ACT Bites - Defusion

Greetings and welcome back to Actubites.

We are making our way around the hexaflex,

Starting with Acceptance.

And this,

Our second stop,

Considers the idea of cognitive diffusion.

So,

Have you ever had a thought that completely hijacked your thinking so that you couldn't think of anything else?

I think we've all had that experience.

This kind of thought keeps on repeating in your mind on an endless loop with maybe some variations.

Maybe it's a voice in your head saying,

I'm going to mess up again.

I know it.

I've messed up so many times.

This time is no different.

I'm just waiting for it to mess up.

I know,

I know it's going to happen.

It may get progressively more critical and give you a plethora of historical reasons based on your past actions that support the present expectation that you will fail again.

Or it could be some disappointment that you've had in the past that you fear will happen again.

Or some loss that you've experienced in the past due to your actions that you think will happen again or expect to happen again.

When that happens.

We usually do one of two things.

We either fight the thought with a counter-internal argument.

No,

I'm not going to fail.

No,

I'm not a failure.

Trying to argue it down with positive thinking.

Or we completely buy into it,

Treating it as an absolute truth.

And act.

Buying into a thought like this is called cognitive thinking.

Fusion.

So try this for a minute.

Take off your glasses if you are wearing glasses.

And put your hands up to your eyes so that you cover completely press into your eyes so that there's no daylight possible going through.

So with this here.

.

.

With these hands on your face like this,

You can't see where you're going.

You can't interact with anybody.

You can't have any conversations.

And because your hands are occupied blocking your eyes,

You don't have anything to hold on to or.

.

.

You can't use your hands to do the things that you want to do.

Playing guitar or.

.

.

Making things or something like that.

It's totally occupied.

So this is the same as the.

Cognitive Fusion.

The thoughts occupy the mind entirely and do not allow you to engage with the world as you would wish to do.

So there you are.

Yeah,

It's like that.

But then when you drop your hands away,

Something different happens.

But the good news is.

.

.

There's a different way to handle your mind.

It's a skill that can be learned.

And developed through practice.

It's called cognitive.

Diffusion.

So cognitive diffusion works.

Is the process of stepping back.

Taking those hands away from your eyes and placing them flat on your lap.

Your hands haven't disappeared.

They're still in the room,

Attached to you,

Hopefully.

But you can look at them.

Instead of through them.

You have a different and meaningful change in perspective.

When we practice diffusion,

We change our relationship to our thoughts.

We stop trying to fix,

Change or banish them.

Instead,

We learn to see thoughts for what they actually are.

Just mental language.

Just story.

Just words floating through our minds.

Let's look at a clear example to see how this shifts our internal space.

Imagine the thought.

I am a failure.

When you are fused with that thought,

It feels heavy.

Permanent.

Like a fact.

It dictates your mood and your actions.

You go through life with heavy steps knowing that failures imminent,

Whatever you do.

We've all had this experience.

No.

Let's apply the first layer of diffusion.

So rephrase the thought,

I am a failure,

Like this.

I am having the thought that I am a failure.

Notice the very subtle shift.

You've put a tiny bit of daylight between you and the thought.

That gap.

Is the beginning of change.

Let's take it one step further.

And add the word I notice.

So it sounds like this now.

I notice I'm having the thought that I am a failure.

So here we've increased the gap between the observer and the thought.

So suddenly there are two distinct entities in your mind,

If that's possible.

There is the thought itself.

And then there is you.

The conscious observer.

Who is watching the thought pass by.

You may say it's a mental trick,

But it's.

.

.

Very effective.

The thought hasn't changed.

But its power over you has changed dramatically.

Interestingly,

We can ask our minds.

Why we do this in the first place.

It's not a question that we think about in our normal day-to-day lives until we notice the nature of that self-talk that continues on in our brains until we do something about it.

Our brains evolved to be survival machines.

Not happiness machines.

In fact,

Our ancestors who spent their time being happy weren't the ones that survived.

So to an early human.

A shadow in the bushes could be a tiger.

Or it could be an ambushing tribe of rivals looking for it.

Resources of their own.

The mind learned to treat internal warnings or intuitions with extreme urgency.

If your brain screamed,

Danger!

You didn't pause to analyze it.

You ran,

Or you turned and prepared to fight.

That is our instinctive response.

Today,

However,

We don't encounter many tigers,

Hopefully.

But our brains still use that same urgent survival-driven programming.

For modern stressors.

When your mind says you're incompetent.

It delivers that thought with the exact same weight as if a predator were standing right in front of you.

We get fused.

With those thoughts because our brains are incredibly good at making words feel like physical realities.

But here's the good news.

A thought is not a command.

And it's not a legal document.

Just because your mind says you can't handle this doesn't mean it's an objective truth.

Diffusion allows us to notice the mind's warnings without automatically letting them dictate our actions and reactions.

Because diffusion is a skill,

It takes practice.

Here are three simple,

Practical techniques you can use anytime you notice that your mind becomes too fused.

The first technique is called naming the story.

Our minds tend to repeat themselves.

You might notice the same old worries coming up week after week,

Day after day,

And so on.

When a familiar wave of anxiety hits,

Instead of getting tangled in it,

Try labeling it.

Say to yourself,

Ah,

There's the I'm not good enough story again.

Or there's the everything is going wrong show playing in the back of my mind.

By naming it as a familiar narrative,

You remind yourself that it's just an old story repeating in the background.

The second technique.

Thanking your mind.

When your brain starts throwing worst-case scenarios at you,

Treat it.

Like an overprotective,

Slightly neurotic friend.

Instead of arguing,

Simply say,

Thank you,

Mind.

Thank you for trying to protect me,

But I've got this covered.

This cuts through the struggle.

And lets you get on with your life.

Technique number three.

Is called changing the delivery.

If a thought feels incredibly heavy,

Try changing how it sounds.

Repeating the troubling thought in your head,

But do it in a voice of a cartoon character.

Or imagine it printed on a giant neon billboard on a ridiculous font.

It sounds silly.

But it instantly strips away the unearned authority.

We give to our inner critics.

It exposes the thought just as a thought or a collection of words.

I'm not good enough.

Try it,

You'll be surprised.

You will notice that each time you notice and apply a diffusion technique.

That your self-talk starts to change in character.

And it may actually drop away completely.

What a relief that is.

Just think how much your mental bandwidth will expand if you free it up from the spin.

Mental critic that's chattering away in the background all the time.

It is possible to free yourself from that through diffusion.

Thanks for watching and see you again soon.