Embrace Your Present To Improve, 6 Keys To ACT

Acceptance and Commitment therapies, commonly known as “ACT”, provide us with an interesting prism from which to focus our lives to find new paths with which to better reorient our personal reality. It is an eclectic trend that emphasizes the person, in their unique and particular reality, accepting their values ​​and their present moment, a cognitive-behavioral and humanistic therapy that also relies on mindfulness tendencies (mindfulness) to demonstrate their success and effectiveness in an infinity of personal situations where its success is revaluing it, especially lately in clinical situations.

WHAT IS THE ACT LOOKING FOR?

Its purpose is to provide us with an integral and meaningful life according to our own principles, it does not seek to change our way of being or our personality, it is about delving into our own conscience to help us accept who we are, with our sufferings and defects. If we commit to ourselves accepting everything done, everything lived and felt, we will find the key to direct our life towards those paths that are more in line with our own needs and desires.

ACCEPT YOUR DEMONS

According to this trend, the rest of the therapies focus on seeing psychological suffering as something abnormal, like a disease. The ACT assumes that psychological pain is typical of the human mind, it is a reality that every person experiences at some point, “it is not an abnormality” nor are we defective people because we feel fear, anxiety, stress, anguish, pain …

The secret is in our own language, the word helps us to create and imagine things, to create maps and models. Sometimes it also serves to “relive our dark moments”, to criticize ourselves and even to condemn ourselves. We must learn to change our language in order to prepare for that fight in search of improvements and overcoming. Valuing yourself begins with the word.

THE SIX PRINCIPLES OF THE ACT

The main objective of ACT therapies is to give us the opportunity to develop our own psychological flexibility, accepting ourselves but searching our consciousness for strategies and ways of improvement.

1- Acceptance: We must accept our emotions, sensations and experiences without fighting or avoiding them. Suffering is a normal part of life, but human beings have sufficient capacity to overcome and learn from what they have experienced. We must assume, understand ourselves, accept the enormous capacity of the human being to find solutions and improve ourselves. Pain blocks us, it is true, but we must not avoid it or it will haunt us even more. The ACT tells us that sometimes you have to embrace the demons to let them go.

2-Cognitive defusion : We must learn to see thoughts, memories and images, as a piece of our own language. Thoughts or memories are not rules to obey, but paths of our being that we can use for our own benefit.

3- Contact with the present: You have to appreciate the “here and now”. The present determines us, offers us commitment and responsibility.

4- The observing self: It is recommended that we develop techniques to listen to our own conscience, because it is the true essence of the person. Thoughts and emotions come and go according to the present moment lived, but behind them we, our own SELF.

5- Values: Do you know how to clarify what is most important to you? Take a look inside yourself, your conscience, your heart, inquire into yourself, get to know yourself, discover what is valuable and essential.

6-Committed action: It is always advisable to establish goals that are associated with our own values, so that in this way our action towards that achievement, has greater motivation and meaning for ourselves.