Values

Up to now I've covered the first two thirds of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. If you have been trying the exercises, hopefully you have developed a little bit of confidence in being able to be present to the moment and your internal experiences (thoughts, feeling, sensations, memories, urges). To review, acceptance in this context is not approval, but awareness. Awareness so that these internal experiences are less likely to blindly influence your reactions, or drag you i

In the last reflection, we considered the “ choice point ," or the moment when we can turn either toward or away from our values. We can choose actions which move us towards living in line with our values and goals, or we can choose actions which move us away from them. Here in lies a fundamental problem of being human. It's just not easy. Or, summarized by St. Paul in Romans: " What I do, I do not understand. For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate." In our imperfe

In the last reflection, we considered the call to return, over and over again, to the God who invites us out of fear and self-reliance. That “return” is not only a spiritual image but also something that happens in the most ordinary moments of our day. Each time we act, we are making a choice. In spirituality, the choice is between the choice that draws us closer to the person God calls us to be, or one that carries us away from that call. In psychology, this is named in a bi

“Even now,” declares the Lord, “return to Me with all your heart.” (Joel 2:12) The Christian life is a continual return. Again and again, God invites us to turn from distraction, fear, and self-reliance, and to come back to Him with trust. In the last blog, I spoke about the serious difficulty posed when trust is injured through highly chaotic relationships or trauma. But even in more ordinary circumstances, humans are ones to prefer to plan, to choose, and to control what h