Get Out of Your Mind

Transforming your life through acceptance, mindfulness, and values.

Steven C. Hayes is Nevada Foundation Professor at the Department of Psychology at the University of Nevada Reno. See full bio

June 21, 2009

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

May 4, 2009

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

March 20, 2009

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

February 15, 2009

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

January 20, 2009

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

January 1, 2009

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

December 19, 2008

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

Self-Help Basics

Most of us have things about ourselves we wish we could improve. Lasting change is difficult—many of our habits are deeply ingrained, and certain aspects of ourselves, such as core personality attributes, may be immutable. But many more things can be changed.

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