Last week’s blog contrasted the passive and avoidant experience of denial with acceptance, an active process of choice.  This week I’ve been thinking a lot more about these two experiences, and the complex relationship we humans have with our thoughts and feelings.  I see a lot of anxious people in my line of work, and tend to be a bit of one myself.  I am hardly in denial about things, as my anxious thoughts are quite active!  But these thoughts have the effect of controlling me and making me avoid things, just as denial can. When my mind tells me there is something to be afraid of (making a fool of myself in a presentation), it makes me want to run the other way (turn down the invitation to speak).  Though I’m not in denial, I still end up restricting my life through avoidance.  So this week, I decided to look a little closer at acceptance, to explore the paradox of how, at times, actually being less active in my thinking can lead to less avoidance in my behavior.

Cognitive fusion is a process that involves attaching a thought or feeling to an experience. Cognitive fusion is beneficial in many ways, like when we become interested in story lines in movies and books because we attach emotions to them, or we attach positive feelings to certain activities (hobbies) or people (our loved ones).  But when we fuse our negative thoughts with certain experiences, we begin to avoid those experiences.  So when I think of embarrassing myself through fears of public speaking, my fears are fused with the experience, and leads to avoidance.  

Ironically, the more we try to control thoughts and feelings, the more they tend to influence us in the long run in potentially harmful ways.  For example, have you ever tried to distract yourself from a unpleasant thoughts or feelings by binge watching or shopping?  Withdraw from certain people or opt out of certain activities because you don’t like the thoughts or feelings they bring up?  Have you tried blaming others, worrying, rehashing the past, fantasizing about “what if,” “if only,” or “why  me” in order to think your way away?  Or put substances in your body (ice cream, vodka, xanax) to get relief?  While they may have helped that day, what effect do they have over time?  Did the thoughts and feelings go away in the long run?  And what is the cost in terms of your health and vitality?

That is where acceptance comes into play.  Instead of trying to control our thoughts and feelings, we can “de-fuse” them.  If I think of giving a speech and get anxious, I can defuse this from the experience of being embarrassed and making a fool of myself.  By noticing my anxious feelings and accepting them, I can separate them from the outcome that leads me to avoid the experience and then in turn reinforces my feeling badly about myself.  

This type of acceptance involves developing a more compassionate relationship with our experiences.  As thoughts and feelings arise, the aim is not to control them by trying to stop them or change them, but to let them happen without letting them control us.  So I can be anxious, noticing my anxiety in how my hand shakes, how I feel a bit queezy in my stomach, but still go on and give the speech.  Who knows, the speech may go well.  I may embarrass myself or I may not, but I allow myself to be open to the new experience without making myself a prisoner of the past.  True acceptance is the ability to allow internal or external experience to occur instead of fighting them or trying to change them.  When we can accept our experience, we actually set ourselves free.