Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
Learning to make space for difficult thoughts and feelings while building a life that reflects what matters to you.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, often called ACT, is an evidence-based approach to therapy that helps us change our relationship with difficult thoughts, emotions and experiences.
Many of us spend a tremendous amount of energy trying not to feel certain things. We avoid situations that make us anxious. We distract ourselves from sadness. We argue with our thoughts. We overthink decisions so we don't make the wrong one. We stay busy so we don't have to slow down. We try to control uncomfortable emotions before allowing ourselves to move forward.
These strategies often make sense and sometimes they even work temporarily. But when avoiding discomfort begins determining how we live our lives, our world can become smaller.
ACT helps us learn how to make room for difficult internal experiences without allowing them to make every decision for us.
What does “acceptance” actually mean?
Acceptance doesn't mean liking what has happened, approving of it, giving up, or deciding that something doesn't need to change. Instead, acceptance means recognizing what is already here.
You might be experiencing anxiety, grief, anger, uncertainty, guilt, or sadness. Fighting with the fact that you're experiencing it doesn't necessarily make it disappear and sometimes the fight itself becomes exhausting. ACT asks a different question.
Instead of: “How do I make this feeling go away?”
We might begin asking: “Can I make room for this feeling and still choose what I want to do next?”
What can ACT help with?
ACT can be helpful when difficult thoughts and emotions have started influencing how you live, what you avoid, or the choices you make.
At Internal Nesting Wellness, we may incorporate ACT when supporting people experiencing:
Anxiety and chronic worry
Depression and low mood
Intrusive thoughts
Difficult life transitions
Identity changes
Perfectionism
People pleasing
Burnout and overwhelm
Difficulties setting boundaries
Shame and self-criticism
Relationship challenges
Difficulties with uncertainty
Feeling disconnected from yourself or what matters to you
ACT can be particularly helpful when the goal isn't necessarily to eliminate a difficult experience, but to learn how to live meaningfully alongside it.
What can I expect in an ACT session?
ACT is collaborative, experiential, and often very practical. Rather than spending every session trying to determine whether a thought is true or false, we may become curious about what happens when you listen to that thought.
For example, your mind might say: “I'm going to fail.”
Instead of spending all of our energy proving that you won't fail, we might explore:
What happens when that thought shows up?
What does it make you want to do?
What do you avoid because of it?
If the thought were still there, could you choose to do something differently anyway?
What choice would move you closer to the person you want to be?
ACT helps create some space between having a thought and having to obey it.
You are not your thoughts
Our minds produce thoughts constantly. Some are useful. Some are repetitive. Some are frightening, critical, strange, judgmental, or completely unwanted. Having a thought doesn't necessarily make it true, important, or meaningful.
ACT uses a concept called cognitive defusion to help us notice thoughts as mental events rather than automatically treating them as facts.
There can be an important difference between:
“I'm not good enough.” And “I'm noticing that my mind is telling me I'm not good enough.”
The thought hasn't disappeared, but your relationship with it has started to change. Over time, the goal is not necessarily to have fewer difficult thoughts. It's to become more flexible in how you respond when they appear.
Making room for difficult emotions
ACT also recognizes something that can be difficult to accept:
Being human involves discomfort.
Grief hurts because we cared.
Anxiety often shows up when something matters to us.
Uncertainty is part of making decisions.
Vulnerability comes with meaningful relationships.
We can't build a life completely protected from sadness, fear, disappointment, rejection or loss. Trying to eliminate every uncomfortable emotion can sometimes lead us to avoid the very experiences that make life meaningful.
ACT helps us develop the capacity to experience difficult emotions without immediately needing to escape, suppress or fix them.
What matters to you?
A major part of ACT is exploring your values. Values aren't goals you accomplish and cross off a list. They're qualities that describe how you want to show up in your life.
You might value: Connection. Curiosity. Compassion. Courage. Honesty. Family. Growth. Playfulness. Independence. Creativity. Presence.
Sometimes life becomes so focused on responsibilities, expectations, and simply getting through the day that we lose touch with these things.
Therapy can create space to ask:
What actually matters to me?
What kind of partner, parent, friend or person do I want to be?
What have I been doing because I genuinely value it and what have I been doing because I'm afraid not to?
If fear wasn't making every decision, what might I move toward?
Values aren't another way to pressure yourself. Values work isn't about creating another list of things you “should” be doing. It's not about becoming a better, more productive or more impressive version of yourself. In fact, ACT often helps us notice when we've been living according to expectations that don't actually belong to us.
Sometimes therapy involves separating what matters to me from what I've learned I'm supposed to care about. That distinction can become especially important during periods of identity change, parenthood, relationship transitions, grief, burnout or major life transitions.
Taking meaningful action even when discomfort comes along
Once we understand what matters, ACT helps us identify small actions that move us in that direction. This is called committed action. The important part is that we don't necessarily wait until we feel confident, motivated, certain or anxiety-free before beginning.
You might still feel nervous while setting a boundary.
You might still feel grief while reconnecting with something meaningful.
You might still hear your inner critic while trying something new.
You might still experience uncertainty while making an important decision.
The goal isn't: “I'll do it once I'm no longer uncomfortable.” It's learning: “I can feel uncomfortable and still choose how I want to respond.”
Is ACT right for me?
You don't need to know which therapy approach you need before reaching out. Some people benefit from ACT as the primary framework for therapy. For others, we may integrate ACT concepts alongside approaches such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), DBT-informed skills, motivational approaches or other forms of therapy.
ACT can be especially helpful if you feel like you've spent a lot of time fighting with your own mind, trying to eliminate certain thoughts, avoid difficult feelings, find certainty, or wait until you feel “ready” before moving forward.
Therapy can help you develop a different relationship with those experiences. Not necessarily by making every difficult thought or feeling disappear. But by helping you build a life that isn't completely organized around avoiding them.