ACT & Life

[Guest guest]

What dawned on me thanks to ACT was an appreciation that i somehow

missed, that life is full of suffering amongst all human beings and

that i am not alone in this. Just accept this as true. Due to my own

particular challenges that i had to deal with or am dealing with - i

am able to recognise within other people that they deal with similar

challenges, or dealt with it successfully. I started to see and to

appreciate life beyond ME. A second matter that came to the fore was

about the question of being true to myself. I became aware that i

somehow allowed circumstances and other people to direct me on what

is important and what direction to follow. After watching the world

cup for cricket, i realised that even the best batsmen in the world

make a mistake with at least one delivery of the six that they

receive during each over. This does not take away their mastery of

cricket, for which i have tremendous respect. It is ok to make

mistakes and to accept that i made a mistake or mistakes. During

interpersonal interactions i often observe behaviour that i perceive

to be " awkward " to be honest, but then i realised that the

awkwardness of the behaviour of the particular person is part of who

and what he or she is and that i also have the right to be myself and

to be true to myself even if my behaviour might be perceived as

awkward by others - it is ok. I need to listen to myself, be

truthfull to my values and to find a bit more humour when i observe

my own pretensions. A more serious insight that hit me five years

after divorce is how this event threw me out of (balance) all of what

i perceived to be the fundamentals to my life and how, what i

perceived to be the " logic of life " were blown to pieces. It is as if

i need to relearn some of the basics of what life is all about and

how it works, from scratch as if i am a child, while " trust " which i

assumed to be a given, fell apart to become a challenge to rebuild it

again within myself. What i learned to respet is integrity and

honesty amongst people who sustain the same high levels of

truthfulness in self observation as when they observe others. It

seems that life is about " the courage to be " as Tillich

described it. In essence: we are challenged by anxiety, doubt,

questioning of own ability, memories of failure - when we want to

move into valued direction. The ACT response - just do it, without

discounting all that happens inside of you, it is ok and it will be

ok. But, please continue to move into valued direction, regardless? A

fair appeal, i think.