in which we live. ACT has the potential
to do more than help with the suffering that’s inside each of us by
considering the broader cultural, political, and economic systems that
contribute to suffering in the world. ACT encourages us to consider our
lives in a broad context and to look beyond what lies within (Hayes
2019).
Debbie: Before I started my clinical psychology training, I worked for an
anonymous peer-support hotline for students. A female graduate student from
another country called in, upset and in tears because her powerful male
academic advisor was sexually harassing her. I recommended that she seek
therapy to help her cope with her fear and sadness. In hindsight, I was
completely wrong. I missed the real problem: she was in a toxic situation and
the first priority was caring for her safety. I would respond very differently
today. I would acknowledge that her emotional reaction was valid and
support her in finding ways to protect herself.
As therapists we’ve learned that people find greater fulfillment if they’re
able to step outside their own self-focused point of view and connect
with something bigger than themselves, perhaps by forming close,
connected relationships with others, collaborating with a group (Atkins,
Wilson, and Hayes 2019), contributing to a social cause, or nurturing
children (Biglan 2015). It can be hard to make this leap if we have
tunnel vision, focusing on only our own immediate problems. This
broadening of contexts is where perspective taking meets values.

ACT Daily Writing: Something Bigger

Reflect back on the values you identified in Week 6. Which ones are
tied to something bigger than you, such as giving, caring, groups,
social causes, and so forth? What systems do you most want to work
toward changing? How can you step outside yourself and do
something that matters in the world?
 Try It Now: Metta Meditation
Diana’s neighbor, a practicing Buddhist, once gave her a note card
with the following meditation to recite at night, when Diana was having
a hard time. It reminds us that our well-being is interconnected with
that of others.
Repeat the following meditation out loud or to yourself.
May I be one with myself.
May I be free from suffering.
May I be at peace.
May [name of someone you love] be one with
themselves.
May [name of someone you love] be free from
suffering.
May [name of someone you love] be at peace.
May we all be one with ourselves.
May we be free from suffering.
May we be at peace.
 ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,
Reflections

Today’s Practice
Today, notice your connection to the bigger whole and make a
contribution of some kind. Take a small action that contributes to
something bigger than you.
 Day 7: Your ACT Daily Life
Diana: In between having my two sons I gave birth to a stillborn boy. After I
delivered him, the nurses asked me if I wanted to hold him. It was
psychological flexibility training that gave me the courage to say yes. As my
husband and I received his tiny body wrapped in a blanket, we breathed in the
intensity of love and loss. I think about that moment often. I wonder about the
person who made his little blanket—what life experience motivated such an
act? I feel gratitude for the nurses who wisely encouraged us to take our time,
and for my husband who joined me in feeling fully. ACT is about the
willingness to step into moments like these—exposing ourselves to
vulnerability so we can open ourselves to love.
When learning to ride a bike, there’s a moment when a child forgets to
focus on balancing, pedaling, and steering and the act of riding
becomes an embodied knowing. Today is your last day of ACT Daily,
and now is the time to put all the pieces together and ride with an inner
knowing and embodiment of ACT.
This journal has been focused on applying ACT directly to your
sometimes mundane, other times difficult, and hopefully satisfying life
as it is. As you move through life, we hope you continue to use what
you’ve learned here to turn suffering into meaning, impermanence into
a reminder of what matters most, and your deepest longings into
action. As bell hooks writes, “Our sufferings do not magically end;
instead we are able to wisely alchemically recycle them. They become
abundant waste that we use to make new growth possible” (2001, 80–
81).

ACT Daily Writing: Your Future Self

Looking ahead, and knowing that you will face times of loss and
change, what would you like to tell your future self about using ACT?
Knowing that you will face mundane, boring, and simple days, what
would you like to tell your future self about using ACT?

Knowing that you will face moments when it’s both uncomfortable
and important to use your voice or to take action, what would you
like to tell your future self about using ACT?
 ACT in My Life: Today’s Values, Goals,
Reflections

Today’s Practice
Today, as you move forward with your life beyond ACT Daily, commit
to continuing the work you’ve done. Think about your next steps and
ways you might remind your future self of how far you’ve come.
Final Reflections
This week you took your psychological flexibility beyond the realm of
your personal well-being. From a stance of hive mind, you learned how
your everyday moves can have an impact on a greater whole. In A
Liberated Mind, Steven Hayes closes, “With each person who learns
[ACT] skills, the culture evolves just a little bit. Human communication
softens; human connection grows” (2019, 386). In that same vein, we wish
you more softening, more connection, more growth, and more freedom in
the days to come.
 The Labyrinth Ahead

Diana: When my clients end therapy with me, I often give them a pewter
symbol of a labyrinth. It’s a physical offering that represents our work
together and the work to come. Like a maze, a labyrinth winds back and forth,
but unlike a maze a labyrinth has no dead end and is not designed to confuse.
There’s no “getting out” of a labyrinth. Instead, as long as you keep moving
forward you find your way to the center.
Every twist and turn of a labyrinth brings one closer to its center. Living
the ACT processes daily is like following a labyrinth: There will be times
when it feels like you’re just skimming the outer edge of the spiral, far
from the center and not making progress. Other times, you’ll feel like
you’re on the fast track to freedom.
No matter your circumstances, you will likely experience periods of
positive change followed by stagnation or loss. If you’ve felt anxious,
angry, or blue, those feelings will come back. If you’ve struggled to sustain
a change, the struggle will show up again. If you’re in recovery from an
addiction, you will likely face the twists and turns of urges and lapses
many times. And so on.
It’s how we respond to life’s inevitable twists and turns that’s
important. The labyrinth of ACT teaches us that it’s always possible to
keep moving ahead flexibly, responding to challenges in an open, aware,
and values-consistent way. As you move along the labyrinth ahead,
ACTing daily calls for you to be open, aware, and engaged (Hayes,
Strosahl, and Wilson 2012):

Open: Can you gently welcome all your feelings, thoughts, and
sensations?
Aware: Are you aware of the TEAMS that are hooking you, and of
what matters most to you right now?
 Engaged: Are you living your values through your actions in this
moment?

Not only does life change over time, you’ll find that the ACT
processes themselves are more fluid than stagnant. None of the processes
are fixed in the sense that you do them once and you’re done.

Being present means finding your center in this moment only to

notice how quickly you lose it again.
Cognitive defusion means repeatedly unhooking from unhelpful
thoughts, as your chattering mind will never stop.
Acceptance is not a permanent state, rather it’s choosing to turn
toward your full experience over and over again.
Perspective taking means observing all of your experiences as
impermanent.
Values aren’t something you do once and you’re done. They are a
direction you continue to head in for a lifetime.
Committed action requires you to respond with kindness and to move
forward when you inevitably slip back into old habits and automatic
behaviors.

Putting ACT into practice is a lifelong journey; the processes become

part of your life when you live them consistently over time. With practice,
it gets easier to notice when there’s work to do. Here are some pointers for
keeping the ACT processes alive when you’re feeling stuck:

Do an awareness check: Practice one eye in (What is happening in

my body and mind?) and one eye out (What is happening in the
moment around me?).
Pause: Open up to your emotions and thoughts when you catch
yourself struggling. See what shifts.
Take perspective: Step back from what’s in front of you and expand
your point of view to include the bigger picture.
 Reconnect with values: Revisit your life motto from Week 6 and
compare how you’re doing with how you want to live. Readjust as
necessary.

With these tools you can keep inching forward, at your own pace,
toward your own chosen values. And, if you’re like lots of people and
could use a little help with organization, we crafted a daily planner based
on the six ACT processes. It’s available for download at this book’s
website: http://www.newharbinger.com/47377. (See the back of the book
for more details.) The ACT processes are always available to you; it’s up
to you to put them into practice in your life.
Thank you for choosing ACT Daily. We hope you take what you
learned here and use it to keep building a life that’s most meaningful to
you. May you enjoy the journey!
Additional Resources
Learn More About ACT
A Liberated Mind: How to Pivot Toward What Matters by Steven Hayes
The Association for Contextual Behavioral Science at
https://www.contextualscience.org
Psychologists Off the Clock podcast at
https://www.offtheclockpsych.com
Apply ACT for Specific Groups
Be Mighty: A Woman’s Guide to Liberation from Anxiety, Worry, and
Stress Using Mindfulness and Acceptance by Jill A. Stoddard
End the Insomnia Struggle: A Step-by-Step Guide to Help You Get to
Sleep and Stay Asleep by Colleen Ehrnstrom and Alisha L. Brosse
Living with Your Body and Other Things You Hate: How to Let Go of
Your Struggle with Body Image Using Acceptance and Commitment
Therapy by Emily Sandoz and Troy DuFrene Mastering Adulthood: Go
Beyond Adulting to Become an Emotional Grown-Up by Lara E. Fielding
The Wisdom to Know the Difference: An Acceptance and Commitment
Therapy Workbook for Overcoming Substance Abuse by Kelly G. Wilson
and Troy DuFrene
Your Life, Your Way: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Skills to
Help Teens Manage Emotions and Build Resilience by Joseph V. Ciarrochi
and Louise L. Hayes Foster Compassion and Kindness
Awakening Together: The Spiritual Practice of Inclusivity and
Community by Larry Yang
The Compassionate Mind: A New Approach to Life’s Challenges by
Paul Gilbert
How to Be Nice to Yourself: The Everyday Guide to Self-Compassion
—Effective Strategies to Increase Self-Love and Acceptance by Laura
Silberstein-Tirch
The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion: Freeing Yourself from
Destructive Thoughts and Emotions by Christopher K. Germer
The Self-Care Prescription: Powerful Solutions to Manage Stress,
Reduce Anxiety, and Increase Well-Being by Robyn Gobin
Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living by Pema
Chödrön
 An Open-Hearted Life: Transformative Methods for Compassionate
Living from a Clinical Psychologist and a Buddhist Nun by Russell Kolts
and Thubten Chödrön Build Awareness
Being Peace by Thich Nhat Hanh
Just One Thing: Developing a Buddha Brain One Simple Practice at
a Time by Rick Hanson
Mindful of Race: Transforming Racism from the Inside Out by Ruth
King
Slow: Simple Living for a Frantic World by Brook McAlary
The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself by Michael A.
Singer
Cultivate Acceptance
All About Love: New Visions by bell hooks
Neurodharma: New Science, Ancient Wisdom, and Seven Practices of
the Highest Happiness by Rick Hanson
Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha
by Tara Brach
When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times by Pema
Chödrön
Find Meaning and Purpose
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
The New Happiness: Practices for Spiritual Growth and Living with
Intention by Matthew McKay and Jeffrey C. Wood
Playing Big: Practical Wisdom for Women Who Want to Speak Up,
Create, and Lead by Tara Mohr
The Power of Meaning: Finding Fulfillment in a World Obsessed with
Happiness by Emily Esfahani Smith
Prosocial: Using Evolutionary Science to Build Productive,
Equitable, and Collaborative Groups by Paul W. B. Atkins, David Sloan
Wilson, and Steven C. Hayes Inspiration for Behavior Change
Healthy Habits Suck: How to Get Off the Couch and Live a Healthy
Life... Even If You Don’t Want To by Dayna Lee-Baggley
The Joy of Movement: How Exercise Helps Us Find Happiness, Hope,
Connection, and Courage by Kelly McGonigal
Off the Clock: Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done by Laura
Vanderkam
The Power of Small: Making Tiny Changes When Everything Feels
Too Much by Aisling Leonard-Curtin and Trish Leonard-Curtin
Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything by B. J.
Fogg
Recommended for Therapists
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: The Process and Practice of
Mindful Change, 2nd edition, by Steven C. Hayes, Kirk D. Strosahl, and
Kelly G. Wilson
The Essential Guide to the ACT Matrix: A Step-by-Step Approach to
Using the ACT Matrix Model in Clinical Practice by Kevin L. Polk,
Benjamin Schoendorff, Mark Webster, and Fabian O. Olaz Experiencing
Compassion-Focused Therapy from the Inside Out: A Self-Practice/Self-
Reflection Workbook for Therapists by Russell L. Kolts, Tobyn Bell, James
Bennett-Levy, and Chris Irons The Heart of ACT: Developing a Flexible,
Process-Based, and Client-Centered Practice Using Acceptance and
Commitment Therapy by Robyn D. Walser
Mindfulness for Two: An Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
Approach to Mindfulness in Psychotherapy by Kelly G. Wilson and Troy
DuFrene
Values in Therapy: A Clinician’s Guide to Helping Clients Explore
Values, Increase Psychological Flexibility, and Live a More Meaningful
Life by Jenna LeJeune and Jason B. Luoma Acknowledgments
We would like to thank New Harbinger Publications, especially our editors
Elizabeth Hollis Hansen, Vicraj Gill, and James Lainsbury, for helping to
shape and refine the manuscript, and Matthew McKay for getting us
started. Thank you to Easan Drury and Craig Schneider, for feedback and
help with the manuscript, and Robyn Walser for writing the foreword.
Our podcast, Psychologists Off the Clock, provided the inspiration
and spirit behind this book. Thank you to our current and past cohosts
(Yael Schonbrun, Jill Stoddard, and Rae Littlewood), interns (Katharine
Foley-Saldeña, Kati Lear, Katy Rothfelder, and Melissa Miller), technical
producer (Craig Schneider), content strategist (Michael Herold), guests,
and listeners. What an enriching experience the podcast has been. We’ve
learned so much from all of you!
The Association for Contextual Behavioral Science, the professional
organization for ACT, has been a source of community and intellectual
richness beyond any we’ve experienced. And to the cofounders of ACT,
and to all who have contributed to contextual behavioral science over the
years, thank you.
Thank you to the other three members of “El Five”—Meg McKelvie,
Alexis Kerris Bachik, and Rae Littlewood. You brought us together, and
you’ve inspired us. We love you.

Diana: Thank you to my parents, Helena and Gary, and my sister, Ashley.
Mom, you are a true mother hen. Thank you for hatching me, and for now
helping hatch my boys with such care. Dad, you are the best storyteller I
know. Thank you for your compassion, support, and spiritual wisdom. To
my clients, the moments we’ve shared mean more to me than you know.
You’ve taught me about bravery and what it means to be human. And to
my supervisees over the years, I learned so much about ACT by doing it
with you. Special thanks to Katharine Foley-Saldeña for your tireless
work, flexibility, and shared understanding of working motherhood, and to
Michelle Keane for your methodical and kind guidance. In deep gratitude
for my academic and spiritual teachers who have guided me and reminded
me to keep on painting, imperfections and all. Special thanks to Linda
Craighead, Debra Safer, Alisha Brosse, Malia Sperry, Steven Hayes, Kelly
Wilson, Rick Hanson, Anne van de Water, Francie White, and, my first
spiritual teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh. Thank you to the training institutions
UC Santa Barbara, CU Boulder department of psychology and
neuroscience, La Luna Center, and UC Davis CAPS. A big hug and thank
you to my dear friends for loving me as I am. Debbie, for taking on this
project with me—working with you has been wonderful. To my sons,
Henry and Walker, thank you for forcing me to be more flexible, making
me laugh, and opening my heart in ways I never imagined. And to Craig,
my master beekeeper, you live out your values in all you do and keep our
little hive buzzing along. I love you.

Debbie: I would like to thank my supportive network of parents, siblings,

friends, neighbors, and extended family members. I am so fortunate to
have each and every one of you in my life! Thank you, Diana, for the
opportunity to collaborate on this book and the podcast, and for your
creativity, openness, and support. Couldn’t have done it without you!
Thank you to my professional colleagues and clients, past and present,
who have been my formal and informal teachers: the Rocky Mountain
Regional VA Medical Center (including my colleagues, trainees over the
years, and veterans), the national VA ACT for depression training program,
the Women in ACBS Special Interest Group, my graduate school and
clinical training cohorts, ImpACT Psychology Colorado, and my Colorado
private practice therapist friends. I have been inspired by each and every
one of you, and you are the reason I love my work! Special thanks to Sean
Barnes, Lauren Borges, Kevan McCutcheon, Miranda Morris, and Robyn
Walser, for encouraging my passion for ACT and for opening doors for
me. I am grateful to have all of you as my colleagues and friends. Thank
you to my daughters, Hadley and Piper, for entertaining yourselves while I
wrote, and for being wonderful human beings. I love you to pieces. Easan,
thank you for the extra kid duty, writing feedback, and, most of all, for
being an amazing partner through life’s ups and downs.
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Diana Hill, PhD, is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Santa
Barbara, CA, where she provides therapy, high-performance coaching, and
training to mental health professionals in acceptance and commitment
therapy (ACT). She is cohost of the Psychologists Off the Clock podcast,
and is passionate about integrative health, homesteading, and parenting
with intention.

Debbie Sorensen, PhD, is a clinical psychologist in private practice in

Denver, CO, and part-time clinical research psychologist at the Rocky
Mountain Regional VA Medical Center. She received her PhD in
psychology from Harvard University. Sorensen cohosts the Psychologists
Off the Clock podcast, and is a VA regional trainer and training consultant
in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT).