Being Hooked — and Unhooked

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 imperfect nature, we simply have difficulty always choosing the choice which will be best for our health or relationships, or bring us closer to God, or just keep us out of trouble. Even with prayer, which is incredibly important to this process - necessary, in fact - we still have to put in effort. We have to do the emotional and spiritual work.

When We Get Hooked

Bringing it back to the choice point, those moments don’t usually feel like calm, clear decisions. More often, we find ourselves caught up in thoughts, memories, emotions, urges, or bodily sensations. Before we know it, we've reacted instead of intentionally choosing action. Maybe a flash of shame makes us withdraw. A surge of anger pushes us to say something harsh. A wave of anxiety tempts us to control what can’t be controlled.

In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, this is called being hooked. We get hooked when a thought, memory, feeling, etc. grabs ahold of us so tightly that it becomes the driver of our behavior. These are the moments when our actions drift (or run) away from what we most deeply value. We’ve been snagged by the mind’s old stories and fears.

Our Unique Experiences

It's important to pause to note something here. How hooked we get varies from person to person, and within a person from day to day or situation to situation.

Some people are built for success in this area, and others are at a disadvantage. If you have a naturally strong ability for impulse control and affect regulation, learning to slow down and make an intentional choice will come to you more naturally. Chances are you have made it to adulthood with this skill developing pretty nicely.

If you have neurological deficits in impulse control (like with ADHD) or affect regulation (like bipolar disorder), it's going to be harder. By virtue of your neurology, you are going to get hooked more easily and with greater force. If you have a history of trauma, there's a chance your neurobiology has been altered to also make this more difficult. If you had healthy adults raising and educating you, it's going to feel more natural. If not, you may feel very lost as to how to do this.

This is a moment when we need to remember, with compassion, that mental health issues are not moral failures.

It's also important to note that for everyone these things are also harder at times. We're more vulnerable to reactions versus choices after a bad night's sleep, when we're hungry, or at the end of the day when we've spent our mental energy. In times of grief or other stress there is lower bandwidth to engage in the mental processes and spiritual practices which help. But there is a difference between not caring, or excusing ourselves from needing to try, versus trying and failing.

Becoming Unhooked

So how to work on this?

To become unhooked doesn’t mean fighting the thought or forcing the feeling to go away. We don't repress the urge or desire. We don't "try not to think about it." It means stepping back, noticing what’s happening, and remembering that we are more than the swirl of what we think and feel.

Let's start with thoughts, In ACT, this skill is called defusion: learning to see our thoughts as thoughts, rather than as facts or commands. When we pause long enough to say, “I’m noticing the thought that my boss is out to get me,” or “I’m having the thought that I can’t handle this,” or "I'm thinking the thought I don't want to go to Mass" we make some space. With some practice, and it takes some of us a lot of practice, we can learn to become an observer of the thought and not a slave to it.

For feelings, urges, memories, and the like, the skill is called experiential acceptance: learning to let these things rise up in us like a storm, but remaining anchored within the knowledge that it is a part of our experience but not all consuming. We pause to say "I'm noticing the feeling of sadness," or "I'm having the urge to drink," or "I'm experiencing the memory of that fight." We make some space.

This is harder said than done. That ability to be in the present moment fully is something I've talked about and something we'll get back to. There are many skills that we can work on to learn to navigate these things. For now, let's focus on a skill that's also prayer.

Grace and Freedom

From a Christian perspective, defusion and experiential acceptance echoes the invitation to live from the deeper place of the soul, where the Spirit dwells, rather than from the impulses that rush through our wounded or fearful selves. When we pause, we make room for grace to enter. The pause itself becomes a prayer. It's a small act of surrender that turns our will to God and asks for help to move beyond our thoughts and feelings and desires. That pause says, “Lord, here I am again. Help me return to You.”

Getting unhooked isn’t a one-time victory. It’s a gentle practice of awareness and return, or the very rhythm of conversion that shapes Christian life. Each time we notice we’ve been caught and turn back toward love, we participate in the mercy of God, who never tires of drawing us close.

In this way, psychological flexibility becomes spiritual practice: the freedom to love, to trust, to act in faith even when our thoughts and feelings clamor for control. As St. Paul also wrote, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.” And in that freedom we can keep returning to God, unhooked, open, and ready again to choose love.