The Observing Self v. The Conceptualized Self

People often describe themselves in terms of their self-self-percieved role in the world. For example: “I am a nice guy,” “I am a people person,” “I am a hard worker,” or “I am a parent of two kids.”  We clump these little snippets of ourselves together in order to form a larger narrative about who we are, and our place(s) in the world. “That’s just the way I am,” is an often popular sentiment. And the conclusion to the sentence “I am a person who _____ ,“ is the beginning of a statement capable of generating scores of reasonable and accurate responses.

This kind of thinking is a slippery slope, however, and it is pretty easy to understand why. Over time we generate dozens of these little self-stories that fuse with our identity and form our persona. Defining who we are. And becoming what we say we are is one of our greatest ambitions. We want to be congruent. We—the observing-self—are trying to be who we—the conceptualized-self—say/think we are. And in the event that, for whatever reason, our personal story about ourselves changes we now have to reconcile that change. To our own self, and the world around us.

Problem of being fused to the conceptualized self:

Think about an example of a girl who graduated at the top of her high school class. She dreamt about becoming a lawyer. She talked with her family and friends about her goals. In college she did well in her classes but during her Junior year she decided that law school was just not a good fit. Can you imagine how difficult this conclusion might be for her? Especially if she has been wrestling privately with this decision for weeks, months, or even years. How difficult would it be to see her friends on summer break and explain the reasons law was not longer her passion?

Well, if she is not fused to her conceptualized-self it should not be terribly difficult. After all, people change their minds all the time. However, in building up this conceptualized version of herself attempts to make changes could be met with great resistance. Not only internally, but externally as well. This might lead a person to attempt to maintain congruence between their attachment to their conceptualized self and their observing-self.

The alternative is being filled with guilt about disinterest in law school. Telling your friends that you had a change of heart seems difficult. Taking yourself seriously may seem more difficult. After all, you abandon a long held belief. What’ might you abandon next? Conversations about your future are something you may not fully understand yourself. And we are expected to explain, or defend these decisions to other people? Friends and family simply want what is best for us. We know that. The difficulty is that they adopted our believe that Law school was what’s best for us. Now, they need to have that believe structure modified.

“Fusion with the conceptualized-self can lead to an attempt to maintain consistency by distorting or reinterpreting events if they seem inconsistent with the self-story.”

What about another example?

Imagine that I believe myself to be a kind person. Believing that I am kind, I may have a very difficult time interpreting my own behavior as unkind. In fact, if I am fused to the concept that I am kind person, I may distort or reinterpret events in order to maintain consistency with my self-story. This is a common attribution error made by people who bully others—‘I couldn’t possibly be a bully, I was just joking around.’ Our goal should be one of stepping away from our conceptualized-self so that we can weaken those attachments, and more realistically assess if we are living according to our values. Again, “fusion with the conceptualized-self can lead to an attempt to maintain consistency by distorting or reinterpreting events if they seem inconsistent with the self-story” (Hayes, Strosahl, & Wilson, 2012).

What can we do to integrate ourselves?

So, how do we battle against the tendency to build attachments to the conceptualized versions of ourselves? The first step is to take an open, loving, and accepting perspective of yourself. Being conscious of your own reality can also help you empathize with others. The second benefit to taking an open perspective of yourself could be that you allow yourself to process changes as they happen, in the moment. In the example of the young pre-law student above, if she took and open/accepting perspective, she may have noticed that her values shifting from law, to something else.

Trouble comes when those kinds of things sneak up on us. And out of nowhere, create chaos in a place where we thought was organized and structured. The second way to make congruent the relationship between the observing-self and conceptualized-self is to align your actions with your personal values. In that case, your observing-self can always look at your conceptualized-self and consider whether your actions are moving you closer or further from your valued endpoint.

An activity to conclude:

We could even use this strategy to better understand if we are making the “right” choices. or not. We know what is “right” based on whether our choices produce an outcome that we find acceptable. Lastly, self-as-context is deeply related to mindfulness. And it might be helpful to try an activity to illustrate the point:

if you are concerned that your conceptualized-self is dominating your observing-self, close your eyes and simply notice your thoughts. Notice where they are around/inside/above/below you. Notice if they are pictures, or sounds, or a movie playing along in your mind. Bring your attention to the fact that your thoughts are ‘over there,’ and you are the one who is observing them. Now, bring your attention to how you are sitting. Notice what you can see, smell, taste, and hear. At each of those points, bring your attention to the fact that you are noticing (e.g., notice how you are sitting, and as you do, be aware that you are noticing).

Bringing ourselves into the present moment in a mindful and conscious way will help us to remain oriented to our observing-self. Which will help us remain de-fused from our conceptualized-self. After all, it is ok to remain flexible throughout our lives while we develop our Values, and attempt to live meaningful lives.

The post Who am I? Exploring our Self appeared first on Stand 4 Kind.

Fusion is when our thoughts entangle with our perception more than our immediate experience in the world. Throughout the day, all kinds of thoughts ‘Pop!’ into our heads. Sometimes these thoughts are pleasant. Sometimes they are not. These thoughts can be associated with things that are happening around us in any given moment. Sometimes these thoughts are associated only with what is going on inside of us. But they are always associated with words (we would not to know what to make of them if they were not!). Our recent post on Psychological Flexibility talked about the difficulty that is presented when we attempt to control the thoughts that ‘Pop!’ into our heads. That we are, more likely than not, going to end up giving those thoughts even more ability to be disruptive.

The goal of being flexible is not to eliminate troublesome thoughts or attempt to control the ones that ‘Pop!’ up in order to reduce one’s suffering. The goal is to use those troublesome thoughts to establish your values, grow as a person, and pursue meaning. Sometimes we can become “fused” with our thoughts and we find it difficult to separate our experience in the world, from that experience we have with our thoughts about the world. Said another way, because we associate everything in the world with language sometimes the words we use to think about the world end up influencing our behavior even more than the actual world around us.  

Can we step back and look at our thoughts?

There are all kinds of instances where we fuse with unhelpful thoughts. How quickly does making a mistake in our lives translate into that classic thought “I’m so stupid.” How about being called to the office, or having a teacher ask to speak to you after class? I remember all kinds of thoughts welling up when I was young and got a request like that. Well, these types of ideas are the kinds that we internalize over time and can tend to be a very sticky things that we end up fused to. The technique of defusion is one that encourages us to step back, and look at our thoughts, instead of looking at the world from the perspective of our thoughts. After all, we can not simply control or eliminate our thoughts.

This is why it is critical to pull the words away from their meaning. Particularly if those words are not helpful. In the example of a person making a small mistake and immediately having the thought “I am stupid” ‘Pop!’ into their head (we have all been there), we can first simply start by acknowledging the fact that I am having the thought that “I am stupid”as a result of something that happened outside of my head. This moves us one layer away from being fused to an otherwise unhelpful thought and gives us a little space between ourselves and the thought.  

Diffusion from the words we tie to the world

Being called down to the office often results in feelings of stress and anxiety. It can force us into a situation where we are rehearsing for ourselves a situation where we believe that the only reason that we would be called to the office is if we were in trouble. Therefore, the reason that we are being called to the office IS that we ARE in trouble. Again, something happens and it spotlights an area where we are fused to our thoughts. Defusion is the process of stepping away from those thoughts and giving yourself room to breathe. So, instead of fusing to the thought “I am being called to the office so I must be in trouble,” remind yourself that “I am having the thought that I am going to be in trouble because I was called to the office,” and see that although there is anxiety in both statements, in the second you have a little bit of space between your thoughts.

This step allows you to evaluate your choices more objectively, and take action. So, if you have been asked to stay after class by a teacher and you feel your heart beating fast and your palms getting sweaty, the first step might be to say to yourself ‘I am noticing that I am feeling very anxious at this request’ and then resist the powerful drive to avoid the feelings of this thing that is creating worry. giving you the chance to slow down your thinking. Recognize that you just did very well on the last test. And consider that the teacher may want to ask that you help others who may be struggling with the material; or that the teacher had some ideas about a project that they knew you were working on and is excited to talk to you about them!  

Fusing to thoughts that affect our behavior

Let’s think about another example: when I was a kid I was a competitive swimmer. I started swimming when I was 6 years old, and I swam all the way through college at the University of Utah. At different points in the year local, regional, and national level competitions would be scheduled, and it was usually the case that within any 6-month period of time, I was preparing for a “big-race.” I was training long hours, and putting lots of pressure on myself to do well. Before college I was really trying to ensure that I could earn a scholarship to University, and in college I really wanted to keep my scholarship and do the best I can for the team to qualify for bigger races.

On any given week I could gauge my performance relative to a strict schedule that was put together to track my progress (this was a schedule that I put together with the coaches at the beginning of every season as a way to ensure that we could meet our goals). Suppose that I am becoming increasingly nervous about how I will perform on the day of the “big-race,” and I start visualizing myself ‘choking.’ I might imagine my teammates being disappointed in me. I might think about having a tough conversation with my coaches after a disappointing result. In fact, just thinking about what my coach might say in response to falling short of our goals caused me to panic. Raising my concerns about failure even further. In some sense, I seem to have stumbled on this treasure trove of anxiety that starts to identify the big race as a negative one, even though we are still weeks away.  

Acceptance v. Avoidance

In a state where I am fused to my thoughts, the thought of the disappointment, panic, and sadness associated with all of the preparation I had been doing not providing the result that I expected would become the focus of my anxiety. Not the big race itself. Notice, in this example, that I am weeks away from the big race. In fact, I may never have been to a competition like this before. Yet, because of fusion, many of the verbal tools that I use to describe my feelings about the big race have brought the anxiety of the performance that is months away, right to my door step. Today. And without having even been to the big-race, I am already experiencing the feelings of panic and anxiety that are tied to my perceived failure.

At this point, I have the option of Experiential Avoidance, or the idea that moving toward something of value often will bring up feelings that are not positive (e.g., think about the goal of going to college versus the stress of taking the SATs). Avoidance causes people to not attempt things that are difficult for fear of failure. Defusing from thoughts and simply try to notice feeling anxious about the big race gives me a bit of space. Separating me from the anxiety, and giving me a chance to make a plan and keep moving towards my goals and values. Remember, the goal of defusion is to get your arms around the language we use so that it does not control us (become fused to our actions), and we can manage difficulty on our way to living out our values and chasing after meaning in our lives!

The post Fusion: Can our words influence our reality? appeared first on Stand 4 Kind.

Think about an example of a girl who graduated at the top of her high school class and talked to her friends and family about wanting to become a lawyer. For years she dreamt about practicing law and never hesitated to share her dreams with others, in college she did well in her classes but during her Junior year she arrived at the conclusion that law school was just not a good fit for her. Can you imagine how difficult this conclusion might be for her, especially if she has been wrestling privately with this decision for weeks, months, or even years? How difficult it would be for her to see her friends on summer break and have to explain to them the reasons for her change of career interests. Well, if she is not fused to her conceptualized-self it should not be terribly difficult—after all, people change their minds all the time; however, in building up this conceptualized version of herself, it is possible that attempts to make changes would be met with great resistance. Not only internally, but externally as well. This might lead a person to attempt to maintain congruence between their attachment to their conceptualized self and their observing-self, because the alternative is one where you now have to explain to your parents why you are no longer interested in law school. You have to tell your friends, who may be in the process of applying, that you had a change of heart after years of dreaming. These conversations about your future are something you may or may not fully understand yourself, let alone have a solid enough grasp of to explain or, even more challenging, defend to other people who you know just want the best for you. 

In another example, imagine that I believe that I am a kind person. If I believe that, in my heart, I will have a very difficult time dealing with instances where I behave in an unkind way. And, in fact, if I am fused to the conception that I am kind person, I may distort or reinterpret events in order to maintain consistency with my self-story (this may be a common attribution error that is made by people who bully others—‘I couldn’t possibly be a bully, I was just joking around’). Our goal should be one of stepping away from the conceptualized self-image that we have so that we can weaken our attachments and more realistically assess if we are living according to our values. Again, “fusion with the conceptualized self can lead to an attempt to maintain consistency by distorting or reinterpreting events if they seem inconsistent with the self-story” (Hayes, Strosahl, & Wilson, 2012^[1]).

So, how do we battle against the tendency to build attachments to the conceptualized versions of ourselves? The first step is to take an open, loving, and accepting perspective of yourself as doing this will not only give you the ability to conscious of your own reality, but it will give you the ability to take the same position for others as well. The second benefit to taking an open perspective of yourself could be that you allow yourself to process changes as they happen in the moment. In the example of the young pre-law student above, if she took and open/accepting perspective, she may have noticed that her values shifting from law, to something else. Trouble comes when those kinds of things sneak up on us out of nowhere and create chaos in a place where we thought was organization and structure. The second way to make congruent the relationship between the observing-self, and the conceptualized-self is to align you actions with a set of values that you create for yourself. In that case, your observing-self can always look at your conceptualized-self and consider: do my actions move me closer to, or further from, my valued endpoint? We could even use this strategy to better understand if we are making the “right” choices or not, based on whether our choices produce an outcome that we find acceptable. Finally, self-as-context is deeply related to mindfulness and it might be helpful to try an activity: if you are concerned that your conceptualized-self is dominating your observing-self, close your eyes and simply notice your thoughts. Notice where they are around/inside/above/below you, notice if they are pictures, sounds, or a movie playing along in your mind, bring your attention to the fact that your thoughts are ‘over there’ and youare the one who is observing them. Now, bring your attention to how you are sitting, noticing what you can see, smell, taste, and hear. At each of those points, bring your attention to the fact that you are noticing (e.g., notice how you are sitting, and as you do, be aware that you are noticing). 

Bringing ourselves into the present moment in a mindful and conscious way will help us to remain oriented to our observing-self, and to remain de-fused from our conceptualized-self. After all, it is ok to remain flexible while we develop our Values, and attempt to live meaningful lives.

^[1]Hayes, S.C., Strosahl, K.D., & Wilson, K.G. (2012). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: The process and practice of mindful change. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.

The post Self as Context: The observing-self v. the conceptualized-self appeared first on Stand 4 Kind.

There are all kinds of instances where we fuse with unhelpful thoughts. How quickly does making a mistake in our lives translate into that classic thought “I’m so stupid.” How about being called to the office, or having a teacher ask to speak to you after class? I remember all kinds of thoughts welling up when I was young and got a request like that. Well, these types of ideas are the kinds that we internalize over time and can tend to be a very sticky things that we end up fused to. The technique of defusion is one that encourages us to step back, and look at our thoughts, instead of looking at the world from the perspective of our thoughts. After all, we know that words in our minds can be a tricky thing to control, or eliminate; therefore, we want to learn the skill of pulling the words away from their meaning if they are not helpful. In the example of a person making a small mistake and immediately having the thought “I am stupid” ‘Pop!’ into their head (we have all been there), we can first simply start by acknowledging the fact that I am having the thought that “I am stupid”as a result of something that happened outside of my head. This moves us one layer away from being fused to an otherwise unhelpful thought and gives us a little space between ourselves and the thought.

One of the examples used earlier, being called to the office, results in feelings of stress and anxiety and often forces us into a situation where we are rehearsing for ourselves a situation where we believe that the only reason that we would be called to the office is if we were in trouble; therefore, the reason that we are being called to the office IS that we ARE in trouble. Again, something happens around us and spotlights an area where we are fused to our thoughts. Defusion is the process of stepping away from those thoughts and giving yourself room to breathe. So, instead of fusing to the thought “I am being called to the office and I am probably in trouble!”remind yourself that “I am having the thought that I am going to be in trouble because I was called to the office,”and see that although there is anxiety in both statements, in the second you have a little bit of space between your thoughts so that you can evaluate your choices more objectively and take action. So, if you have been asked to stay after class by a teacher and you feel your heart beating fast and anxiety about this impending meeting, the first step might be to say to yourself ‘I am noticing that I am feeling very anxious at this request’ and then resist the powerful drive to avoid the feelings of this thing that is creating worry. This might give you the chance to slow down your thinking, and recognize that you just did very well on the last test, and the teacher may want to ask that you help others who may be struggling with the material; or that the teacher had some ideas about a project that they knew you were working on and is excited to talk to you about them!

            Let’s think about another example: when I was a kid I was a competitive swimmer, I started when I was 6 years old and I swam all the way through college, as a scholarship athlete at the University of Utah. At different points in the year, local, regional, and national level competitions would be scheduled and it was usually the case that within any 6-month period of time, I was preparing for a “big-race.” I can tell you that at this time, I was training long hours, and putting lots of pressure on myself to do well. Before college, I was really trying to ensure that I could earn a scholarship to University, and in college I really wanted to keep my scholarship and do the best I can for the team to qualify for bigger races. On any given week I could gauge my performance relative to a strict schedule that was put together to track my progress (this was a schedule that I put together with the coaches at the beginning of every season as a way to ensure that we could meet our goals). Suppose that I am becoming increasingly nervous about how I will perform on the day of the “big-race,” and I start visualizing myself ‘choking.’ I might imagine my teammates being disappointed in me. I might think about having a tough conversation with my coaches after a disappointing result. In fact, just thinking about what my coach might say in response to falling short of our goals causes me to panic. This raises my concerns about failure even further. In some sense, I seem to have stumbled on this treasure trove of anxiety that starts to identify the big race as a negative one, even though we are still weeks away.

In a state where I am fused to my thoughts, the thought of the disappointment, panic, and sadness associated with all of the preparation I had been doing not providing the result that I expected would become the focus of my anxiety. Not the big race itself. Notice, in this example, that I am weeks away from the big race. In fact, I may never have been to a competition like this before. Yet, because of fusion, many of the verbal tools that I use to describe my feelings about the big race have brought the anxiety of the performance that is months away, right to my door step. Today. And without having even been to the big-race, I am already experiencing the feelings of panic and anxiety that are tied to my perceived failure. At this point, I have the option of Experiential Avoidance, or the idea that moving toward something we really want often will bring up feelings that are not positive (e.g., think about the goal of going to college versus the stress of taking the SATs), or I can defuse from my thoughts and simply try to notice that I am feeling anxious about the big race, giving myself a little space between me and the anxiety and a chance to make a plan and keep moving towards my goals and values. Remember, the goal of defusion is to get your arms around the language we use so that it does not control us (become fused to our actions), and we can manage difficulty on our way to living out our values and chasing after meaning in our lives!

The post Psychological Flexibility – Fusion v. Defusion appeared first on Stand 4 Kind.