Here are all of the reasons to be aware of: Pick the one on the left. No, pick the one on the right. No, pick the one on the left. No, pick the one on the right. No, pick the one on the left. No, pick the one on the right. No, pick the one on the left. No, pick the one on the right. No, pick the one on the left. No, pick the one on the right.
Here are two letters. Choose one.
Were you able to do it? Repeat this process until you can simply pick a letter without regard to all the chatter—undefended, naked, and in the wind, without compliance with the chatter or resistance to the chatter.
If you pass this test with the simple commands in mind of “pick the one on the right” and “pick the one on the left,” why can’t you do the same with the reasons your mind gives you about more important choices? If you apply your defusion skills, it is the same situation, despite the fact that one may be said to be “important” and one may be said to be “not important.”
Let’s try it and see. Try to come up with “reasons” to pick one of the letters. Of course, this is a trivial choice, so, normally, there would be no reason to do such a thing. But for the purposes of the exercise, make your word machine come up with some reasons (for example, “I like the letter A better because it is in my name,” or “Z reminds me of Zorro and I remember liking those reruns on the Disney channel when I was a kid,” or “I like right better than left because I’m right-handed,” or “Left in Latin is ‘sinister’ and I don’t want to pick something sinister,” and so on). Now, write down some reasons to pick one of the two choices below:
Now, you will make this silly little choice again. Read the list of reasons you generated and think about them all again. If your mind gives you any other reasons, deliberately think about those too. Notice them all as thoughts. Do not resist them. Do not comply with them. Simply notice them. Now, pick one of the two letters again.
Repeat this process until you are clear that you can pick either letter no matter what your mind is saying. That doesn’t mean disobeying your mind, like a child who puts beans in her nose as soon as she’s told not to. In that case, your mind is still in control; it’s just the form that has changed (this is why we say that neither rebelliousness nor compliance are, at their core, forms of independence). It means noticing all of these mental events and simply picking one of the letters, with these reasons, but neither for nor against these reasons.
Minds hate this exercise! Minds can’t understand it because minds generate and apply verbal reasons to all alternatives. But humans can do this. That’s because humans are more than their verbal repertoire.
This small exercise was done with a meaningless choice. Values, however, are anything but meaningless. So the chatter will be louder, and the reasons will be stronger. But the action will be the same. We can be about anything we want to be about. Who can stop us?
WHAT VALUES ARE AND ARE NOT
In the next two chapters you will explore your values in some detail, and you will learn how to become clearer on what you want them to be. In this chapter, we are simply describing what values are and what they are not. This relatively wordy task is worth doing because the process of valuing is hard for minds to understand. Values go beyond words, but minds try to claim them, and if we are not careful, they can become distorted to fit with the ordinary evaluative and predictive relations that our verbal word machine knows how to use.
Values Are Not Goals
Goals are the things you can obtain while walking a valued path. Goals are concrete achievable events, situations, or objects. They can be completed, possessed, or finished. Goals are not the same as directions. If goals are confused with directions, once they have been achieved, progress must necessarily stop.
This actually happens all the time, which is one reason why depression sometimes follows getting a degree, getting married, or getting a promotion at work. If, say, getting a degree is an end in itself, there is likely to be an enormous loss of life direction immediately after graduation. Someone who gets a degree as an end in itself, or as a way to reach still other goals (for example, feeling better about herself) may only be mocked by her achievement.
Goals are wonderful and empowering once the distinction between goals and values is clear. It sometimes helps (after a direction is chosen) to focus on goals as a way of keeping on track. If you are standing in a valley surrounded by mountains, hills, trees, and rock formations with only a compass, it may help to sight along your chosen direction to a prominent landmark and then head for that. There is a competitive sport called “orienteering” that relies heavily on this process: participants find their way from point to point on a map, usually using a compass and natural or manmade objects to provide an anchor for that direction.
Similarly, a person who values, say, helping others, might get a degree to be in a better position to help others. Immediately after getting the degree there will be lots of interesting and vital things to do that are not about the degree but about the value, that of helping others.
If you are using goals in that way, it helps to have goals close enough to be seen and achievable, but far enough away to be useful. A goal that is an inch in front of your foot will help you get started, but as you learn to move, it won’t be very effective in helping you “orienteer” in your life. Conversely, a goal somewhere on the other side of a mountain range won’t help you maintain your direction. In the same way, it usually makes sense to set concrete, short-term goals to get going, but then, as you learn to move, to set more medium-range goals for yourself.
Values Are Not Feelings
Presumably, all of our experiences inform our values, in the sense that a whole person makes the choices. Sometimes that means there are feelings that accompany valued choices. Over time, you will learn the degree to which feelings can help you know when you are living in accord with your values. For example, many people feel a sense of vitality when their actions line up with their chosen values. That doesn’t mean that values are feelings. Most especially, it doesn’t mean that values are doing what feels good, particularly in the short-term.
A person with a drug addiction feels good when using drugs. That doesn’t mean that being high is a valued outcome. Suppose the person really values being close to others, but when he takes steps in that direction, he feels frightened and vulnerable. He hates that feeling, so he uses drugs or alcohol again. If this person stops using and begins to walk in a valued direction, he won’t “feel good” anytime soon. He will feel frightened and vulnerable. Thus, walking in a valued direction may not feel good for this person, but it will “work good” or “live good.”
There is another problem with thinking of feelings as values, or with valuing feelings per se, and we will explore that problem in chapters 12 and 13. Feelings are things you can have. By definition, values are not anything you can possess the way you can possess an object. Moreover, feelings are not something you can control, while choosing a direction is something you can control. For those reasons, statements like “I value feeling good about myself” are based on a misunderstanding of values.
Pain and Values
Feeling can be related to values in a different, and less obvious, way than the linkage between good feelings and values. Suppose someone who is a social phobic shudders at the thought of going to a party. Why? Very likely, this is a person who values connections with others. If connecting with others was not of any importance, the person would not be socially phobic. One reason we began this book with an emphasis on acceptance is that, in our pain, we are given some guidance toward our values. The reverse is also true: in our values, we find our pain. You cannot value anything without being woundable, indeed, your values are the most intimate part of you.
An ACT client once said in a therapy session something like “I don’t really value family, or intimate relationships, or children. I just don’t think that life is for me.” A week or two later that person came in and said, “I’m such a liar, even to myself.” Then he reported the following
incident: He had been sitting in a Burger King having a hamburger when a family came in and sat down at the next table: Mom, Dad, and two small children. He looked up from his burger at the family and began to cry. At that moment, he realized he wanted a family and children of his own more than anything else. His parents had treated him badly and his history of betrayals had led him to deny his strongest desire, because when he admitted it, he felt such pain and vulnerability. As a result of this admission, he was enabled to go on and have a family, using his acceptance skills to deal with his fear and vulnerability, and using his values as a guide for the direction he wanted his life to take.
Values Are Not Outcomes
Although living your life according to your values often leads to wonderful outcomes, they are not a sneaky way to “getting what you want” in the concrete world. Values are directions, not outcomes.
You can think of it as similar to the way that gravity acts on water in a bowl. Gravity specifies that down is the direction, not up. Gravity is a direction, not an outcome. If there is any way for the water to follow that direction (for example, if there is a hole in the bowl), it will. If there are no ways to move, however, you will not see the water flow. From the outside, it might appear as though there is no “direction” at all, but it is there all along, and it will be revealed given any opportunity.
Values are like gravity. Suppose you value having a loving relationship with your father, but your father wants nothing at all to do with you. Your letters are ignored; your calls and visits are refused. Like water contained in a bowl, the value may rarely be manifested in a way that others can see beyond the small “leaks” in the form of birthday cards you send (whether or not they are read), or comments you make to others about your father. Like water held in a bowl, this value can be continuously present, waiting for better opportunities to manifest itself. If the opening comes, if one day Dad calls and says he wants to meet with you, the value will be visible in a more obvious way.
Values Do Not Mean Our Paths Are Always Straight
If you were on a bus trying to go east in a maze of dirt roads in a large valley, you might not be able to tell your direction from moment to moment. If someone took a series of snapshots, sometimes the bus might be facing north, or south, or even west, even though all the while this is a journey to the east.
Paths are not straight because obstacles sometimes prevent movement in the desired direction. A person who values creating a loving family may nevertheless have to go through a divorce. In that situation, the intention to be loving may be revealed only in limited ways, such as not establishing oppositions between yourself and your spouse that will negatively affect your children, or treating a soon-to-be ex-spouse fairly in the division of assets. Only over time will the underlying value become evident, like tracks left in the snow that show, even though the path is not straight, it is headed east.
Paths are also not straight because we are human. We may intend to go east, but our attention may wander, and we may find ourselves heading north. Someone in recovery from a drug addiction who values sobriety and helping others may still relapse. That person’s mind may be screaming, “See, you can’t go east! You are a liar and a failure! You can’t be trusted!” as if to say, “Because you are heading north, as usual, you cannot value heading east.” In such an instance, that person’s task will be to thank his or her mind, feel the sadness and pain that comes from relapse, and then turn and head east once again.
Values Are Not in the Future
Let’s go back to our valley. Notice that from the very instant you chose to go east, every action you took was a part of that decision. You looked at your compass. That was part of going east. You noticed the direction you were heading toward, and that was part of going east. Perhaps you noticed you were veering north; if so, noticing that was also part of going east. You began to turn to your right until you were actually heading east, and that turn was part of going east. Then you took a step, which was part of going east. Then another step was taken, which was more of going east. All of this was about going east.
Suppose you were asked, “Which of all of these moments, including the choice to go east, is part of going east”? The only sensible answer seems to be All of them—no one more than any other. One of the useful implications of this answer is this: the very instant you choose your values, you are taking a valued path. Another useful implication: you have the benefit of values being lived now. They are seemingly “about” the future but, in fact, they are really about the present.
We have another way of saying this: We say, “The outcome is the process through which process becomes the outcome.” Your values are themselves the “outcome” you are looking for and you get to have that “outcome” now because those values empower the process of living now. Every step you take in the direction of those values is a part of that process. Once you have chosen your values, the process you take to head in that direction is all values-laden. Having a direction allows a coherent trip to be taken; and it is the trip that is actually worthwhile. Your life becomes empowered by your values. It is like a journey down a never-ending path. This is a trip that has no finish line; it is not literally about an outcome. It is about the journey you take on your way there.
Suppose you value being a loving person. This is a trip that never ends. No matter how many loving things you do, there are always more loving things to do. The benefits of this path are not in the future; you get to have a life that is about loving relationships now. And now. And now. But you never strike your hands together because you are done. This is a direction that will not end.
Values and Failing
Values entail responsibility: that is, acknowledging that you always have the ability to respond. The response you can always engage in is valuing, even when there is little you can currently do in a specific situation to make your values manifest (like the water in that bowl). Most of the time, however, there are things we can do and our values allow us to see when we’ve failed to live up to the directions we’ve chosen. Like a bright beam on a roadway, our values bring us back to our path even when road signs tempt us to take wrong turns crowd the roadway, or even when we have mindlessly driven down yet another embankment. The pain of failure supports us in starting anew.
No one always lives according to his or her values. But that is different than being a failure. If we use our values to beat ourselves up, we are buying into the thought that we can’t be about the values we actually have, merely because sometimes we wander. Ask yourself this question when you think you’ve failed: What is buying that thought in the service of? What value does it comport with? Being right? Never failing? Never being vulnerable? Is that what you want your life to be about? If not, take responsibility even for your mind chattering on about what a failure you are. Feel the pain. Learn from it. Then move on.
When you feel guilt or shame at your limitations, it is time to use your defusion and mindfulness skills to acknowledge the chatter that comes in at those moments. It is time to use your acceptance skills to acknowledge the pain that comes in at those moments. And it is time to use your capacity for choice to reconnect with your chosen direction so that you can once again begin moving in the direction you choose to move, as the situation allows.
Values Are Always Perfect
One of the joyous facts about values is that ultimate values are perfect for the individual valuing them. We do not mean “perfect” in the sense of “evaluated as good.” We mean it in its original sense: thoroughly made or whole (from the Latin “per” meaning “thoroughly” and “fect” meaning “made,” the same Latin root found in “factory”). If you view your values as being broken or wanting, it must mean that you actually already have some other values that allow you to see that.
Suppose a businesswoman bemoans her frequent absences from her home because she “values work too much.” Clearly, this means that in addition to her work she also values being with her family. What she needs to work on is finding a w
ay to balance and integrate these two different sets of values. Her values are perfect—it is her behavior that needs work.
This means that if you are willing to value, you immediately win. Since the joy is in the journey, not the outcome, and your values are perfect so far as you know (which doesn’t mean they can’t change, it means they can’t be evaluated), nothing is missing. It is just a matter of living, moment by moment, day by day, staying true to your values as an act of self-fidelity.
The usual mental game is that you “win” when you get positive outcomes. But minds always demand more and more. Even if you “win,” your mind will suggest worries about “winning” the next time. A recent newspaper story about a world-class athlete is revealing in this regard. She was number one in the world in her event and had won two consecutive world championships. Only a few handfuls of human beings on the planet ever reach that level of athletic achievement. Yet, upon winning her second championship, she said her primary emotion was neither elation nor satisfaction, but fear. The reason? She was afraid she wouldn’t win next year.
Minds are like that. They will never change. They are evaluative, predictive, comparative, worrying “organs.” But in the case of values, it is different. Once you choose them, you are in fact choosing them. You’ve won. Then they allow you to follow your path and to measure your progress on that path.
Choosing to Value
If it didn’t matter where you were going, it wouldn’t matter where your internal struggles took you. The very fact that you are reading this book demonstrates that where you are going does matter to you. Examine yourself and see if it isn’t true that the largest pain in your life isn’t your anxiety, depression, urges, memories, trauma, anger, sadness, and so forth, but that your life is not being thoroughly and whole-heartedly lived. Your life was put on hold while that war we discussed in the introduction was being fought. So each tick of the clock mocks you: it is one more second passing of a life not fully lived.
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