Observing your thinking

‘’Life is wonderful and terrible at the same time. . If you live long enough, you will experience joyful successes and spectacular failures, great love and devastating loss, moments of wonder and bliss and moments of darkness and despair. The uncomfortable truth is that almost everything that makes life richer, fuller and more meaningful also has a painful downside..’’ – Russ Harris.

Acceptance en Commitment Therapy

The above words of Harris (2020) describe how Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (in short; ACT) views the human challenge of life. ACT therapy teaches you how to reduce the impact and influence of painful thoughts and feelings (acceptance) while simultaneously taking action to build a rich and meaningful life (commitment).

Observing your thinking

An important core process of ACT is called defusion. In defusion you learn to look at your thinking. You take a step back and detach yourself from your thoughts. In a society in which our head is mainly addressed, this can sometimes be a challenge. For example, studying also makes great demands on the mind, and that sometimes makes it difficult to get out of your head when you want to rest or relax. Defusion can then help to distance yourself and to make space. . But how do you do that? How do you distance yourself from the thoughts in your head?

Worth a try

The first step of defusion is noticing the thoughts that are present. See if you can notice the thoughts that come along. What does your mind do? The second step is to name the thoughts. You can do this, for example, by saying to yourself: “I have the thought that..” or “There goes my mind again.” Below you will find a number of other techniques that help you defuse.

Meditative

Let your thoughts come and go like clouds drifting by or cyclists passing by your house. On Spotify and Youtube you can find all kinds of meditations that guide you in defusing your thoughts. By simply searching for defusion, you will find a lot of different meditations.

Usefulness

You can ask yourself where this thought is taking you, if you let it guide you. Will this thought help you be who you want to be?

Name the story

If all your thoughts and feelings came in a book or movie with a title, what would that title be? Each time the story pops up again, you can name the story.

Can you use support in distancing form your thoughts? Our coaches are ready to support you!

Written by: Dominique Teitink