How to transform the struggle of a serious

health issue into acceptance – Part 3

by Barbara | 20 Dec 2017 | Health and wellness coaching case studies, Reclaim meaning and purpose in
your life | 0 comments

Accepting a serious health issue can be hard so for the past few weeks, I’ve been
describing strategies you can implement to transform that struggle into acceptance. The
strategies have focused on mindfulness, how to be the fly-on-the-wall of your life, dealing
with unhelpful thoughts and what acceptance really means. These strategies come from
Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT). This week I explain the final two strategies: how
taking Committed Action aligned to your Values are integral to getting to a place of
acceptance with your health issue.

This is incredibly important. When we know what is truly important to us, we can more
easily make decisions and take action in line with that. And that leads to living a
meaningful life, which is what we all want for ourselves.

I’ll recap the ideas of Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT) here and its benefits so you
can see how all the strategies hang together. If you wish to read the series in full, you can
find the first post here and the second post here. In fact, I encourage you to because it has
useful ideas and strategies you can start implementing immediately. It will also give you
the full picture of ACT thereby demonstrating the benefits of this talking form of help.
 Taking action which aligns with what is important to us enables us to live a
meaningful life #AcceptanceCommitmentTherapy TELL A FRIEND

Accepting a serious health issue – Using ACT

The official definition of Acceptance Commitment Therapy, referred to as ACT (say it as the
word ‘act’), is:

‘The goal of ACT is to increase psychological flexibility: the ability to contact the present
moment and the psychological reaction it produces, as a fully conscious human being,
and based on the situation, to persist with or change behaviour for valued ends.’
(Harris, 2007; Mindfulness Training Ltd., 2017)

Or to put it simply – To create a rich, full and meaningful life whilst accepting the pain and
suffering which goes along with it.

You may read ‘accept the pain and suffering’ and think, ‘I’ve
already got accepting this serious health issue to deal with!!
What the hell is she on about?!’
Let me explain. Of course, we want to be happy more than we are sad or upset, yet
sometimes life throws unpleasant or downright awful things our way. Sh*t happens as
they say and it’s not fun. So when I say ‘accept’ this, I am not advocating saying ‘yes, this is
such a great thing to have happened!’ It’s about acknowledging that yes, this sh*t thing has
happened, this is how it has impacted me, this is how I feel about it.

As a society, we tend to push away and suppress bad things which happen to us or ‘bad’
feelings. So much so, anything ‘bad’ has become stigmatised. It is as if we ‘should never’
feel bad and ‘should always’ be happy. Yet when we suppress the ‘bad’ feelings, we don’t
acknowledge them. And the ‘bad’ and unpleasant feelings so want to be acknowledged,
they will leak out. The strategies used in Acceptance Commitment Therapy help you to visit
with those feelings and acknowledge them so they become recognised as a normal aspect
of your life. This all helps the process of accepting a serious health issue.
 You don’t have to unpack and live with overwhelming feelings.

The key aspects of ACT are referred to in the above

definitions
1. The ability to contact the present moment is being able to bring our attention openly,
non-judgementally and with curiosity to what is happening in the here and now to
ourselves, to others around us, to the situation. This is also known as mindfulness.
2. Another side to contacting the present moment is being able to step outside of and
observe ourselves. This is the first step in learning how ‘to stand in another person’s shoes’
and experiencing empathy with and for another. This can be learned.
3. Become aware of our psychological reactions to the present moment and identify
whether these are helpful to ourselves or not.
4. Pain and suffering is a normal part of life, including unpleasant reactions we have to our
here and now experiences, and it is important that we accept that. And accept the good
things too.
5. If our reactions are not helpful, then we may wish to change our behaviour.
6. We change our behaviour to obtain what it is we value and want, i.e. our valued ends.
But we need to know what it is we value to ensure our behaviour and actions we take align
with that.

The following diagram shows these themes:

 The Key Components of Acceptance Commitment Therapy

Let’s move on to talking about the last two principles of ACT, Values and Committed
Action.

Values
Values are:

What you believe and value in life like learning, having integrity, fairness, security, etc.
You may make decisions based on our values. For example, some people preferred to be
employed because they value the security of the pay check every month. Others may
prefer to work for themselves because they value freedom of choice. When you make
decisions which aren’t aligned with your values, there can be that sense of disquiet that
something is not quite right.

What you want for yourself in various areas of your life, the direction you want your life
to take. These are the implicit or explicit goals you have for yourself regarding your:
Physical health
Psychological/ Emotional health
Occupational – Your work, career, education whether paid or unpaid
Relationships with family, friends, your social life
Hobbies, personal interests, fun
 Finances
Where you live – home, town, city, state, county, country
Spirituality, religion, faith
Culture
Personal growth

This values exercise in this picture will help you learn more about what you value in life.

Clarifying your values so you can take action which aligns with them can help in accepting a serious
health issue.

And to identify the direction you want to take in various areas of your life, get the Wellness
Appreciation Workbook which will help you do just that.