Fish in the Water
An Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Metaphor
We’re the fish, and our language is the water. How would a fish know if they were wet
if they’d never been out of the water? Jumping out of the water helps you to notice the
water.
An Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Metaphor
We’re the fish, and our language is the water. How would a fish know if they were wet
if they’d never been out of the water? Jumping out of the water helps you to notice the
water.
An Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Metaphor Imagine that you got a new house and you invited all the friends over to a housewarming party. Everyone is invited, except for one guy who you don’t invite because he’s trouble. So all the neighbors show up, the partyʼs going great, and here comes guess-who. You have a choice…
An Acceptance and Commitment Metaphor Imagine a chessboard that goes out infinitely in all directions. Itʼs covered with black pieces and white pieces. They work together in teams, as in chess — the white pieces fight against the black pieces. You can think of your thoughts and feelings and beliefs as these pieces; they sort…
According to Wikipedia, the fear of missing out or FOMO is “a pervasive apprehension that others might be having rewarding experiences from which one is absent”. This can show up as “a desire to stay continually connected with what others are doing”. FOMO is everywhere in modern, urban life. Most of the time it’s a minor irritant but it…
An Acceptance and Commitment Metaphor We try to stop thoughts, but thatʼs impossible. Itʼs like trying to constantly hold an enormous inflatable beach ball under the water, but it keeps popping up in front of our faces. We can allow the ball to float around us, just letting it be. So rather than stop the thoughts, we can…
An Acceptance and Commitment Metaphor Suppose we had this box here. This (put various items in; some nice, some repulsive) is the content of your life. All your programming. Thereʼs some useful stuff in here. But there are also some old cigarette butts and trash. Now letʼs say there are some things in here that are really ugly….
Suppose there is a bus and you are the driver. On this bus weʼve got a bunch of passengers. Some of them are scary, and they are dressed up in black leather jackets and they have switchblade knives. What happens is that you are driving along and the passengers start threatening you, telling you what…