Stop Stress from Sabotaging Your Relationships: Therapist's Guide to Committed Action
“How can I be better in my relationships when I can’t stop stressing about my job/ financial stress/ health issues /legal problems/ parenting concerns/ fill-in-the-blank stressor?” It’s a common question I hear from new clients.
In my therapy practice, I specialize in helping individuals build healthy relationships when anxiety, anger, and shutting down get in the way.
Here is how I understand the root of this problem core to the human condition and one practical way to deal with it by using committed action.
Why It's So Hard to Escape Stress: The Brain's Endless Problem-Solving Loop
I get it, when there is an ongoing dilemma or chronic stressor in our life, it can feel hard to focus on anything else. This is natural and normal.
It’s like our brains are in constant problem-solving mode; like a computer in the background computing an analysis of an equation that never finds a clear solution, and it just keeps trying to compute constantly.
So even our best attempts and efforts to “clear our minds” through things like exercise, substances, hobbies, etc. tend to be temporary at best.
The Caveman Mind
In ACT, there is a theory called the “caveman mind",” which posits that our brains have naturally evolved to create psychological suffering.
Think of it this way, our earliest human ancestors who were hypervigilant about predators and threats (staying far from the lion’s path), obsessed about collecting excess food and resources (to avoid starvation), and worried constantly about what others in their clan thought of them (to avoid being ostracized or killed), were the ones who survived harsh environments.
The ones who skipped through the fields, enjoying the present moment and focused on the positive of the day, well, they may have not lived long enough to procreate.
So our brains do exactly what they have evolved to do: to worry and try to prepare for the future, analyze and strategize about the past, proactively try to protect ourselves from future hurt, “whip us into shape” with self-criticism and judgment so that we become better, conserve energy and effort, attempts to spare us from uncomfortable thoughts, and feelings, and so much more.
So now that we know it’s natural and normal, what can we do about it so our thoughts and feelings don’t hijack how we behave in our relationships?
Using Committed Action to Show Up for Your Loved Ones
In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, when you choose intentionally to act in a way that is congruent with your values, even in midst of difficult thoughts and emotions, it’s called committed action.
It’s deciding how you want to show up with purpose, rather than just going along with whatever your mood, thoughts, and feelings tell you to do (with the caveat, that sometimes we still need to pay attention to the thoughts and feelings to see if there is something important we might need to address).
Clarifying Values leads to Committed Action
In ACT, values are your heart’s deepest desires of how you want to behave as a human and are often a description of your behavior that someone could observe or notice such as being attentive, curious, kind, ethical, honest, affectionate, etc. (this is different than a statement of how you want to feel, such as calm, happy, or confident)
Clarifying your values is critically important to committed action. Start by asking yourself, what are the top 3 values for a domain of life that you’d like to improve?
You could further hone in on values for specific situations such as: when I’m at home making dinner with the kids, date night with my spouse, meeting with my boss, etc.
For instance, if at work you need to be focused on efficiency and productivity, but then at home you want to show up differently as a parent you might say, “Ok I’m turning off the productivity and management mode and moving into being my playful, patient, and engaged parent role”.
Seasoning Your Daily Interactions with Values
One way to think of this concept is to “season” the day with an important value. Think of your targeted value as a seasoning or spice that you might add to a recipe. You don’t need a lot of a spice to make a BIG impact on the taste of your finished meal.
No need to completely revamp the recipe or change the ingredients, but rather consider what can you add? This framework has the additional benefit of keeping the committed action goal realistic and reasonable to achieve, rather than setting ourselves up with too lofty of a change.
A practical example to consider: seasoning with playfulness
For example, let’s use one of the values I listed previously: playful. You’ve decided you want to show up with more playfulness with your kids but it’s such a struggle because you have such limited time with them, and when you do have time, you feel you must go into authoritative mode to keep them on task because there is so much to get done and you have a million things to keep track of.
Instead of trying to completely overhaul your routine and schedule a designated playful time (you’re not going to skip homework and bedtime routine for a trip to the arcade or amusement park on a school night), let’s season a time you already spend with your kids- helping them with their homework.
Homework-helping might be a tedious task, but how could you season the experience with playfulness?
Could you find a moment to add in a joke?
Could you take a short break to have an arm-wrestling competition?
Could you share a laugh at yourself when you get it wrong and have your child teach you while you pretend to be their misbehaving classmate?
Make a silly drawing on the homework scratch sheet?
Take a 10-second dance break in between math problems?
You don’t need to wait until you feel playful to act playful. Who knows, maybe after sharing a laugh you might have a shift in how you feel inside, but maybe not, and that’s okay too.
Committed action is acknowledging that yeah, you still have feelings of frustration with your child for not focusing, worried thoughts about their grades and the impact on their future, and self-doubts on your ability to help them. Yup, all those thoughts and feelings can be there, AND you can still commit to doing something in alignment with your values.
Ready to stop letting your stress, anger, and anxiety run your life?
I am a Santa Rosa therapist who specializes in adults who feel stuck with anxiety, anger, self-doubt, and negative thinking that gets in the way of fulfilling relationships.
I offer online counseling to anyone residing in California and in-person counseling for Sonoma County.
Skip the phone tag and schedule a free 15-minute phone consultation into my online calendar here:
Angela Sitka, LMFT, has a private practice in Santa Rosa, CA specializing in helping adults with relational problems, including relationship anxiety, men’s relationship issues, divorce recovery and young adults.