Hi,
I'm Dr.
Diana Hill.
I'm a clinical psychologist.
I'm a specialist in ACT,
Or Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.
And ACT is all about developing your psychological flexibility.
If you think about physical flexibility,
What it allows you to do when your body is flexible,
You can get around obstacles while you're more agile.
If you trip up,
Maybe you can get your footing a little bit faster.
And physical flexibility allows you to move your body and go places that you want it to go.
Maybe you can train a little harder because you're physically flexible.
Psychological flexibility is really similar.
It's in the psychological realm though.
So it's your ability to stay present.
To open up to your inner experience and to choose behaviors that serve your values,
Even when life gets difficult.
Could you allow everything that was happening inside of you happen and still act in a way that you feel good about,
You know,
Later that day or a few weeks later?
That's psychological flexibility.
It's an evidence-based approach.
Been over 1,
400 randomized controlled trials on ACT,
Showing that when you are more psychologically flexible,
You are more resilient,
You're better able to overcome obstacles.
Maybe you can also handle some of the things that happen to you in your life,
Like trauma or breakups or,
Um,
Even getting fired with a little bit more agility rather than getting entangled and all caught up in your thinking or your negative self-talk or wanting to avoid it all,
You can actually move towards what's most difficult when it's aligned with what's most important to you.
So psychological flexibility is about responding more flexibly.
To what shows up inside you so that you can keep moving towards the life that you want to live.
And there's six core processes.
That we teach and act.
You'll see in my worksheets that I've broken down these worksheets based on these six core processes.
They're sort of like sides of a Rubik's cube.
They all interact with each other,
But they're all very important.
One of the processes has to do with getting to know your values,
What's most important to you.
Another process has to do with being flexible with your behavior,
Being able to take committed action,
Even when it's hard.
Another process has to do with acceptance,
Being able to open up to your full experience.
There's a process that's related to your thought.
And in ACT,
Instead of trying to change our thoughts,
We learn how to step back from or diffuse from our thoughts,
Rather than like being all caught up in the spiderweb or trying to move the spiderweb of our thinking around.
We can look at it and observe it for what it is,
A web of thinking.
There's also a process and act that has to do with your sense of self.
Developing a more interconnected and aware sense of bigger self.
And there's processes related to getting here and now,
Being present.
You may notice that a lot of the processes that we teach in ACT and that I outline instead of my worksheets and in my meditations or even in the course that I have in ACT are really familiar to other things that you're learning here on Insight Timer.
And that's because There is.
A thread.
Of these processes are about what it's like to be a fully engaged,
Alive,
Present human being.
They've been practiced all sorts of different ways over millennia.
They're just distilled into this very sort of scientific model called ACT,
Which teaches psychological flexibility.
And I like it because it has a structure to it.
It has a framework to it.
It has a path that you can follow.
So join me here.
On learning more about psychological flexibility,
Why it matters,
Practicing it with me,
And it's a joy to spend this time with you on Insight Timer.
