A New Perspective

 ACT

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)  

ACT, acceptance and commitment therapy, is a mindfulness-based therapy approach that helps clients activate around personal values. With the use of acceptance and change strategies, clients learn new ways of responding to inner experiences.  Acceptance strategies help us build tools to embrace a wider range of human emotions.  Change strategies help us better connect with our own values and commit to the life of our choosing. 

There is much pressure around us to do: multi-task, over-produce, over-function.  Mindfulness skills help us to slow down, enter our own skin and allow our inner experiences to inform us.  

Very often, we push away experiences unknowingly.  ACT helps us to experience emotions as a normal part of the  human condition.   

We can sometimes get very caught up in our own minds, a struggle that can keep us from being more present in life, keep us from paying attention to what we truly value.  ACT teaches us psychological flexibiliy.  It teaches us to notice how we respond to our inner experiences--and to shift those responses if they keep us from living a life of greater meaning.  

When we are most compassionate with ourselves, we are tending to the parts of our lives that matter deeply and that build resiliency:  self care, close relationships, community, spiritual practices, connections to nature, creativity and passions.  ACT helps us live deeper into our valued life, one small and simple commitment at a time.