The 6 Pivots Of Psychological Flexibility

Welcome. I'm Connor Beaton and today we are going to take a little dive into psychological flexibility and how to shift away from psychological rigidity towards psychological flexibility. Because psychological flexibility is one of, if not the single most important aspect of our psyche, of our psychological body and being that we can curate and cultivate to have a stronger, more clear sense of direction in our life and the ability to handle the challenges that naturally come up within our day to day life. So we're going to dive into that. But just a quick reminder, if you've been enjoying this podcast and you have shared it recently, I just wanted to say a huge thank you for all the people that have been sharing these episodes on Instagram and Facebook. And thank you to the people that have left a review lately. Loved reading those. Thank you so, so, so much. We have continued to grow month after month this year and I am just so humbled because there are tens and tens and tens and tens of thousands of people that tune into this show every single month now. And we're just growing rapidly. So thank you so much. There's some exciting changes coming in the new year and I just, I just wanted to thank you all so much for being a part of this community. So if you haven't done so and this episode resonates with you, please share. It goes a long way. Don't forget to leave us a rating and review. And don't forget, just as a quick reminder, my wife Vienna and I have created an incredible program for singles and for couples called get the Love youe Want. And that program is going to be starting on January 8th. It is the last time that we're going to be doing it with live sessions. It is an online course that you can do from the comfort of your own home. It's a six week program. There's 12 modules. For most people you can do it at your own pace and it is basically therapy from the comfort of your own home, which is wonderful. We've had hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of people. Nearly 1,000 people have gone through this program and the results have been amazing. So if you're interested in that, hit me up on Instagram or click on the link in my bio and you will see get the Love youe Want six week course. There's don't forget to sign up. That's gonna be starting January 8th. And we have announced Men's Weekends for 2020. So we have one of the men's weekends live and it's almost half sold out. So if you are interested in joining us Please sign up quickly. It will fill up, it will sell out, I'm assuming very quickly because we've had a lot of interest. So if you're wanting to join us for Men's weekend, do so asap. And then finally excited to announce, Vienna and I are doing a one day couples only workshop where we will be taking a select group of couples here in New York. That's going to be on the weekend of Valentine's Day, so it'll be on February 15th. So if you have thought about coming to New York, you are wanting to do a deep dive into your relationship and do some work with your partner. This is going to be a great workshop where we are going to deconstruct the patterns that go into relational conflict and give you real life tools on how to navigate conflict and turn that conflict into deep connection. We're also going to experience the practices of intimacy and desire. So if you're wanting to work on your communication, having better boundaries, if you're wanting to deepen the intimacy connection with your partner, definitely check that out. That's on my website, connorbean.com or on Instagram as well. So let's dive in. Now that the housekeeping is out of the way, let's dive into the concept of psychological flexibility. So this actually comes from acceptance and Commitment therapy, which was created by Steven Hayes. And I actually had Stephen on the podcast not too long ago and we talked about Acceptance and Commitment therapy, or act, and we talked about his recent book. He has done an incredible amount of writing and has produced some really, really incredible concepts. Acceptance and commitment therapy really being at the top of the list that's very prominent in a lot of people's work. And a lot of therapy today is now adopting these, not only this term, but this methodology. So let's talk about distinguishing between psychological rigidity and psychological flexibility. So if you've ever read any of Carol Dweck's work on mindset, it's kind of. It's a little similar, right? Psychological rigidity is when we try and avoid the things we don't want to think about, the things that are painful, the things that we don't want to admit, the things that we're embarrassed by, the things that maybe have hurt us. And it's the rigidity of all the things that we do want to avoid. And so in a way, psychological rigidity is what creates our shadow, our psychological shadow, which you've probably heard me talk a lot about and will hear me talk a lot more about in the coming year. So when we avoid, when we are rigid in our thinking, when we're rigid in what we are avoiding, and when we are trying actively or unconsciously to avoid things that are painful or embarrassing or that causing anxiety, it will create a large shadow. So when we are more psychologically flexible, when we shift in this space, this usually comes when we are able to turn towards our suffering or our pain rather than away from it. So in Stephen's latest book, he talks about, he talks about the need to pivot and he talks about the six pivots to be more psychologically flexible. So I'm going to outline them here and add just a little piece into each of them. And I hope that you enjoy this. I would encourage you to write them down if you can, and to look for the ways in which you can start to implement these pivots in your everyday life. So let's talk about pivot number one. Pivot number one is diffusion or diffusion. Now this requires pivoting from cognitive fusion, or buying into our thoughts and never questioning them, or never setting the proper boundaries. So this means that.

Rather than never questioning our thoughts, so let's say you and your partner have an argument, or you and your boss get into a conflict and you have thoughts that start to come up, negative thoughts, self deprecating thoughts, judgmental thoughts about the other person. Rather than fusing with those thoughts and accepting them at face value without questioning them, we pivot towards a space of starting to question whether or not those thoughts are actually true. And what this does is this creates a little bit of psychological distance between us and the thoughts that are just naturally occurring. Now, this in itself, this very first pivot, can be absolutely monumental because for most people, they never really challenge or question their internal dialogue. And so when a thought comes up of, oh, I hate that person, or I'm really angry at that person, or I can't believe they said that or did that. We never really question whether or not the validity of that thought holds true, whether that thought should be taken at face value. So this requires us to just turn towards our thought, recognize what's coming up, and start to question, is that true? Do I really need to be so upset about this? Is it true that that person betrayed me, or is the judgment that I have about that person accurate? Are my thoughts really truthful or are they leading me astray? And we can start to discern and sort of diffuse some of the emotional weight that can happen because of those thoughts simply by creating a little bit of distance and not fusing with them. Pivot number two is the pivot of self. Now, this requires us to pivot from a. Sorry, I almost had, like, a little laugh there. I got this scene from Friends. I don't know if you guys remember this, if there's Friends watchers out there but I remember back in the day watching Friends and there was one episode where Ross wanted. The guys wanted Chandler and Joey. Joey. I think I'm getting his name wrong. No, Joey. To bring the couch up the stairs. He wanted to move a couch into his new apartment. And as they're moving the couch up the stairs Ross is just constantly saying, pivot. Pivot.

So if you're a Friends watcher like I was I'm just getting a kick out of this because I'm saying pivot a whole bunch. So, okay, getting back on track. Pivot number two is the self. Now, this requires us to pivot from a conceptualized sense of self or from a hardened ego self. So again, that's the few self. To a perspective taking self. Now, just to go a little bit deeper. This means that there is a letting go of attachments to who we are psychologically. To witnessing perspectives of what's present and what might be true. This is the practice of cultivating deep awareness. Now, for. I'm just going to try and break this down as simply as possible, okay? This is the difference between the me and the I. Now, if you have dove into some spiritual works or if you've, you know, read some spiritual works by people like Eckhart Tolle or Anthony De Mello or whoever else you might listen to, Alan Watts, et cetera they talk about the me and the I. And this practice of pivoting within the self is really a practice of creating a little bit of separation between me and I. So me is described as our ego, our identity everything that we would constitute as our identity, right? What we think we like to eat what we think we like to do what we think our strengths are and our gifts are and our pitfalls and our insecurities, et cetera. And the I, the true sense of the I which Stephen Hayes talks about in this book and that a lot of spiritual teachers talk about. People like Michael Singer in the Surrender Experiment, they talk about the I as the transcended I. Now, the transcended I, in its simplest terms is the form of pure awareness, okay? Ram Dass calls it loving awareness, right? It is just the space of awareness. Awareness. Watching. What is awareness? Watching the thoughts that come up, the emotions that are present, the experiences that we're having. The desires that we have, et cetera. So this pivot, pivot number two is the pivot towards the transcended self. And we create a little bit of space between the awareness of I and everything else that's present. Our thoughts, our experiences, our emotions. Then once we have started to create a little bit of that space, we can start to see what's happening within us. We can start to see what our thoughts are, and we can see the emotions that are present. And we don't need to attach to them. We don't need to fuse to them, we don't need to act because of them. We can actually just witness them and become aware of what's present. Then we can move into pivot number three, which is the platform of acceptance. Now, this pivot from avoidance to acceptance is monumental. It's incredibly important. We have to move away from trying to control our personal experience and the external events which give rise to them. So all this means is that oftentimes an external event will happen. You know, your partner will say something, your boss will say something, an employee will comment on something. And that will in course bring up an emotion or a thought, right? Maybe it'll make you angry, maybe it makes you feel rejected or embarrassed. And what we tend to do is reject that personal experience based on the external data that we've received and. And rather than rejecting that experience, which can create more of a shadow. And this is what most people do when anxiety is present. Most people reject that anxiety or they avoid that anxiety. And the way to actually deal with anxiety is to accept its presence, to be aware that it is there and that it too shall pass. So we have to notice what we're avoiding. But we can only notice what we're avoiding when we've done the work of step two and step one, when we've accepted and. And we've cultivated a sense of awareness. So we can become aware of what we're avoiding and we can turn towards it and start to accept it. Pivot number four is presence. And we move from the rigid attention to past future, of past future, sorry, and become more aware of the now. So you've probably heard a lot of people talk about this. Eckhart Tolle being probably the main one in the Power of Now. A lot of the spiritual teachers talk about how the essence of existence is only in the present moment and that most of our suffering, if not all of our suffering, and I don't want to get into a debate about this right now, but most, if not all of our suffering comes from the worries of the past, the regrets of the past, the I should have, I could have, etc. And the worries and anxieties of the future. That's why depression is a past facing dysfunction and anxiety is a future based dysfunction. Depression is usually there because we haven't done or experienced or said or owned what we really needed to in the past. And anxieties are there because we are fixated and worrying about something that could potentially happen in the future. So this is the practice of pivoting back towards the now, pivoting back towards presence in the moment. And to notice that the me, right, that version of our ego and our identity might be freaking out about what could happen tomorrow. Or what our girlfriend or boyfriend or husband or wife or child might say when we have the conversation with them about X, Y and Z. And moving back into the present moment, where everything is generally okay. Moving back into being aware of what's happening, being aware of our breath, being aware of our surroundings, being aware of the thoughts and the emotions that we're experiencing and allowing for all of that to allowing for ourselves to accept all of that as much as we can. Now, number five is the pivot of values. Now this pivot is basically from being socially compliant and socially compliant to the social goals and expectations and values that that society or your family or friends have put on you to a space of self chosen values. Now here's the catch. A lot of people are looking for a deeper sense of purpose and they're looking for a deeper sense of what they value. The challenge is it's very hard to figure out what you truly value if your awareness, your consciousness, whatever word you want to give that is fused with the constant thoughts that are coming up. So if there's no space from the thoughts that just sort of pop into your head and the emotions that are constantly popping up in your body or in your experience or in your awareness. If there's no space between the awareness and your thoughts and your emotions and your experiences, et cetera, it's very challenging to know what it is that you truly value. Because you're constantly jumping from one thought or experience to another without any sort of space. So it's very important to go through these pivots systematically. Now the last one, number six, is the pivot of action. This pivot from persistent avoidance behavior to committed action. Now this is the last and final step. It's an important step to actually take throughout the entire process. So you can really think about this one as being, as really being a part of the whole process. So I'll give you these again and I'm going to give you the six pivots that Stephen Hayes pivots that Stephen Hayes lays out within his book, so they can be simply summarized as follows. Number one see our thoughts with enough distance that we can choose what we do next, regardless of our mind's chatter. Pivot number two notice the story that we've constructed of ourselves and gain perspective about who we truly are. Pivot number three allow ourselves to feel even when the feelings are painful, or create a sense of vulnerability. Pivot number four direct attention in an intentional way rather than by mere habit, noticing what is present here and now, inside us and out. Pivot number five choose the qualities of being and doing that we want to evolve toward. And pivot number six create habits that support all of the previous choices. Great. So thank you so much for tuning in today. I hope that you value this. I would love for you to again share this podcast, even if it's just with one person that you think could use this. Maybe they are in a time of need or transition or they're struggling a little bit in the holiday season. So thanks so much for tuning in. I hope that you enjoyed this episode. Until next week, this is Connor Beaton signing off.