Rachel Collis

Shifting Perspectives Could Improve Your Health

Posted on November 4, 2011October 15, 2011 by Rachel Collis

If you look at your writing how much do you use words like: I, me, my and how often do you use: you, we, he, she?

James Pennebaker’s research suggests that when people’s use of pronouns is flexible i.e. some days they write a lot about themselves and some days their writing is more dominated by other pronouns (you, we, he, she); the better their physical health.

This makes sense from the perspective of ACT and Relational Frame Theory.

It seems that one aspect of psychological well being is to be able to flexibly take different perspectives. To be able to consider the perspective of:

Myself in the here and now
Other people – both now and in the future
Other people – both those I am close to and people who are different to me
Myself in the future – What would an older me suggest?
Myself in the past – How would I have viewed this when I was five?

It seems that flexibility in perspective taking is a bit like having a flexible body – we need to work at it. So I encourage you to play with these other perspectives.

How to Evolve a More Vital Life

Posted on October 24, 2011October 25, 2011 by Rachel Collis

If you are reading this blog, you are probably the sort of person who wants a life that is vital. According to Steve Hayes, ACT helps us to evolve more vitality by:

1.Undermining Repertoire Narrowing Processes

What this means in everyday language is that when we are in the grip of strong emotions or have been hooked by painful thoughts our behaviour tends to narrow down and become inflexible. ACT aims to lessen this tendency so that we can choose our behaviour from a broader range of options. This means we can stop doing what we have always done (which tends to get us what we have always got) and start choosing our behaviour based on the circumstances and our values.

2. Situating action in the conscious present

Instead of our actions being triggered by memories of the past, or fears about the future, or inflexible rules; we observe the world as it is and take action based on this connection to the present moment.

3. Choosing your selection criteria

Rather than accepting the criteria the world has given us for what constitutes success or ‘correct’ behaviour, we choose our own values and use these values to guide our actions.

And so we evolve a more vital life

Flexibly choosing our behaviour based on both our values and what the situation offers, enables us to create more richness and vitality in our lives.

The research is growing that the approaches taken by ACT are successful in achieving these outcomes, which is rather cool for those of us interested in empirically supported interventions.

Self Compassion and Stress at Work

Posted on October 13, 2011 by Rachel Collis

Next week I am giving a speech at the Queensland Nurse Leaders Conference on the topic of ‘Stressed Organisations, Distressed Staff’. One of the ideas I will be exploring is self-compassion. The evidence suggests that self-compassion can help when we are experiencing difficulty. Here is a table summarising some of the research on self-compassion and comparing it to self-esteem:

High Self Esteem but Low Self Compassion	High Self Compassion
Lower depression and anxiety c.f. low self esteem	Less painful emotions when distressing events occur
Defensive in the face of negative feedback	React to negative feedback with more acceptance and with an orientation towards growth and the development of mastery
Fail to learn from mistakes	More willing to make needed changes
May not always take responsibility for their actions	Take more responsibility for their actions
Can be narcissistic	More compassionate to others
	Associated with more wisdom, more curiosity, more initiative, higher scores on agreeableness

One approach to increasing self-compassion is to imagine someone who is very compassionate – it could be someone you know, someone famous or an imaginary person – and then consider what they would want to communicate to you when you make mistakes or feel disappointed in yourself.

Handling Painful Thoughts and Feelings

Posted on September 29, 2011September 25, 2011 by Rachel Collis

If we are to live rich and meaningful lives, painful thoughts and feelings are going to come along for the ride. If I love with all my heart, at some point I will get hurt. If I value doing a great job at work, sometimes I will make mistakes and look like a fool. If I want to really connect with someone, I have to show vulnerability.

So, what is the best approach to handling the painful thoughts and feelings that are an inevitable part of life? Russ Harris suggests letting go of strategies that don’t work in the long run, such as:

Ignoring your painful thoughts and feelings
Believing your painful thoughts and feelings
Not believing your painful thoughts and feelings
Resisting your painful thoughts and feelings
Letting your painful thoughts and feelings control your behaviour.

Instead, Steve Hayes suggests:

Honouring your pain the way you would honour a friend by listening
Walking with your pain the way you would walk with a crying baby
Carrying your pain the way you carry a picture in your wallet

Could you show yourself that compassion when you are in pain?

Influencing our Thoughts and Feelings

Posted on August 23, 2011August 23, 2011 by Rachel Collis

We all have times when we want to get rid of painful thoughts or feelings. It would be odd if we didn’t – pain is unpleasant and wanting it to go away is sensible.

What strategies have you tried to get rid of unpleasant thoughts and feelings?

You might have tried:

Distracting yourself (focussing on something else or doing something useful);
Soothing yourself (taking some slow, deep breaths; eating some chocolate; finding someone to reassure you)
Challenging the thoughts (Is it really true that I am lazy?)
Problem solving the issue that caused the pain (I am anxious because I am running late delivering this project so I will come up with a workable plan to get it finished on time).

Often these strategies are helpful BUT (yes, it is a big but!) they don’t work all the time and the times when they don’t work are often when we are most distressed. At those times nothing seems to stop our mind thrashing about. When we engage with those thoughts and try to make our mind see sense, we often actually increase how hooked we are. When we try to hold back or change the direction of the waves of emotional pain that are buffeting us, we just get exhausted.

The A in ACT stands for Acceptance. One of the things we may need to accept is that although we may be able to influence our thoughts and feelings, we can’t control them and sometimes in trying to control them we get actually get more hooked.

So what could we do instead? The best option seems to be to use mindfulness:

Observing our thoughts and feelings with curiosity and compassion
Allowing our feelings to rise and fall
Letting our thoughts come and go
Bringing our attention to this moment now – what we are experiencing through our five senses
Connecting with our values – Who do I really want to be? And then,
Taking action based on our values.

Stop Wasting Time

Posted on August 17, 2011December 5, 2021 by Rachel Collis

Our lives are terribly short and we are fragile creatures. Wasting the time we have seems wrong. But how do we decide whether we are wasting time?

I watched the movie ‘Click‘ the other night. Not a movie I would recommend to you but at it’s heart was a really good point. It is easy for us to live our lives wishing we could fast forward through the boring bits and the painful bits. But hidden in those moments is the potential for meaning and purpose.

Hank Robb recently suggested writing down every evening what you did that day that was, in your opinion, time ‘well spent’ and also what you will do tomorrow that will make that day worthwhile. This is a wonderful suggestion.

I would like to add some ‘Click’ inspired questions:

1. As you decide whether something is or is not time ‘well spent’ think about the internal rules you use to discriminate between wasted time and time well spent. We often make the same mistake as Adam Sandler’s character and view working and achieving as time well spent whereas a whole raft of research suggests that time spent on family, friends and community is what gives life meaning.

2. Is it possible that something that seems like wasted time could become meaningful if you approached it with openness and curiosity? Listening to a loved one? Eating? Parenting?

Life is precious – shall we make it count?

The Smallest Step

Posted on July 29, 2011August 23, 2011 by Rachel Collis

Like many people, the need to take more exercise is a recurring theme for me. I have repeatedly set goals to do the ‘right’ thing – exercise for 30 minutes at least 5 times a week. And not once have I achieved this. Yes that is right ladies and gentlemen, not one single week. So now, when I resolve to take more exercise, my mind has a field day: ‘Yeh right. You won’t do that. It will be just like all the other times’.

Russ Harris helped me with this at his Happiness Trap workshop. When he spoke about goal setting, he said:

How does this issue relate to what is important to you? For me it is about wanting to do my best to continue to be a healthy partner, mother, friend, hopefully even a sprightly grandmother.
This issue will likely keep turning up in your life. You will get older and wiser and sometime in the next 5 years you will notice that you have fallen back into your old self-defeating patterns … and again in 10 years…. and again in 15 years. Can you feel compassion for that future you? I found acknowledging that this issue keeps on turning up oddly reassuring. I do hope that in the future I will treat myself with compassion – beating myself up certainly hasn’t helped.
Decide on a very small action you could take that would move you towards your value. I decided I would run up and down the stairs in my house twice a week.
What thoughts, feelings, memories and urges are likely to turn up as you take that action? Are you willing to experience them in the service of that value? Well if you put it like that…

And here I am not only running up my stairs but also standing at my laptop and meeting friends for a walk rather than a coffee.

In terms of behavioural change, Russ did some important things here. He:

Linked the behaviour change to values. This builds motivation.
Suggested that lapses are to be expected – and that the best way to deal with them is with self-compassion.
Encouraged some acceptance of the unpleasant thoughts, feelings and sensations that are likely to arise. Acceptance of unpleasant internal experiences (thoughts, feelings etc.) is associated with a tendency to persist in the face of difficulty.
Encouraged focussing on taking one small step forwards. Taking even a small action towards achieving a goal, builds motivation for more action.

When you are next working towards changing your own behaviour or perhaps coaching a member of your team to improve some aspect of their work – remember to work out how the action links to values, make the first step very small and respond to lapses with compassion.

Do the Next Right Thing and Let That Be Enough

Posted on June 7, 2011January 4, 2022 by Rachel Collis

“Believe deep down in your heart that you’re destined to do great things” ~Joe Paterno

This quote turned up in my twitter stream yesterday. It looks benign. It looks helpful. But it is seriously problematic.

Firstly, it implies that not only is it very important to get our ‘beliefs’ right but also that we can chose those beliefs. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is a con. We can try really hard to brain wash ourselves. We can repeat positive affirmations over and over. But deep down in our hearts most of us carry a secret – that we aren’t good enough. That we are too…something. Too selfish, too weak, too loud, too quiet, too greedy, too boring….if you dig around inside yourself and sit with the discomfort for a moment, you will be able to add your own words.

The brainwashing of our society makes the burden of that secret even harder to bear. Because apparently what we should be doing is believing deep down in our hearts that we are destined for something great. So we have failed before we have even started.

The quote also implies that we are all destined to do great things (as long as we get our thoughts stacked up right). And this is madness. What most of us are destined for is a life of ordinariness – raising children, working for a living, loving our family and friends. I think that chasing success and greatness are actually distractions from the challenge of doing the ordinary stuff well. I suspect that we want that distraction because it is actually really hard to do that stuff well.

I think a better quote would go something like:

‘Even on the days when you worry that you are a fool and a failure; be kind and compassionate. Come back to the present moment and do the next right thing. And let that be enough.’

I am paraphrasing Kelly Wilson here: In Appreciation of Crashing, Bliss Following, Hero’s Journeying, and Practice.

How about it? Will you join me in doing the next right thing and let that be enough?

Four Simple (But Not Easy) Things You Need to Offer to Your Staff (Besides Money!)

Posted on June 4, 2011June 2, 2011 by Rachel Collis

In 2010, Diener et al did a huge survey of 136,839 people (who were a representative sample of the population of the world). They found that income is only moderately linked to positive feelings (whether you smiled or laughed yesterday or felt feelings of enjoyment).

Positive feelings are much more influenced by ‘psychological need fulfilment’. Psychological need fulfilment is about whether you have family or friends you could count on in an emergency, and also, whether, when you think about yesterday, you:

Felt you were treated with respect
Learned something new
Did what you do best, and,
Chose how your time was spent.

When managing staff, or managing yourself, it might be good to make sure these four things are happening regularly.

Maths Problems v Sunsets

Posted on June 2, 2011 by Rachel Collis

I was recently at an ACT workshop run by the amazing Kelly Wilson. He explored some interesting idea’s about how our minds work. How we have this endless drive to solve problems – and sometimes this isn’t helpful.

One of the wonderful things about ACT is that it is ‘open source’ – people are pleased if you use their stuff. So a few days later, I tried out Kelly’s approach: