Get Out of Your Mind

Are We Too Smart for Our Own Good?

Steven C. Hayes — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 03:53:19 +0000

If everyone on the planet were twice as smart tomorrow, none of our intelligence scores would change. Intelligence is a relative concept. The scores are constantly adjusted to keep IQ scores meaning the same thing, relative to the current group.

It is commonsense to believe that the current generation is less intelligent than previous generations, but in fact in the modern era the adjustments are always up, not down. Kids today are able to think more abstractly and do it earlier. We even have a name for this shift - the Flynn effect - after the researcher who popularized the finding. Every three years or so the average IQ ticks up another point. We giggle over the residents of Lake Woebegone who are certain that all of their children are above average, but if we would stop re-adjusting the norms, that could someday actually come true.

There is a lot of argument about why we are getting more intelligent (in some sense of that word at least), but I think the most likely reason is that kids are exposed to a constant flow of verbal and visual information. I'm 61. I remember when my parents first bought a television. I remember there were three TV channels we could watch, and precious few shows that I would find interesting. After school and on weekends I would usually disappear into the canyons of El Cajon, California to play with my friends. Long hours were spent hiking, building forts, shooting BB guns, and trying to find rattle snakes. My best friends, Joe, Tom, Mike, and George, talked enough but the pace of conversation was slow, the periods of relative silence while we explored were large, and the topics were somewhat limited.

Today it is different. Today my four-year-old is exposed to more words and images in a day than I would guess I was exposed to in a week.

As I sit here writing this blog, an MSNBC news show is playing in the background, an RSS feed is flowing by on my screen, and in the next room I can hear the Backyardigans. It's an American household. If someone is home there is usually a television playing ... and often while I read the newspaper and glance at my laptop.

Computers. Text messages. Facebook. iPods. We are in a technological era never before faced by humankind.

With each word we hear, with each image we see, we get a little smarter. We know more. We've seen more. We can think a bit more abstractly. A child asked today what the similarity is between a dog and a rabbit will likely answer easily that they are both mammals. 100 years ago the child would say that dogs eat rabbits.

True, all of this media may not look like sophisticated forms of learning. Much of what we learn is low culture. But it will not be long before those IQ tests will need to be readjusted to keep us all from looking smarter. Again.

Quite apart from formal measures of intelligence, our social knowledge is also increasing. I remember in the sixth grade being shocked by some of the rudimentary "fact of life" that I was learning from my friends. Today broadcasters have to decide if it is OK to allow "Man Crunch" gay dating commercials to be shown during the Super Bowl. Kids, we say, grow up early today. They know a lot early about war, violence, and sexuality.

But emotional and social wisdom is another matter. It seems that it is harder for people to be respectful and kind to each other. It seems harder to understand each other. It seems harder to feel connected, to be part of a larger group, or to care. Our politics have devolved into harsh rhetoric and stalemate. Our economics seems driven by greed and self-interest. We can get roused by the Haitian earthquake -- more words and incredible images -- but have long ago forgotten the victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami where those in poorer countries still struggle with the aftermath. Taking even the most limited steps to deal with global climate change brings shrieks of impending harm to our self-interest. Yet floods kill thousands from the increased humidity in the atmosphere due to increased evaporation, we pretend that it has nothing to do with our behavior. Even hate crimes seem to be going up, not down and many of our most difficult mental health problems are increasing.

We are smarter, perhaps. But our emotional and social intelligence seems to be going backwards. What if these two broad trends both emerge from the same place: the fire hose of words and images technology provides us in the modern world?

Just turn on the television and watch a range of shows. Ask yourself periodically what people are playing for. Ask what is the purpose behind the words and images.

Here is what I see.

People are playing to be right, to look good, and to have a good story to tell. These purposes are played out both outside and inside. Our politics are about who is right and (especially) who is wrong; is it a surprise that we find ourselves playing the same game with our spouse? We live looking at the images of beautiful people. Is it shocking that we disappear into make over shows that whisper that this could be me if only Oprah would provide. Strength of story is more important than the content of the message. So what if Blago was selling a Senate seat: he is an interesting story. And so what if we are selling ourselves short in our own lives, provided we can explain all to our friends and show who is to blame; provided we can hear their applause and see their agreement. We may be miserable, oh what a story. Oh, how special we are.

These purposes are the kinds of motives that emerge from a gluttonous diet of symbols and pictures. Being "right" is a judgment about our arguments; "looking good" a judgment about how we appear; having a story to tell is what image makers live and die on. But can our humanity thrive inside being right, looking good, and having a good story to tell?

I just wonder. As we all get smarter and yet find it harder to be healthy, whole, centered, and interconnected -- I just wonder: are we becoming too smart for our own good?

Steven C. Hayes, Ph.D.
Foundation Professor of Psychology, University of Nevada
and author of Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life

Giving Thanks for the Journey

Steven C. Hayes — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 18:47:07 +0000

Today is a day of Thanksgiving, but it is important that we not give thanks in denial of our past. We give thanks in part for how far we've come, not in opposition to the past, but as an affirmation of our humanity and capacity for life. 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.

****

The day I turned 18 was the day I began therapy. Before then, I was unable to because my family was not supportive and did not know the full extent of what I had gone through, and did not get my subtle hints that I needed help.

Between the ages of about 5 until about 8 and a half I was sexually abused on almost a daily basis by one of my mom's boyfriends. Aside from the rapes and molestations, I had to watch him, and participated with him doing it to his own daughter. Neither of us knew how to tell anyone that this was going on, so it continued until he and my older sister got into a fight and he swung at her in front of my Mom. They broke up.

After that experience I did not have many friends and did not want to do many things outside from staying in my room, or with my grandmother. When I was a little older there were kids who moved in across the street from me, and I had made a friend. It was the first time I really had someone to hang out with. After some time, I went to her house to see if she was home. She wasn't, but her father was and yet again, I was raped. Since I didn't know any better at the time, I didn't stop it. I stopped talking to that friend as well. I blamed myself for everything that had happened, not knowing that there was another way.

I spent most of my life dissociating, unable to trust anyone. I did not know what the weather was like, or how the trees looked. The only enjoyment I got was volleyball.

After my father died when I was 12, I began cutting myself. Pain was the only thing there to ground me when I would dissociate. Throughout high school I had panic attacks on almost a daily basis, and because I was dissociating so frequently, I was doing poorly in almost all of my classes. I was told by my guidance counselor that I should not apply to colleges, because I was not cut out for it.

I discovered psychology by reading books on self-injury. When my high school offered a psychology course, I fought to get in it. It was the first time I succeeded. I got better grades, applied to college, and despite what I was told, I got in. I was still dissociating in my classes, and during a human sexuality class I realized that I really needed to get help. When I started therapy, things actually got worse. I wasn't eating and spent so much time panicking, dissociating, and obsessing that I was throwing away my life.

Almost 2 years later I discovered Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life, and finally began to gain some clarity. I convinced my therapist that ACT was the treatment that was going to help me. It did. Mindfulness was extremely difficult at first because it triggered dissociation. With enough practice, and being gentle with myself and my memories, I am now mindful on a daily basis.

Though I never thought that I could be a complete human, who could engage in life, I am. I can be present in almost everything I do. My flashbacks now are just reminder of everything that I have overcome, and how strong I am to have lived through it. I still get that punch in the gut feeling when some of the more graphic ones float in, but I am thankful for that. That feeling is difficult, but even with it I can get through my days.

I share my story to let others know that though life may be throwing you curve balls, it is easier if you catch them and carry them with you, rather than running from them. I lived through hell, and guess what, I'm still alive to talk about it. I want to help others walk through their hell so that they can smell the grass after it has been cut, and see the sunset and all of the brilliant colors it produces.

Thanks to this work, 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. I can notice the leaves on the trees and their colors. I can feel the wind. Those are great, but best of all I can cry and feel the tears. I can laugh and joke with my friends and not worry about what hurt is coming next. I can be a whole human.

The thoughts still float through my mind -- maybe I could have stopped it, it was my fault -- but I know it's just my mind lying to me in an attempt to make sense of it. I can see through that. So I thank this work for where I am in my life. It's a wonderful life, and though some days are harder than others, I'm so grateful to be alive when so many times in the past I just wanted it over.

****

There is so much pain in the world, and we know that on the holidays people in pain often suffer even more. But a message like this reminds us that courage, love, and self-compassion is available in equal measure to the pain we feel if we step forward.

On this Thanksgiving Day take the time to touch your own pain and that of others, but also notice the leaves on the trees and their colors, feel the wind, and hug someone tight who is close to you. We are so lucky just to be alive.

Peace, love and life

- S

Steven C. Hayes
Author of Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life

Holding Back from Life

Steven C. Hayes — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 12:32:56 +0000

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. Instead of being who we are, we try to be who we are not -- out of fear that we are unacceptable, perverse, or untrustworthy.

There are built in paradoxes in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. Here is one: Acceptance is not about change but it is the biggest change there is. So, too, with values. Superficially, it appears as though we need to find our values. Actually, it is more like we need to get out of our own way. And values pull for evaluation: Being right; Doing the “right” thing; Pleasing mommy; no longer feeling badly about oneself. None of that works. None of that is what we are trying to accomplish in ACT work.

Here are some questions that might be of help, just to get the right set.

What if values were a choice?
What if values were a matter that was between you and you?
What if what was at sake is a kind of self-liberation -- the liberation to be about  what you most deeply would choose to be about --- not to avoid guilt, or get applause, or otherwise objectify yourself but just to be in the world how you choose to be in the world.
What if you cannot really do it wrong ... you can just do it freely?

Here are some guides that might be helpful.

Look at what hurts you the most. Look at your deepest sense of vulnerability. What would you have to not care about for that hurt and vulnerability to not be there?
Think of the most amazing moments in your life ... times when you  feel most alive. Go inside that memory. What is the larger pattern of caring that makes that moment dear?
Assume you belong here. Assume you make a difference. Assume your being is not in question.  If you took your own sense of vitality, when is it at its highest. What larger pattern of caring  embraces that vitality?
Look not just to the future. Values are "about" that but they show up here and now. If they do not, that is not what we are talking about.

Kelly Wilson has a nice metaphor. You design a house. You build it. You would never then ask "is this my real house?" It would not make sense. This is the house you built. If it is not right for you, you redesign it, remodeling it, or move.

In the same way you choose your values. You live inside the life they structure. It does not make sense to ask "are these my real values?" as if your life is a puzzle to be solved. These are the values you've been choosing and inside that choice, life can become a process. You are free to choose again, and again, and again.

No one can countermand your values – it is one of the few things that are like that (acceptance is another ... perhaps why ACT is most about these two processes). Ironically, although values enable evaluation, they cannot be arrived at that way because it skips over choice. We have to let go of others giggling or saying we are wrong. We have to let go of the idea that there is "right way" that obviates the terror and opportunity of taking responsibility for what we stand for. Ironically, although values choices are among the most important thing we can do in life, to make these choices freely we have to hold it all very lightly, and self-compassionately.   If you have been holding back perhaps it is time to let yourself free. What do you most deeply want to be about in your life and how does that show up positively here and now?

You can let this be informed by your culture, your family, your heroes, or your God but ultimately it is between you and the person in the mirror. If you are willing to stop holding back, you cannot do it wrong because it is a process.

Maybe it is time to stop holding back.

Maybe it is time to choose.

Steven C. Hayes

Author of Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life and fellow traveler

Hard Won Wisdom in Dealing with Anxiety

Steven C. Hayes — Mon, 04 May 2009 14:26:52 +0000

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. We see that love, indeed, makes the world go 'round, or that yes there is power in going with the flow.

On a list serve for members of the public reading ACT self-help books a person who has strugged mightily with anxiety recently posted a summary of what he took away from ACT and related readings. I thought it was an awesome distillation of key ideas that reflects his hard won wisdom. I asked his permission to report it here virtually verbatim.

*********

Sometimes I've felt really good for an extended period of time, only to have anxiety return, and for it to appear unresponsive to my attempts to get rid of it.

The key phrase here is "my attempts to get rid of it". I know that for myself, I would continue to engage in daily activities, but I would do so in a way that was still unwilling to feel the feelings; still trying to push the feelings away. Any time you sense yourself trying to push the feelings away, that's experiential avoidance, which is the core pathology of anxiety disorders. It is very important to recognize this mode of mind for what it is.

In these circumstances, it has been useful for me to be very clear about what I can and cannot control, and where I can make choices. Some of the following quotes and phrases taken from various ACT sources have been helpful reminders for me:

In essence, the practice is always the same: instead of falling prey to a chain reaction of self-hatred, we gradually learn to catch the emotional reaction and drop the story lines.

Life is a choice. Anxiety is not a choice. Either way you go, you will have problems and pain. So your choice here is not about whether or not to have anxiety. Your choice is whether or not to live a meaningful life.

You choose a path; a direction, not an immediate outcome. You don't choose how to feel or what pops into your head. You can choose a path that leads towards what you value or you can choose avoidance and fusion. Your choice.

Willingness is a skill you can learn. It just takes practice and patience. But you can learn it.

Because we don't control our feelings or thoughts, it's not our job to worry about them. They rise and fall of their own accord if we don't struggle with them. Instead, we can focus on what is within our control. We do choose:

What we pay attention to.
How we pay attention; struggle or willingness: Am I willing to move "with" thoughts and feelings? YES or NO. Am I willing to let them be without either trying to push them away or pursue them? YES or NO. Will I "Leap"? YES or NO. Will I love? YES or NO.
What we do.

Rather than disavowing pain, you can learn to just acknowledge it, let it be as it is (a temporary uncomfortable feeling), not as what your mind says it is (a bad, terrible, dangerous, solid thing), and bring kindness and a nonjudgmental quality to that experience. When you do that, there is nothing to fight against, nothing to eliminate. There's nothing to be fixed. Nothing to resolve. These are not solid things. No need to be anything other than what you are experiencing. This stance is powerful, and cuts the suffering right out of anxiety and fear.

This is critical to understand. Fear will keep you trapped so long as you are unwilling to have it, touch it, and let it be. Life is about pain once in a while. And, when we step in the direction of something we care about, we often risk experiencing something that we'd rather not experience -- hurt, regret, sadness, loss, anger, abandonment, anxiety, fear, remorse. If we operate from the perspective that our pain is something that mustn't be had, the trap is sprung. Pain transforms in that instant and becomes a problem to be solved just like other problems that must be solved. Yet, we cannot problem solve ourselves out of our own pain. All that effort to get a foothold on our anxiety can pull us out of our lives in a flash.

*********

Various ACT writers seem to be in that distillation (myself, Russ Harris, Georg Eifert and John Forsyth) as well as Pema Chodron and perhaps others. But it is not the words that I want to recognize. It is the hard won wisdom from a life being lived that I honor here. I see in the words he holds dear a human heart being liberated.

Steven C. Hayes, University of Nevada

If you are a member of the public reading ACT self-help books (e.g., Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life, or the Mindfulness and Acceptance workbooks, or the Happiness Trap and so on) and wish to join the conversation go to http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/ACT_for_the_Public/join

Compassion For the Child Within

Steven C. Hayes — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 14:25:52 +0000

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.

The core of the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) work can be put into six words: Acceptance, defusion, self, now, values, and action. Almost any book about ACT will walk through these processes. But we can get a sense of what they are really about more quickly by thinking of that child within.

Imagine yourself as a child, and a time when a hurt you are feeling now was first being felt.

Acceptance is taking in your history as it is ... much like giving that child a hug. The compassionate part of us would not slap a child for feeling fear or sadness, yet we do the functional equivalent so readily to ourselves as adults.

Defusion is about backing out of the judgmental chatter ... much like rocking a child who is telling of school yard taunts. We instinctively we know that the real issue is not the logical arguments that might be thrown against the taunts so much as it is just being held, and yet as adults we live our lives inside those arguments, fighting to be right.

A transcendent sense of self is about seeing through the outer forms to the consciousness within ... much as when we marvel at the spark of awareness behind the eyes of a child who is taking it all in. We would know not to take the self-concepts of a child for who he are she really is, and yet as adults we build these self-concepts into gigantic egoistic structures which we defend at all costs and which we then allow to control our lives.

The present moment is being able to attend flexibly, looking at the world with freshness and openness. Part of what attracts us to children is how they can sometimes bring us into the present moment, and we see in their vitality and play some of the joy we can find there. Yet as adults we so often drift away into compulsion or self-absorption.

Values and committed action are about taking charge of your life and what you want it to be about ... like creating a space for that child to play and grow, knowing that the adult things that need to be taken care of are being taken care of without demanding that the child within stop playing and grow up instantly.

A women on the "ACT for the Public" list serve (I'll put the link below) struggling with depression was writing recently about her time in a homeless children's shelter. Lonely and abandoned, she told the story of being forced to eat something that the house mother knew literally made her sick, and then being put in a linen closet for the night when she threw up. Her story was so sad, but it was filled also with words of judgment about that little girl.

What I said in my post was to use her posture toward that child within as a guide. Although the content would differ from person to person, the questions I found myself asking I think are of some general applicability, so I will repeat them here. I asked her to think about her relationship to the little girl within and asked:

"Without acceptance is she being told by you to stop being afraid or ‘weak'?

Without defusion is she being told by you to shut up and pretend?

Without a transcendent sense of self is she being told by you that she might indeed be as worthless as her treatment?

Without flexible attention to the present moment is she either being ignored by you or stared at like a damaged object?

Without values is she being told by you to create safety for all the grown ups instead of the other way around?

Without committed action is she being told by you to take care of herself even though she is the one needing care?"

When we do unhealthy things we step away from the child within. When the black dog of depression is being fed, the child within is terrified. When the alienation story gets thick, the child within is abandoned. When the anger goes inward, the child within is also a focus.

From an ACT perspective the only way the child part of us can be listened to, respected, loved, cared for, and allowed to play is if the grown up part of us chooses a vital and self-compassionate path, that acknowledges pain and yet carries it forward into a life worth living. It is sometimes hard to find a place to do that for ourselves. If that is the case, there is an alternative. Imagine yourself as a child, and a time when a hurt you are feeling now was first being felt.

Do it for that child.

Steven C. Hayes
University of Nevada
Author of Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life

(the link to the ACT for the Public list is: http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/ACT_for_the_Public/join)

A Sunset Mode of Mind

Steven C. Hayes — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 00:10:37 +0000

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. On this day following Valentine's Day we should add that unless we learn to rein it in, we cannot love, except by accident (as we say, by "falling" in love).

Let me ask a weird question. If George is smaller than Fred, but Sam is bigger than Fred, who is biggest? George or Sam?

Any school child can arrive at the right answer. Two relations were combined to get there - between George and Fred, and Fred and Sam. Each is literally untrue, of course. The word "George" is not smaller than the word "Fred," for example. But we let the words "stand for" things and then we work out the little network of relations in the abstract world of our own minds.

Relating symbols is part of how we imagine futures that have never been. We might imagine "it would be better to plant the seeds in this way ... so we will have more food in the winter" even though we've never actually planted them that way. That is useful. But with the same skills we can imagine "despite all my successes I am a failure." If George can be smaller than Sam for no particular reason, then the same applies to acheivment and failure. No matter how successful, how handsome or beautiful, or how much loved, it is possible for us to be a total and absolute failure inside our own minds if we buy into the thinking that takes us there. That is horrifying.

These cognitive tools we use to solve problems can create an imaginary universe in which we are the problem. Our histories contain pain, rejection, and betrayal. All of us. That can so easily now become a "problem" and yet our histories will never leave us. The "problem" is not solvable inside the mode of mind that created it.

We can compare ourselves to an ideal and discover that we are wanting. That too is now a problem. Yet we will never be ideal.

And right after Valentine's Day it is worth noting how these same skills can be applied to the people we love, who (surprise, surprise) are not reacting precisely as we would want. They are also now a problem. These sweet, loving, amazing creatures who walk through life with us will never be the perfection our problem solving mode of mind can demand.

In our work in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) we help people learn to be more flexible - to use a problem-solving mode of mind when we need it but without allowing it mindlessly to drain us of the vitality we contain. The acceptance, defusion, and mindfulness methods needed to be flexible in that way are powerful - we know that as a scientific fact. You can learn them now from many ACT books including my own, Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life. But it is helpful to get an even more immediate sense of what is possible.

Imagine a sunset that you look on with profound appreciation. It is unique. There is not another such sunset on the planet. Wow.

When looking at a sunset we can experience simple appreciation. All of us could go back into a problem-solving mode of mind of course, as if it was important that there should be a little more pink here or a little more blue there. But we do not, or at least not normally. It would violate the beauty of the moment and we sense that. Instead we appreciate.

A sunset mode of mind is transformational. It is every bit as powerful as a problem solving mode of mind. And just as a problem-solving mode of mind is available every conscious moment, so too is a sunset mode of mind.

What would your marriage look like if you looked at your spouse as you would a sunset? What would your friends look like? What would your own history look like? What would that scared or sad little kid inside look like?

Several days ago I was at a party celebrating a successful doctoral defense. There was speech after speech about the much-loved new doctor. Finally his mother stood up and explained that she had never in her whole life spoke in front of a group. Never. Not once. It was far too frightening. But in honor of her son she proceeded to give one of the most loving and moving speeches anyone had ever heard. When she finished every one of the 200 eyes in the room was wet. The love in the moment was tangible. It was like whipped cream you could gobble down in gulps without feeling full. It was wonderful.

I would bet a thousand dollars not a single person sat back and focused on a thought like "what is wrong with her that she has been so afraid?" Such judgmental thoughts, if they occurred, were allowed to drift by because they were so irrelevant in the face of the beautiful sunset of a mother's profound love for her child. Fear did not matter.

Such is the power of a sunset mode of mind.

On this day after Valentine's Day is worth taking just a moment to appreciate those we love. I do not mean to evaluate them as being wonderful. I mean simply to appreciate their wholeness and humanity, beyond any judgment. Full of pinks and blues, each of our loved ones is a sunset, if we but see them for who they really are. Take a moment and look with wonder. Your problem solving mode of mind may object but your sunset mode of mind can see what else is true.

Wow.

Happy Valentine's Day.

- S

Steven C. Hayes
University of Nevada

(and thanks to my colleague Kelly Wilson for the sunset metaphor)

Inaugural Tears

Steven C. Hayes — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 16:55:19 +0000

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. My mother suddenly lept up, ran to the TV, spit on the screen, turned it off and left the room.

In the sudden, startling quiet I realized that I'd witnessed something important, but not what it was. I often had a vague sense that my mother was just a bit strange. This was just another indication. She was not like the mothers of the other children in my neighborhood. She was somehow different.

I did not know then that even her name was unknown to me. Her maiden name was not Ruth Eileen Dreyer. It was Ruth Esther Dreyer. I did not know she was Jewish. I did not know then that her own father, caught up in German nationalism, told her not to tell anyone she had "tainted blood." I did not know then that dozens of her aunts and uncles and cousins had died in ovens at the hands of that funny looking man.

I know I will cry in the next few minutes. Not because I'm a Democrat. Not even because I'm an American. I will cry because of the wounds we all carry. I will cry because of the hope we can find a better way.

It is easy to find the wounds that come from blows directed at people connected to us, even if we actually never met them. "Our people," we say, to speak of such connections. I can cry at the story of Uncle Leo, his wife and his two small children, going to their graves on packed floating graveyard called the Struma while struggling and failing to get to Israel. "It hit a mine," I was told as a teenager. Only after the fall of the Soviet Union did our family learn that it was more. Stalin ordered the doomed vessel sunk rather than have it drift to Russian shores, packed to the railings with the likes of them.

It is even easier to understand the emotional impact of blows directed at yourself or your family. I remember the look on the face of the prim white secretary of the social club in a southern town in 1973. The club owned the pool we were splashing in. She's been asked to speak with us, she said. "Your baby is rather brown," she added awkwardly, looking back and forth at me, my wife, and our baby. At first I thought she was concerned about little Camille getting sunburned - before I realized we were about to be asked to leave. We were being asked to leave because of the sweet brown face of my 3 and a half year old Latina/African American daughter. A sick feeling came over me - not anger, but the sick feeling from knowing I would never be able to protect her fully from what she would face in life.

It is harder, much harder, to find the dark places inside and to be fully honest about the wounds they create. We laughed at those ethnic jokes. God help us, we did. We locked our car doors when driving through that poor black neighborhood. We felt the shock, that we quickly tried to hide, when we first heard of gay marriage. If we are honest, brutally honest, we know that in some of the thousand forms he knows to take, that funny little man lurks inside us. Every one of us. If you look closely you can see him leering back from the mirror. If you go to the rigid, defended, frightened, angry, judgmental parts of your own heart, you will see. He resides there.

I know the election of a black man heals none of these wounds. I know that. Still, his election means something - so deep that it is hard to put into words. Right inside the wounds we carry is a yearning. It is a yearning to reach through the fear and hate, without and within, and to connect, to embrace, to love, to serve.

I will cry in the next few minutes. I will cry because of the bittersweet mixture of pain and caring, and the amazingly uplifting reality of this moment.

We can do better. Yes, my much loved Ruth Esther; yes the great uncle I never met; yes, my poor frightened club secretary; yes my beautiful daughter Camille; yes, Steve in the mirror. Yes. Yes.

Yes we can.

- S

Steven C. Hayes, University of Nevada

A Human Life Is Not a Problem to be Solved

Steven C. Hayes — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 04:48:34 +0000

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.

He was not actually wiping his face. That was a cover so that he could put his fingers on his neck and feel how fast his heart was beating. To his dismay he found that it was still above 160 beats a minute - a rate only hard exercise could produce even though he had not moved in nearly half an hour. And he was not actually looking at the trees and grass. Instead he was wondering how he could possibly stand up, and walk that 500 yards to a classroom filled with undergraduate faces, and still make sound come out of his mouth.

That young man was me.

Nearly 30 years ago I developed a panic disorder. A productive and successful young academic, I soon found myself struggling to give a lecture, to speak on the phone, or to ride in an elevator. Even sitting on a park bench was a struggle. From the outside I appeared calm - but on the inside I felt I was dying. Literally.

Over just a handful of years, my body became a focus of terror; my thoughts a source of torment. Some of my experiences at the height of this struggle now seem so alien to me that it is only with difficulty that I can imagine the mindset that produced them. I'll share one, knowing for many it may simply seem incomprehensible.

An airline attendant stood at the front of a plane and described how to use the passenger seatbelts. I watched with a sense of amazement and incredulity, as one might gaze at an impossibly skilled athletic feat during the Olympics. I remember thinking "how can she do that without being terrified?!! She has to say all of those specific words, and they have to be right, and do it in front of a plane full of people!" Now this memory seems very strange, but I remember that is was not strange at all at the time. That is how far my mind had carried me.

At the level of content, the problem I was suffering from was seemingly my intense anxiety, and a lack of self-confidence and self-esteem. The mode of mind I used to address these problems was logical, sensible, and content-focused. I thought I know what I should be feeling, sensing, thinking, and remembering, but what I was experiencing was far from these expectations. Between these two was a discrepancy that needed to be closed. Like a person lost on the way to a destination, my mind reviewed how I got here, carefully looking for wrong turns and mistaken landmarks. And it looked forward, projecting endless possible routes that might have the desired effect. The discrepancy would be closed and my problem would be solved. My feelings would become normal. My thoughts would ease. I would be myself again.

Unfortunately, entering into this mode of mind turned my life into a problem to be solved, not a process to be experienced. Instead of leading to solutions, it disempowered me so profoundly that I could almost sense my life energy draining away in real time. The instant I applied this mode of mind to myself my worst fear was confirmed. There was something wrong with me. I had to fix it before I could move forward. Life needed to be put on hold while my emotions, thoughts, and sensations were readjusted. There was something deeply, deeply wrong.

I was like a person running a race whose first step was to cut himself off at the knees. I was drawn into the mental whirlpool of panic disorder and agoraphobia. Gasping for a bit of psychological air, one compromise followed another as I avoided more and more. The emotional monster I was struggling took one piece of my life after another until my career, my ability to function, and even life itself was in question. Sitting on the park bench, I wondered if there was a way out.

I think my personal story exemplifies the errors both the helping professions and popular culture have often made in adjusting to a new reality. Modern technological success is a product of our ability to solve problems. In part as a result we have enormously overfed a logical, discrepancy-based, problem-solving mode of mind. It works wonderfully well in many areas but easily creates suffering when it is applied within. Nevertheless, with every scientific and technological advance, a discrepancy-based mode of mind grows stronger, and our ability to be present, aware, and flexible grows weaker. Yet we as a culture seem to be dedicated to the idea that "negative" human emotions need to be fixed, managed, or changed -- not experienced as part of a whole life. We are treating our own lives as problems to be solved, as if we can sort through our experiences for the ones we like and throw out the rest.

In the modern world, the struggles we face are often not logical, they are psychological. As a culture we are not handling them well. Instead of a discrepancy-based mode of mind we need to develop a modern integrated style of consciousness that can take us out of our minds and into our lives. Acceptance, mindfulness, and values are key psychological tools needed for that transformative shift.

In my previous note I asked "why now?" The short answer is "because these are needed now."

In this blog I will walk through them, and the scientific evidence for them ... but I also want to ground this journey in personal experience. I do that not because an "N of 1" is determinative, nor because what is true for me is thus true for all. Science is a far better filter for "truth" in that sense. Rather, contact with that level provides a kind of anchor to the ground. For me writing, but also for you reading and reacting.

I read a post from Martha Beck's (the O Magazine columnist) blog today that spoke to what I'm trying to say. She said something to the effect that we as a culture are on a journey to a different kind of consciousness and folks need to stand up and speak to these issues. She acknowledged the danger in doing that, namely, that it risks generating more self-proclaimed know-it-alls spouting rules for others. I liked her solution: when we lose the integrity of speaking from a personal truth, we lose the meaning of what is said. People sense that. It is inherently self-limiting.

So I start here with a personal story for this reason: our shared consciousness is always personal. You can check to see if what is being said rings true using that same filter -- not at a mindy, judgmental level, but at a deeper level. You may not have had panic, but I know you know something of the pain of which I speak. You may not have looked in wonder at a airline attendant, but I know that you know how you've limited your own vision. This is the world we all live in -- is it not? We live in a world that turns our own lives into problems to be solved, and in that very moment objectifies and dehumanizes the process of living, loving and contributing as whole human beings.

The pain of self-objectification is a crucible for the new consciousness I am speaking about. If you know nothing of it, this blog will not speak to you. If you do, let's both keep our eyes wide.

Peace, love, and life on this New Year's Day

- S

Steven C. Hayes, University of Nevada

Acceptance, Mindfulness, and Values: Why Now?

Steven C. Hayes — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 20:02:15 +0000

Interest in acceptance, mindfulness, and values has exploded over the last several years. You can see the trend in the popularity of works by authors such as Eckhart Tolle, the visibility of the Dalai Lama, or the impact of Rick Warren. You can see it on this website if you watch for just a few weeks. People are being asked to come into better contact with the present; to be less attached, entangled and avoidant; and to focus more on purpose and meaning.These changes raise a question. Why now? None of these topics and approaches are new. They have been puttering along for decades, with notable periods of popularity (remember the Maharishi?). Why the resurgence of popularity?

Some of the answers might be trivial. The children of the late 1960's and early 1970's are now in leadership roles, for example. Perhaps we are just witnessing a cultural echo from times past. Said more directly: the hippies are now in charge. As an old guy who probably spent more time in his youth than he should have hanging around Golden Gate Park in San Francisco in a somewhat altered state of consciousness I secretly think that reason has more truth to it than we want to admit. But that cannot explain all of it. Much of thie current interest comes from folks who would not know hippie hill from their tennis shoes.

Some answers may be more substantial, such as the science that shows that these ideas are supported by a growing body of objective evidence.

But I think the most profound reason is far deeper. These changes are more than what generational trends or even positive evidence can explain. I suspect it is because normal human beings need something right now - they yearn for something right now -- that acceptance, mindfulness, and values may help provide.

The human mind did not evolve for the present day. If you try to count up the number of words the average child was exposed to in the developmental period 200 years ago the number is not very large. Talks with family and friends don't yield a huge number of words and books were a precious commodity. Whatever number you come to, children are exposed to several times that number just from television alone. Modern technology has create a fire hose of human language in the expansion of the communication media. Radio, mp3 recorders, cell phones, film, and computers are spouting a constant stream of images and sound, not to mention magazines, newspapers,and books.

We can add to the cacophony by arranging for multiple inputs at the same time. It is not uncommon to be reading a magazine while watching TV, or listening to the radio while working on the computer. A Pandora internet radio station is playing right now on my iPhone, while I'm typing at my computer, and vaguely noting the sound of a morning television show my wife is watching in the other room. My teenaged kids can top that easily, multi-tasking among many more media sources at once.

And what is in the gush words and images we have unleashed on ourselves? Everything imaginable is there, of course, but if you slow it down and look you will see that images of courage, love, and connection, are simply being overwhelmed by pain, horror, criticism, and judgment.

There is a phrase known to those who structure our communications media: if it bleeds it leads. Pain sells. I logged in the media content during a randomly selected morning a month or two ago just to see if my instincts were correct. I was told that a scientist committed suicide, two children were kidnapped, there was a cholera outbreak in Iraq, and a passenger on a bus was decapitated simply for choosing the wrong seat. Sleep apnea is more deadly that once thought, GM lost 15 billion dollars in three months, and a man dismembered a teenager and stuffed her into a suitcase.

All of that before the coffee had time to cool.

Meanwhile, as I flip through the newspaper, fiddle with the channel changer, stop by the grocery store, and mouse through my homepage I find that politicians are calling each other liars; immigrants are being blamed and defended; and the latest fallen Hollywood start is being subjected to a delicious combination of fascination and ridicule. Television judges are ranting, cable news experts are rhetorically ripping at each other's flesh, and the magazine at the check out counter is only too happy to display the cellulite-riddled rear end of a fading soap opera personality.

Even though all of this is a product of our collective ability to imagine and create, the human mind did not evolve for such a world. Like a couch potato gorging on another bag of chips, we are feeding this organ between our ears a constant diet of pain, horror, criticism, and judgment which it is only too happy to stuff down its mental throat. We risk being psychologically overwhelmed by the result. We seem to lose ourselves in the noise - unable to sit with our pain, and yet unable to avoid it. And we lose flexible contact with others in our mental entanglement, unable to reach through the tangled web of human judgment. Compassion, connection, community, and peace of mind disappear into the chatter.

A 10 day silent retreat begins to seem not just attractive, but downright necessary.

The mind is a problem solving organ that allows us to deal with events in imagination before they are faced in reality. That is an amazing skill. Over the last 10,000 years a weak, slow, and poorly defended creature has taken over the planet - and all because we could fear bad outcomes, predict their occurrence, and take steps to avoid them.

That worked just fine when the primary dangers were hunger, drought, or an animal with large teeth. This problem solving organ proved its value in such areas. Many - perhaps even most - of the real world difficulties a person faced centuries ago are handled in the modern world.

But the same organ that produced this change is now turning on its owner. Where can we run today that the decapitated bus passenger will not find us? Where will we sit that the dismembered teenager will not loom? What activity, pill, or bottle will sooth us from the horror of the images we see? And what will prevent the judgmental skills we are honing with every cable news shout cast from being turned on ourselves as we look in the mirror and find a person who is too fat, too old, or, ironies of ironies, too critical and judgmental?

One obvious answer is to withdraw. Throw out the TV sets, turn off the iPhones. Oh please. I'm old enough to remember. That is exactly what many of the folks on hippie hill tried to do. Go "Back to the Land." Find a simpler time.

It did not work. All it gave us was hippie conservatives, rifles in hand, asking strangers to get off their property.

Acceptance, mindfulness, and values are important right now for a simple reason. In order to prosper inside the modern world we have created we need to learn to relate to our own minds in a different way. We cannot retreat. We have to move forward, but in a different way. Many of the methods that seem to work are ancient. Others we are creating. I hope to share some of these over time here. But one thing seems clear: the need is now.