Initially, our job is to help people notice just how much time we spend in our heads compared to the time we spend actively engaged in our lives.
The exact words you use to make the distinction— mental experiencing versus five- senses experiencing, inside your skin versus outside your skin, in your head versus in your life— aren’t that important. What counts is that your audience can begin to notice this important discrimination.
It can be helpful to use humorous personal examples that people can relate to, demonstrating the difference between being caught up in their head and actively participating in life. I give everyday examples until each participant fully gets this distinction, and I find sharing personal examples to be most effective. Once the distinction is clear, I ask people to self- assess how they’re doing on this continuum. I usually ask them to assign a ratio or percentage to how much time they spend in their head compared to how much time they spend actively engaged in the moment and their life. The most common answers range between 90 to 10 and 99.99 to 0.01. At this point, I generally say, “Wow, that’s amazing that you spend 99.99 percent of your time in the moment!” After sharing a
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43 good laugh, we look at how universal it is to spend the majority of our time in our head. I always give personal examples to illustrate that I’m in the same boat. The Path Up the Mountain metaphor (Hayes, Strosahl,
& Wilson, 1999) can be particularly useful during this initial phase.
Next, I turn to highlighting the primary motivations behind engag-ing in an activity: aimengag-ing to get away from somethengag-ing we don’t want to have or move toward something we do want. A PowerPoint slide with the acronym WTF comes on screen at this point. Once participants get past the shock of this not meaning what they expect it to mean, I invite them to notice “what’s the function” (WTF) behind their actions. For example, at this moment I’m writing a chapter about the matrix for the public.
The function of this action might be not letting down my dear colleagues Kevin Polk and Benjamin Schoendorff or not experiencing the feelings that would come with that. Or it could be that I engage in this action because, fundamentally, I care about making the matrix more accessible to people. The action may look the same either way. However, it will feel quite different if it’s an away move (primarily under aversive control) or a toward move (primarily under appetitive control). I find that the more personal, humorous, current, and relatable my examples are, the more quickly and effectively people can understand this distinction.
2. Using the Bull’s- Eye Worksheet to Establish a Baseline and Primary Focus
I use Russ Harris’s adaptation of the Bull’s- Eye Worksheet (Harris, 2009; Dahl & Lundgren, 2006) to help people rate how much they’re living in congruence with their values in four main life domains: rela-tionships, work or education, health and personal growth, and recreation (figure 3.1). To clarify what that means, I say, “If a video camera were following you around, how much would the actions it recorded you doing be in line with what the ideal you would do? How are you measuring up to how you want to be in this area of your life? Don’t consider how you think I think you should be or how you think your family, partner, or friends think you should be. The only gauge is how you’re doing in rela-tion to how you truly want to be.”
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I am living fully
by my values. I have lost touch
with my values.
Work/
Education Recreation
Read through your values, then mark an X in each area of the dartboard to represent where you stand today. An X in the bull’s-eye (the center of the dartboard) means that you are living fully by your values in that area of life. An X far from the bull’s-eye means that you are way off the mark in terms of living by your values.
Since there are four areas of valued living, you should mark four Xs on the dartboard.
Health/
Personal growth Relationships
The Bull’s-Eye Worksheet
Figure 3.1. The Bull’s- Eye Worksheet.
Then I ask participants to select one valued area in which they’d like to move closer to the bull’s- eye right now. The Values as a Cube meta-phor (McKay, Forsyth, & Eifert, 2010) can help establish focus while also allowing for flexibility. It likens our choice of which value to pursue in any given moment to seeing one side of a cube. Through life events or change of context, another side of the cube might come to the forefront.
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3. Identifying Unwanted Mental Experiences
Next, I walk participants through a worksheet I created based on the matrix (figure 3.2).
Personal growth Relationships
Inner World
Figure 3.2. The Prompted Bull’s- Eye Matrix Worksheet.
Encouraging participants to remain focused on the main valued domain they’ve chosen, I invite them to identify the top three thoughts they struggle with in that area. I provide examples of common thoughts people struggle with, such as I’m not good enough, There’s no point in trying, and Things don’t work out well for me. Then I elicit further examples from participants. When I ask participants to write their three thoughts, I provide a simple definition: “Thoughts are often strings of words that generally involve judgments, evaluations, or comparisons of ourselves, others, or the world. Our minds are rarely politically correct and can often give us a hard time. Write down as many of your thoughts as pos-sible, exactly as they would appear in your mind.” Again humor and per-sonal examples help normalize this experience. For example, while writing this chapter, the top three thoughts I’m struggling with are I have no idea how to write this, I bet most of the other contributors will have PhDs,
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and My chapter will probably be the one that needs the most editing— if they even accept it. The key is to model awareness of and willingness to share whatever my experience is, even when it’s difficult.
Next, I ask participants to look for the top three emotions that they get hooked by or entangled in trying to avoid in the valued domain they’re working with. I use a simple definition of emotions: “Emotions are generally words that can sum up how we’re feeling overall and aren’t tied to a particular part of the body. Examples would be ‘sad’ or ‘anxious.’”
Finally, I ask participants to identify the top three bodily sensations they most want to get rid of in that same valued domain, since these are often regarded as inner experiencing in matrix work.
Initially, people often get thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations mixed up. Our job is to reinforce their willingness to share and then help them more accurately label what they shared as a thought, emotion, or bodily sensation. Labeling accurately is important because participants will later learn different ACT strategies they can apply depending on whether they’re struggling with a thought, a feeling, or a bodily sensa-tion. I always allow enough time for participants to jot down their top three unwanted experiences in each category. Parsing in this way keeps people from getting thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations mixed up.
Time permitting, we might look at unwanted urges and memories. It can be helpful to use different colors of pens for each category of unwanted mental experiencing to underscore the differences.
4. Identifying Strategies Used to Avoid Pain
Next, using Russ Harris’s Join the DOTS approach (Harris, 2009), we look at participants’ top three away moves in four categories:
Distraction Opting out Thinking
Substances, self- harm, and other strategies
The DOTS are outlined in the top left quadrant of my matrix worksheet.
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47 For distraction, I mention common distraction strategies such as the Internet, TV, food, and so on. I define “distraction” as “any activity we engage in to try to get away from an unwanted mental experience.” I use empathy and humor to help people feel more comfortable in identifying their top three strategies in this area.
I define “opting out” as “avoiding people, activities, or situations in order to minimize or avoid feeling pain.” I give common examples, such as avoiding calls, text messages, e- mails, particular people, or job applications or other opportunities. I then elicit three examples from participants.
At this point, I draw a distinction between thoughts and the cate-gory “thinking.” Whereas thoughts are generally strings of words that appear in our mind that we have little or no control over, such as the thought I’m not good enough, thinking is how we respond to such thoughts—for example, by ruminating, challenging them, suppressing them, or engaging in positive thinking.
I explain that in ACT, we look at the category “substances, self- harm, and other strategies” from a functional point of view. Therefore, food, caffeine, and prescription medications may be included as sub-stances if used in an attempt to avoid some internal experience. Similarly, self- harm includes any activity that causes the person harm or damage in the long term; therefore, it may include behaviors like ignoring people or lashing out. I try to help participants become aware of the difference between having a piece of chocolate or a glass of wine to savor it and the company we keep in those moments, versus mindlessly consuming in an attempt to numb or distract ourselves. Giving personal examples can be extremely useful here.
5. Checking Workability with Three Questions
Next, I help participants assess workability using three key questions:
1. Have any of the strategies in the top left quadrant permanently gotten rid of any of the unwanted experiences in the bottom left quadrant?
The answer is inevitably no. Normalizing this experience is important. I often say, “It seems like all the people in this room have tried many, many, many things. Nobody could accuse you
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guys of being lazy. Maybe it’s just that you’re playing a rigged game.”
2. In general, when you use these strategies rigidly or excessively, do they make your unwanted mental experiences better or worse? The answer is usually worse.
3. In general, when you use these strategies rigidly or excessively, do you move closer to the bull’s- eye or farther away? The answer is typi-cally farther away.
At this point, we look at the importance of recognizing that these strategies aren’t workable, and I explain that the matrix is a tool to help us check in with our current strategies and assess their relative effective-ness. This is a means of using the matrix to illustrate the ACT process of creative hopelessness (Hayes, Strosahl, & Wilson, 2011).
I also explain that the matrix and various ACT strategies are tools to help us accomplish two things: to learn strategies to manage unwanted mental experiences and unworkable strategies more effectively (the left side of the matrix); and to identify the people, relationships, and things that matter most to us as well as to take action to move toward the bull’s- eye in the areas that matter most (the right side of the matrix).