Following the principles of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) I discovered the challenges of fusion.
In simple terms it’s when our thoughts become the only Truth. Whatever our inner voice says – we just accept. Traditional CBT encourages challenging, and over-riding our loud inner critic. ACT however, endeavours to get us to:
- Recognise our inner commentary
- Lessen the impact through observation and acknowledgement, without automatically fusing with the narrative
Often the biggest challenge (certainly for me) is hearing that voice. It’s become so massively fused I seem to shift through various states of being without time to recognise or cognate what is happening.
Mindfulness is excellent practice to allow time and experience of observing. Sometimes it feels 10 minutes in a day hardly balances out the remaining hours to survive; but it starts to leak out of practice periods and can give surprising STOP moments where I find myself saying:
I HEAR YOU, AND I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING
