Another SAd perspective: ACT

The other day I had just woken up when there was a knock at the door. Not too many people come to my house so a knock at the door that early was a surprise. I was in a mildly deflated mood as a day earlier I had said goodbye to a young person who had been staying with me and I was feeling the solitude and so wishing things were different.


I looked through the glass and saw a woman with a bouquet of flowers.

"Gotta be a mistake," I thought. "No one would want to give me flowers unless it was for work I had done."
"Mr X has taken the plunge and sent me flowers as a token of his love"
"That would never happen. It happens to everyone else but not me."


These were the thoughts that flashed through my head. Typical SAd type thoughts. Negative. Critical.

So I opened the door feeling pretty sure that the flowers were a mistake.  In fact it wasn't a mistake. The flowers were mine. I do a little volunteer work here and there and the agency had sent them to me as a thank you gesture. I took the flowers inside and left them on the bench.

 "All I'm good for is my work," I reflected. I went and sat down and started watching TV.

Then I reflected some more. "How ungrateful am I?" I knew I would be embarrassed if friends could see how I really thought. And I realised, too, that I had a new day unfolding before me and I didn't want it to be all about the "poor me" saga. I knew what I had to do. I knew it was completely up to me. I had the skill and the power to change that mindset and try to make the day a better one.


 The only way I knew to make a definite change was to put it on paper. For me, putting pen to paper somehow makes me accountable and enables me to see how things really are.

So I did. I forced myself  to write about the flowers in a postive way even though my initial thoughts were still negative. I acknowledged the thoughtfulness of the people who had sent me the flowers. I thought how lovely the flowers would look in my living room.

It worked! Only a short time later, I finished the task truly feeling much better about the flowers arriving and my negative frame of mind had shifted.

I learnt about this approach one night when I couldn't sleep. I heard a man on the radio (ABC radio) talking about the ACT technique (?). It might have been a Mr Harris and the book he referred to may have been The Happiness Trap. He explained that for anxious people we sometimes need to act first and let the feeling of confidence/the change come later. I've used this technique many times to transform a situation (once I allow my stubbornness  stand aside) and it certainly helped that morning to shift my attitude.

Have you ever found yourself using this sort of technique? How has it helped you?