Willingness is an inherently compassionate act of self-validation in which the person embraces the moment, in the here and now, as it unfolds. We explore the notion of the here and now more thoroughly in chapter 4. Here we only note the importance of actively practicing moment-to-moment awareness, fully and without defense. What we mean by “fully” is broad and inclusive: all emotions and mind content are
there to be experienced—not just some of it and not just specifically the parts we like. This is an issue of contact; that is, to show up to all parts of experience or to spread out into our experience, as in the Quicksand metaphor. What we mean by “without defense” is nonjudgmental, nonevaluative awareness: to observe dispassionately. Awareness of this kind requires ongoing practice. For many clients, practicing mindfulness in and out of session can be helpful.
Willingness is a choice: Choice means making a selection simply because we can. Therefore, the choice
to be willing is present every moment. Often clients will assume they don’t have a choice and will list several if not many reasons they cannot choose to be willing. You can work with these clients to help them defuse from or observe their reasons and still take action. There are a couple of quick ways to demonstrate this for the client. First, you can give the client a choice between two similar objects. For instance, you might ask the client, “Tea or coffee, which would you choose?” After the client has made a choice, ask him or her to generate as many reasons as possible to explain why that choice was made. When you have a fair number of reasons for drinking coffee, let’s say, even if they are really good ones, such as “I’m allergic to tea” or “The taste of tea makes me sick,” ask if it is not true that the client could still choose tea and drink it, despite all the good reasons. The answer is, of course, yes. It is not the reason that chooses, but the person who chooses. You can then bring this back to the larger issue at hand. You could, for instance, ask, “Would you be willing to choose willingness if it meant you got to live your life?”
The following metaphor (Hayes et al., 1999, p. 240) can be useful in this type of situation.
Therapist: Imagine you’ve just purchased a new home and you decide to hold an open house. You make
invitations that say, “All are welcome,” and post them around the neighborhood. You’re excited about the party and you begin to get ready by making everything look nice and by preparing the food and drinks. The big day comes, and everything is going well. The guests are arriving and enjoying themselves; everyone is laughing and having a good time. More guests are arriving. Then you hear a knock at the door. You open it with a smile, which rapidly changes to a look of disgust. There, before you, stands Edna, your annoying new neighbor. Edna makes obnoxious noises, is often rude to people, smells bad, and has terrible manners. You’ve only been in your new home for a month, yet you’ve already learned a lot about her. You quickly try to close the door, but realize Edna has placed her foot between the door and the jamb, and you can’t close the door. You ask Edna to leave, but she slowly shakes her head and shows you one of the invitations you posted around the neighborhood. She repeats the words written in large letters: “All are welcome.” She also tells you she’s not leaving and will sit right there until you let her in. Given the situation—she’s not leaving and you are missing your guests—you decide to let Edna in, but you insist she needs to stay away from the guests and remain in the kitchen. You rapidly escort her to the kitchen and admonish her to stay there. You close the door to the kitchen and begin to walk away … and right behind you is Edna. She follows you out of the kitchen. You turn and say, “No, Edna, you must stay in the kitchen,” and you escort her back. Once again, you turn to join the party, and guess what happens?
Client: Edna comes pushing through the door again.
Therapist: Right! And what you find is that you have to prop your foot right up against the kitchen
door to keep Edna out of sight. You’re locked in. What is the problem here?
Client: I don’t get to be at the party.
Therapist: Yes. So, the big question is, would you be willing to let Edna wander the house if it meant
Client: It would be hard.
Therapist: Yes, but could you choose to do it, and be at your party? Client: Yeah, that’s what I’d want to do.
Working with the client in this area boils down to a simple question: are you willing to feel what you feel; have the thoughts you have; let the sensations be there, fully and without defense; and do what works for you according to what you value?
Willingness is an action: Throughout this chapter, we have provided multiple descriptions of willingness.
Willingness is not a feeling and is not something that can be directly instructed or described, just as one can’t directly describe how to ride a bicycle, play an instrument, or perform a skilled sport. This can be captured, in part, by comparing willingness to something that happens when skiing.
Therapist: Have you ever gone skiing? Client: Yeah, a few times.
Therapist: Have you noticed how, when you’re skiing and you’re afraid you are going too fast, the natural
tendency is to want to lean away, to lean back into the hill? The problem is that, as soon as you do that, you lose control of the direction in which you’re headed, and in fact, you even increase the chance of wiping out. In this situation, the natural response—to lean back—doesn’t work very well. What if this situation in regard to your own thoughts and feelings is similar: what if the natural reaction—to lean away from your own experience—is actually part of the problem? What if what we need here is to practice leaning downhill, leaning into your experience, so you can have more control over where you’re headed in your life?