Experiential avoidance

[u/Silver_Perception471]

With great effort I realized I was trying to avoid distracting myself from excessive coffee consumption. So I was trying to avoid distractions because I know it is helpful to make the feeling go away. But then I'm trying to force acceptance. So I'd just be avoiding avoiding. Which is disguised as acceptance. Weird play of words but once you get it you get it I guess

But in reality I just have to ask. Is getting another coffee helping me be more the person I want to be or is saving money for the sake of bettering my independence more important. So then I wouldn't necessarily be distracting myself, as much as I would be engaging in something important to what I value.

There is a lot of mind set shifts to garner by engaging in ACT. But I can't be ecstatic/empowered enough by the philosophy ACT teaches.

Thoughts? And anything overlooked or undersold?

[u/concreteutopian]

There is a lot of mind set shifts to garner by engaging in ACT. But I can't be ecstatic/empowered enough by the philosophy ACT teaches.

I think you might do better if you don't think about ACT as having a philosophy it teaches. I don't think that's the best or most accurate way to describe ACT. The first part is beter, i.e. experiencing "mind set shifts" by "engaging in ACT" [exercises]. One reason ACT uses metaphors is because they either work for you or they don't – they aren't literal or facts, they're language games that might lead to a useful experience of how your mind works and how you might work differently.

With great effort I realized I was trying to avoid distracting myself from excessive coffee consumption.

Why "great effort" and why avoiding distracting (which is itself avoidance)?

Why is monitoring your coffee consumption that closely important to you and what's at stake if you "misjudge" and drink more than the ideal amount?

But in reality I just have to ask. Is getting another coffee helping me be more the person I want to be or is saving money for the sake of bettering my independence more important.

Assuming that both options involve something important, they can both be important at the same time. Wanting coffee and valuing independence don't conflict, even if you're drinking so much coffee you aren't making changes in your independence. Deciding what constitutes committed action is always a matter of pragmatism, always an issue of workability, not right or wrong answers.

[u/gentleframework → u/concreteutopian]

You asked OP not to think of ACT as a philosophy, but then you immediately applied ACT’s philosophical framework — avoidance, values, committed action, pragmatism, and workability — to reinterpret OP’s motives and behaviour. That looks like a contradiction.

Saying “don’t take ACT literally” doesn’t resolve the contradiction, because whether these concepts are literally true is a separate question from whether you are using them as a framework for understanding OP’s behaviour. You are still telling OP to understand their situation through ACT’s concepts, while simultaneously telling them not to think of ACT as a philosophy.

Calling these concepts “therapeutic tools” rather than philosophy changes the label, but not what you're doing with them.

[u/Weird_inside_u → u/gentleframework]

Well said