Get Out of Your Mind

Transforming your life through acceptance, mindfulness, and values.

by Steven C. Hayes

The Mental Spider That Claims to Be Us

Like a spider weaving a web, our stories of who we are cover us like a second skin. The methods used by the acceptance and commitment therapy community and other mindfulness based methods will help you alleviate psychological suffering as you become more flexible in your own thinking. Read More

Mindfulness and Acceptance in Evidence-Based Psychotherapy

Only a small percentage of psychotherapy services in the United States are tightly linked to existing scientific knowledge. It is a bit strange if you think of it. Would anyone want surgery that was not based on a current scientific understanding of the body? Why should the mind and behavior be any different? Read More

Watching Porn: The Problem That Must Not Be Named

No one seems to want to talk about it or do anything about it, but sometimes watching porn can be a problem. When it is, psychology has had nothing to offer that was empirically tested. Until now. It is counter-intuitive, but it works. Read More

Stepping Out of Automatic Pilot

Thoughts cause our actions, or do they? We need to stop treating out own minds with the automaticity of tying our shoes or any idiot with a microphone has access to buttons to control us. In between agreeing with thoughts and disagreeing with thoughts, there is a middle path. In the noisy culture we have created we need to learn how to get there. Read More

Are We Too Smart for Our Own Good?

Intellectually, we are a bit smarter. Emotionally we seem dumber. What if both are for the same reason? Read More

Giving Thanks for the Journey

I received this message a few days ago from someone involved in the ACT work. It was a message so painful and yet courageous I thought some might find comfort and support from it on this important day: Between the ages of about 5 until about 8 and a half I was sexually abused on almost a daily basis. Throughout high school I had panic attacks and was dissociating. Today I am alive. I'm not just going through the motions. I can have relationships with people. I can feel the rain, and the sun... Read More

Holding Back from Life

What makes us most human is what we care about. In a word, what matters most are our values. The problem is that what we care about is also where we get hurt – so we tend to hide out from our own caring. We keep it from others – if we are really good at it we keep it even from ourselves. If you've been holding back from life, what you need to do can be summarized into a single word. Read More

Hard Won Wisdom in Dealing with Anxiety

It is one of the ironies of life that verbal formulae are not quite the same as wisdom earned. That is why parents cannot quite save their children from having to make mistakes, and teachers cannot quite eliminate the exploration of dead ends by their students. But sometimes on the other side of actual work we find particular wisdom in words. Read More

Compassion For the Child Within

We all have a child within - the child we once were. The pain of today that is most difficult to carry often goes back a long way - it touches that child. How we relate to that part of us is a good model for how we can move forward with the pain we experience in our adult lives. Read More

A Sunset Mode of Mind

Human beings carry with them a cognitive toolset that allows them to plan, compare, and contrast. It is both useful and horrifying. We need to use it - but we also need to learn to rein it in. Unless we learn to rein it in, peace of mind, wholeness, and happiness are elusive. Read More

Inaugural Tears

I was eight, sitting with my mother on the 1950's style pink and grey sofa, watching the war clips on a small black and white screen. A funny looking man with a small mustache was shouting in a language I did not understand. I had no idea who he was. In the timelessness of early childhood, I did not appreciate how recently this man had troubled humanity. Read More

A Human Life Is Not a Problem to be Solved

If you happened to be walking through a southern college campus 30 years ago you might have seen a man sitting on a park bench apparently wiping his face in the warmth of a Spring day while gazing at the kind of lush green scenery only the South can provide. But if you had been inside this young man you would have seen something different. Read More

Acceptance, Mindfulness, and Values: Why Now?

Horror and judgment in the modern world is restricting our ability to find peace of mind. It is no wonder we are seeing a resurgence of interest in acceptance, mindfulness, and values. We need to learn how to create a modern mind for the modern world. Read More