diffusion is one of the core processes of acceptance and commitment therapy it's something i spend a lot of time working on with my clients and it's a totally made-up word which makes it a lot of fun to say so let me walk you through an example to understand how diffusion comes into play and how it can be beneficial in your life imagine there's someone you met that you're interested in maybe you find them really cute or they're really funny or kind or a million other little things and through talking you get the sense that they
might be interested in you but as soon as you start thinking that as soon as you start kind of deciding oh maybe i'll flirt back maybe i'll ask them out your mind trips up and it's mean it pulls out every bullying condescending ex and high schooler you have ever encountered it tells you why would that person be interested in you oh my god you're so embarrassing and awkward you can't message them that many times they're gonna think that you're a stalker their way out of your league don't even bother trying and so you withdraw because
the thoughts are true because you are a loser and ugly and stupid and unworthy of anyone ever loving you or finding value in you this is what happens when we buy into the randomness that our mind throws at us we get fused with our thoughts and our experiences when you have the thought i'm going to be alone forever or that person definitely doesn't like me or i'm not x enough for them and you believe that that's true it pops into your head and you're like yep that's fact it limits how we show up in the
world because if that's true then why would i ever shoot my shot why would i ever reach out to them flirt with them ask them out why would i keep showing up even if it's something that's important to me if it's never gonna happen and unfortunately the longer we've had these thoughts these memories these sensations these feelings the more examples we have to point to to go like see there is something wrong with me this is just who i am more fused we get with that idea the more we buy into it and believe that
it's true and the smaller our world gets now i can't promise through diffusion exercises and techniques that that person will say yes if you ask them out but i can say that if we can learn to get a little bit of space from what's happening up here and in here and how we interact with the world what we choose to do next you get the chance to show up to the world in a more authentic meaningful way when we're fused it's like this one-two punch thought response it might feel automatic it might feel like you
have no control over it right you feel an urge you do the action you get angry you yell you get embarrassed you shut down you wonder what if you go down an endless rabbit hole that leaves you with more what ifs and worries what diffusion helps us do is pause and look at that pattern see if how we are responding and reacting to what's showing up how it's working for us and the better we can get at noticing that pattern that thought and reaction the better we get at creating that space and in that space
is where you are in control of your life our mind throws out thousands of random thoughts a day our body throws out lots of weird signals you feel a hundred different things throughout the course of the day and we have a lot of memories and b-roll running through our head when that thought or feeling shows up we don't have blinders that are keeping us looking forward we can pull that down and see the world in front of us we can choose something different i can have the thought there's no way that person could be interested
in me and ask them out i can't do it without feeling like i'm going to throw up but i can take a step i can choose how i want to show up to the world instead of just believing that everything my mind says is real or true narrowing my world based on that my favorite question to ask myself when i'm like really caught up in my head really stuck on a thought really kind of down a mental rabbit hole simply is this working for me is this helping me and like 90 of the time the
answer is no and then i ask myself okay what is one thing i can do that's more aligned with the person that i want to be it's more in line with my values and at first it might be i'm just going to take a breath i'm just going to sit back and i'm going to notice the buzzing in my head or describe the sensations in my body and i might go on and do the same thing i normally do but at least i've created a little bit of pause a little bit of delay and if
i can begin to do that more and more and more and create that more space if i can defuse from what i'm experiencing then it gives me more of a chance for me to be in control of how i show up next and what i do next what if instead of i'm not good enough it's i'm having the thought that i'm not good enough i'm noticing that my mind is telling me i'm not good enough suddenly it doesn't feel as scary it doesn't feel great but it doesn't feel as like capital t true i'm able
to acknowledge oh this is a thing my mind's throwing out it gives me a little breathing room to decide what to do next and the next step is learning just how to be present pay attention to what's happening in this moment right now so we can see that one-two punch and i promise you it's more than mindfulness exercises check out my next video to see how
