Re: How would ACT help me with this?

[Guest guest]

hey, iolanda.

read your post, and i can understand your frustration concerning defusing from

thoughts of loneliness. i have experienced that two things help for me, that is

if defusion doesn't work. this may sound stupid, but it felt really good the

other night when i could say to myself: " it's okay to be in pain, haakon " . the

other is to think about time, that it is moving and that you are constantly

changing. that is maybe the same thing as the observing self, or the self as

ongoing process of self awareness. i am not sure. sometimes i feel that defusion

doesn't work for me, because i get caught up in doing it right, and it makes me

self-critical. or i am forcing the thoughts. i sometimes get a lot out of

meditating. just sitting and not necessarily focusing very much on the

loneliness (thought/feeling), not trying very hard to picture the stream with

the floating leaves (too hard for me), but letting it in, and kind of getting

into it. of course it doesn't always work.

one of the thoughts that can rip me out of this more or less desireable state is

" but i don't want to be sad for the rest of my life! " . hmm. not sure if this was

helpful. it's really hard to accept loneliness. sometimes i think that i am the

strongest guy in the world, and loneliness can just go and fuck itself. and then

again i may lay awake at night and think that i may be going crazy. you have my

sympathies and empathies, iolanda.

haakon

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> Subject: Re: How would ACT help me with this?

> To: ACT_for_the_Public

> Date: Friday, 28 January, 2011, 12:10

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> Helena said

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> I was taking your words " outside of my control " at face value, but perhaps I

misunderstood.

> No - you understood correctly - the lack of physical contact is out of my

control.

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> Helena also said in another email

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> How ACT can help is in the area of acceptance.  If you truly can't do

anything to bring more frequent face-to-face relationships into your life, the

only thing left is accepting your life as it is with all its

limitations. A tragic deal of the cards, to be sure.  Accepting it doesn't

mean you have to like it or stop trying improve your life, in spite of the

limitations--that's courage.  It means making room for the fact that this is

the way it is.  Keep pursuing every opportunity, as you are, and then keep

moving toward your values by setting goals for the things you CAN attain--and

it sounds like you are doing that.

> I've accepted the fact that I'll be lonely and with little sense of friendship

etc.  No problems with that at all.  But it still makes me sad and I want

advice on what to say to myself when I feel sadness.  The only thing I do now

is distraction.  Using a " word " for the defusion technique didn't stop me

thinking of it when I tried it because it was something I was feeling physically

- the sadness wasn't just a thought but a physical sensation as well.  I know

that ACT says just accept the feelings - don't fight them etc.  I don't fight

them at all ..... I do feel them.  But I was hoping there was a way of reducing

the sadness somehow.

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> And then maybe I can also use that technique for my chronic health problems. 

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> Bill said

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> Then you must make a plan for doing what you can, including taking along the

stuff you can't change. We all try to find cracks in the wall between these

things - can change and can't change.

> That's what I do now ....... I physically do what I can ....... but how do I

deal with the " stuff you can't change " .  You didn't mention how you can

approach it.  You DID mention p.53 of the Happiness Trap, but my version must

be different to yours because p.53 is  50% of a page right at the end of

chapter 4 on storytelling.

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> So if you just have to live with something that's out of your control,  how

can you accept it better?  especially something as emotional as loneliness.

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> iolanda

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> Smile †" it increases your face value!!! ;-)

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