Defuse from Your Emotions

What a boy. I can't literally speak off the bat. What's up, Cadre folks? Evan here, your local resident mental health and addiction therapist. I wanted to go live because as usual, I tend to be inspired by my clients and when I do therapy and it reminds me of certain lessons that apply to me, that apply to the work I do with clients I thought I wanted. Well, I didn't think I wanted to. I want to share some of this with you. And you can see in the title, I call this diffusing from emotions. And this is something I learned, and it's through a therapy modality that I recently got trained in called act.

They get mad if you call it act. It's act. Right. And that stands for acceptance and commitment therapy. And it comes from like a cognitive behavioral model, meaning, you know, thought, the interaction between thoughts, feelings and behaviors. Right. Thoughts, your emotions and, you know, the actions that you take and where it is a little bit different, though, is it's not about changing your emotions or your thoughts. It's more about as in the term, which is accepting. And then another big. So there's multiple parts to it.

There's like six central parts, and I'm going to go through each one. But the central purpose is to take a mindfulness approach, right? Putting your thoughts, putting your attention, awareness on those automatic thoughts and feelings that are coming up that you can't necessarily control when they come to you, but you can control how you react to them. Now, sometimes an emotion is so strong that, you know, it's like a storm and it's hard to put on your raincoat and umbrella and run out of it because it's just so intense.

But generally, like any storm, they tend to go away over time. And this is something that is helpful, especially when you practice it and you change your relationship with these automatic thoughts and emotions that come up that we attach to. So there's a big mindfulness component of act therapy and learning mindfulness skills in the hopes that you are going to be more happy, right. Or at least having a different, like I said before, a different relationship with emotions and have them not affect you, not to attach to you in that same way.

Sorry, getting over the COVID first time having it too, so. But I feel way better. I'm just got a little bit of that gunk still. My voice still, but I feel good, in case you were wondering. Alright, so let's go over the six tenets of act. So the first one is acceptance of acceptance and commitment. Therapy for emotions, impulses, feelings. So you know, this allows us to avoid over inflating them or wasting too much energy on them so we can move on more easily. So, yeah, so, exactly. Instead of fighting them, instead of wrestling with them, it's like taking a step back, accepting that emotions are natural, so they don't call them negative emotions or harmful, whatever negative word you could come up with for an emotion that negatively impacts your thoughts, feelings, etcetera.

Right. So it's more about acceptance in that area, and then also accepting certain circumstances that may be out of your control, that they happened, or maybe they were circumstances that happened in your control or whatever, but circumstances that are making you feel a certain way that you don't want to feel. So coming to acceptance, and by doing that, that doesn't just mean, oh, that's cool, I've accepted it, now we're going to do nothing. So there's more that we could do with that. So let's move on to the next one, which is extremely important, tentative act, which is cognitive diffusion.

So this is a mindfulness strategy, because often some of these emotions, we'll call sticky emotions, and that reason is. Right, because they come into your brain and it's really hard, and the more they're in there, the more they, like, fuse, and then you gotta rip. So this is called diffusion, which is something that if you could practice pretty quickly, those emotions may kind of slip away. Sometimes. We call it the Teflon mind, with these emotions, kinda, you try to put an egg on a Teflon, you could flip it right out, it doesn't stick.

Like a stainless steel pan, putting a cold egg in a hot stainless steel pan. You ever tried doing that? You know, it's ain't coming out. You need that Teflon, right? So therefore, like, you know, diffusing from thoughts and feelings is recognizing that they're not necessarily true, they're not clever, they're not important, right? They're not necessarily important. And so one of the ways that we work on cognitive diffusion is through that act of mindfulness. And really what that is, is, and this applies for so many different therapies I've found, right?

So therefore, probably it's pretty important, which is noticing awareness, internal awareness of awareness, but also taking a step back, right? So if this is me and my emotions are up and down, and I'm feeling all this, so it's like saying my mind, I'm going to take a step back, and instead of being entangled with them, I'm going to notice them. But that doesn't mean trying to get rid of them. So I still feel them, but at the same time, I'm more of a passive observer, and I'm defused from them. And that brings awareness, and that takes away some of the power of them.

If I'm taking a step back and I'm noticing and I'm noticing how I'm feeling in my body, and a lot of the trauma therapies I do are based on that principle. And I find that when people do that, they put that awareness on how these emotions affect the body. They tend to lose their power. And half the time you just get exhausted. You can only put so much energy into something before you just literally exhaust yourself half the time. But it kind of helps that process move faster. So I found that with other therapies, too.

And then, yeah, the other one is being present, fostering awareness of how we're currently feeling, both physically, mentally, rather than dwelling on the past, worrying about the future, connecting with the present is about engaging completely right now. Right. So being present in the moment, because so much of the negativity. Right. And the thoughts that come to our mind are about the past and dwelling on that we heard. I don't know if it's, like, necessarily true, per se, but, I mean, I think there's something to it where it's like depression is dwelling on the past and anxiety is worry about the future.

Right. But both of them can affect you in the present because you are doing those things. You are putting your thoughts there. So being present and also that internal noticing, awareness, mindfulness, brings you here. What am I thinking? What am I feeling physically, emotionally? Where do I feel calm? Where do I feel tense? What do I see? The senses. A lot of mindfulness exercises that I do with folks, especially in trauma therapy, when we're trying to develop calming skills, is awareness of what's around you.

What do I see right now? So right now I'm looking out my window of my office. I got a nice view of the street. It's sunny, it's pretty. I have ivy in front of my house, and it just gets all. It's really cool looking, but it gets all over the place. If you've ever had ivy, and it seemed like overnight this ivy went, and it started, like, taking over my window, and it's, like, going up into the screen. So I got to trim that. So I'm thinking that that's a thought that comes to mind, but it's also pretty.

I got these grass. I got this grass that I really like. It's like a decorative grass right. It's called Karl forester grass, and I love it. Right. It kind of almost looks like wheat. And I put them in, I think, two years ago now they're growing and the wind is blowing and the grass is moving like a wheat field through amber waves of grain. I'm not gonna actually try to sing for you. And they're waving and it's windy and it's really pretty. And on one of the grasses, there's these. I don't even know where it came from.

They were there before, but it's like, intertwined with the grass, these beautiful orange flowers. Right. So I'm trying to be here. I'm in the moment. I'm speaking to you all. So this is just an example of ways to get out of your darn head, you know, sorry for the language. And that fits into this self as context or the observing self, so similar to the common humanity construct of self compassion. This process is viewing our psychological and physical experience as transient and ever changing. Right.

The thoughts come in, but they come on, come off. You've done a lot of mindfulness or meditation. As the thoughts come in, as soon as they do, they come out. Becoming self transient so that we perceive our emotions, sensations, thoughts, and more as a peripheral and dynamic is to step away from the alternative. All right, that one's, like a little confusing the way they worded it, but self as context, where am I in relation to everything around me? I am more of an observer than someone who is intertwined with those automatic thoughts and feelings.

So this is one of my favorite parts of act therapy. And this is values clarification. So it's identifying, what are my values? What is important to me? Why? And it kind of fits in with the concept of purpose. What is the purpose of my struggle? Why? And by struggle, why am I putting energy and effort into anything? To feeling better, to the work that I do, to the relationships that I have, what is important to me. And making that decision, which is in the end here, which is coming the final part, which maybe you could guess with the see act.

Right. So identifying, so they say, a process which we explore and clarify the things that we hold personally meaningful values, clarification. There's worksheets are often self reflecting exercises that help clients find direction, motivation, coaching, discussions that can be really helpful. Right. And so kind of reminding yourself of what are my values? And why am I taking these actions that maybe aren't the most fun thing in the world, doing some of these mindfulness therapeutic, especially at the beginning when you're learning a new skill, just like exercise, you know, usually it's.

Exercise is more daunting until you form that habit and you start to get the benefits from doing it. And then you're like, I can't live without it. And then you're much more motivated, and then when you don't, you kind of feel crappy. Right. So it's kind of that same thing of taking these actions and using your values to motivate to do that. And today I was saying that I was reminded of this. Well, of, actually, I scheduled this live and this topic beforehand, but it was kind of ironic because something happened in therapy with a client where I'm like, we got to do some mindfulness.

And I know, like a ton of exercises, but I thought about, you know, that I'm going to be doing this. I'm like, oh, maybe I'll look up an act one because I've heard them before. And it was this. It was about 50 prompts, so it took about 1520 minutes for us to do this, but it was awesome. And I'm gonna save it. And I think maybe I was thinking I'm gonna make a video out of it where I'm literally going to read these meditations because if I send them to people while you're reading them, you need to, like, be able to hear it.

And so we tell people to record them often. Right. So just read the script and then have it read back to you. Or maybe find some random person on the street with a soothing voice or just mail it to Morgan Freeman. And maybe he could do that. You know, they have those cameos. So maybe you could pay someone who's got a soothing voice. Who else has a really soothing. Maybe David Attenborough. That was bad. I'll have to work on that old David Ottenborough. So maybe you could send it to him, pay him to do it.

Probably well worth the money to have that, but I'm joking, obviously, but just reading it back to yourself. Right. So finding some of these exercises, and I'm thinking about doing a series. We're all about series now on mindfulness exercises, calming, resourcing. And me just reading scripts, essentially. Maybe put some soothing music in the background that you could use at any time. Right. And these would be, like, very therapy based ones, not that they're that much different than maybe the ones you'd find on YouTube that are, like, calming meditations.

Probably about the same thing. But some of these, you know, maybe pertain more to thoughts, feelings, emotions. Although I guess, you know, a lot of these that come from Buddhism and things like that are essentially about your relationship with your thoughts and feelings and being mindful, being present. So, you know, in therapy, a lot of these, a lot of these modalities, like dialectical behavior therapy, which is a common one a lot of people know about. For people who struggle with extremely intense emotions and self destructive behavior, that could be dangerous.

It's a really good therapy, and it is based in mindfulness. And so is this. So these are kind of. They're all kind of related. You know, the cognitive therapy, it's like, you know, there's like a father, and he had a bunch of kids and still has kids time to time, and they have. And it just takes a little bit of a different lens and focus, but some of the underlying principles are the same. Now, the last one is committed action, right? So after we have these skills that we're working on, after we have values, clarification of our values, where we want to be, where we want to go, the question is, how do we get there, right?

That's the behavioral part. So this principle or process is about goal setting and the idea that these are long term goals, which are values based act. Practitioners can thus help clients commit to and work with engagement towards goals through action, right? So this is where, you know, the rubber hits the road, right? Maybe that committed action is to try, you know, these mindfulness exercise. And I remember when I did the training, the guy was talking about some examples of people that he worked with who maybe were really resistant or difficult.

And, you know, I wouldn't say difficult, but maybe a little bit. But he talked about, like, asking them, hey, can you do this for 10 seconds? Can you do this? Yeah. Okay, I could do that. Then just do that. Do that for 10 seconds. Right before you drink your morning coffee, whatever ritual you have in the morning, drink your coffee and do this for 5 seconds. Okay? You did it for 5 seconds. Can you do it for ten? Whatever that committed action is, is meaningful, right? So with that being said, you know, just a quick recap and maybe you could write this down.

Maybe you could take some committed action based on this. So acceptance, right? Accepting that negative emotions maybe aren't negative, but they are negative, natural. They always talk about the finger trap, you know, when you're fighting and wrestling with emotions, the more you do it, the more trapped you are in them. So viewing them as natural emotions. The next one is cognitive diffusion, right? Taking a step back and then being present, which is the next one, putting awareness, which is also the one after self is context, the observing self, right?

So taking a step back, noticing, but then also talking about having self compassion, you know, humanity construct of self compassion. This process is viewing our psychological and physical experiences as transient and ever changing. I'm not necessarily the same person I was ten minutes ago. I can make decisions to change. I can make decisions and work towards having a different relationship with myself. Becoming self transient, so we perceive our emotions, sensations, thoughts and more as a peripheral dynamic, is the step away from the alternative where they define us.

That was a little tricky, but if that makes sense. So noticing the context of where we see ourself and then values clarification. What's important to me? What purpose do I have in my life? What is my relationship to others? What is important to me? And why am I doing this? What is the purpose of the suffering that I have, that we all have? Right? So what is your purpose and meaning for that? And why are you doing this? Why are you taking, if you're taking any of these actions whatsoever, even if it's this five second meditation, why are you doing it?

There's a reason, right? And that will help you, help motivate you to take the last part, which is committed action, whatever it is, that anything you do is going to be helpful, it's going to be meaningful, and it's something you could build on. So I hope you got something out of this. Feel free to look more into it. There's some free worksheets online from act, acceptance, commitment, therapy. And it could be used for so many things, even if you're not necessarily a therapist. It could be some of the principles and exercises can be applied.

So, folks, I hope you get something out of this again, and we'll see.