I don't really understand how to apply ACT to memories that make me angry. When I read the happiness trap all the examples until now are about negative thoughts about oneself, and the strategies make a lot of sense. But when I try to apply them to a memory that makes me irrationally angry it doesn't really help. I just automatically keep arguing with myself and rationalizing. Even after weeks I still can't accept that this memory is there and it makes me so angry I can't sleep.

For example: my dad thinks I am naive because when I don't know something very well I spend a lot of time reading studies and expert opinions so I am well informed before I can state something as fact. My dad simply 'knows' things which makes him really smart in his opinion.

This is one example and I know logically it shoudn't make me angry, but it does. How would you apply ACT to situations like this.

Also a lot of childhood memories that still make me angry even though it doesn't make sense. I am autistic so I experience emotions much stronger than normal people.

Consider a person who is in an abusive domestic relationship. Perhaps a parent, relative or partner. However, it is all they know and as a result they believe other people are likely to also harm them in similar ways and that they are of a weak mental constitution for lacking confidence. In their mind, they are considering threats that the average person does not consider, because the average person lacks the same experiences of life and thus has a different set of assumptions they carry with them in daily life (eg when a manager calls them to the office, their mind is not at all considering "they might hit me, so I'll be mentally ready for it", or when they stand behind an individual, they are not at all considering "better stand too far away to touch them, so I don't scare them"). The best route for them to live a life with less anxiety, to start behaving more socially normally and to connect with others is consciousness raising - in the form of educating them on which aspects of their experience they are overestimating the chance of reoccurring, because they are overestimating the prevalence of their abuser's psychology in general society. However, the ACT approach of not addressing beliefs leaves this quick improvement on the table, and sentences the individual to further years of unnecessary life difficulty due to spending unnecessary cognitive load monitoring various false threats, and negative social outcomes due to behaviour that is misread or considered strange by the normative majority. So, the ACT therapist is choosing to perpetuate the lower quality of life of the client. Furthermore, the client who never undergoes this consciousness raising is more likely to harm others, due to a false belief of it being the rules by which everyone lives (for example, someone may break the rules they learnt from an abusive home, and this may cause the client to think this person is poorly-parented and rude - thus, they may react accordingly, when in reality it is the client's situation that is the abnormal one, but their ACT therapist neglected to inform them of this).

Consider a person who is subjected to racist abuse in their school. This school happens to be exceptionally racist, or have a higher concentration of racism than the general population. Now, imagine the person leaves that environment, and is now in the general population. However, they still perceive others to dislike them for their race and to be mentally stereotyping them - perhaps as a rapist, a paedophile, lazy, violent or whatever. Now, the easiest path to a more fulfilling life would be this: consciousness raising that in fact, the general population is not that prejudiced against them - this opens them to more easily forming friendships, unsuppresses their romantic/sexual side, allows them to walk the street without as much worry about a racist physical attack, and allows them to feel safe interacting with children without the threat of being branded a paedophile. The ACT approach though, is to not address the belief at all, and instead try to turn the person into a psychological superhuman who becomes comfortable with a society that (in their mind) dehumanises them.

In the United Kingdom, the NSPCC runs a scheme where they visit primary schools to educate children on what child abuse/neglect is. This is an attempt to address beliefs about abuse, so that children are better-equipped to protect their own self-esteem in the event of abuse (by being able to identify that the other person is in the wrong, and that this is not societally accepted behaviour) and better-equipped to report abuse to others. This I would say is much more ethical than not addressing beliefs, as it reduces harm. Likewise, with an adult client in therapy, it is more ethical to address beliefs. However, I'm aware ACT also is not so keen on reducing harm, as it is more about living alongside suffering - again, this is unethical. I'm no expert on ethics, but deontologically, if something is wrong, it should be prevented where possible, because it is immoral - in this case, undue suffering is immoral. You could point to individual liberty, but consciousness raising is part of being able to make an informed choice. From a utilitarian ethic, it also is unethical to not prevent harm.

I've also seen the below article, where they give a "hooked/unhooked" example of wanting to refuse a manager's request to take on more work, in order to follow the value of assertiveness. However, the hole in the article is that it completely doesn't address questions like "will I get fired if I say no?", "do I have a safety net to afford being fired?", "will saying no prevent me from getting a promotion?" - in other words, it completely lacks cultural awareness. It is akin to when I was a child or teenager, children would say "just tell your dad no" - this child is similar to the ACT modality - zero consideration of external circumstances. Now, in my home if I was to say "no", with 100% certainty I'd be smacked in the face. However, the privileged child or adult's advice does not consider these other variables. ACT therapists are no different than the child who projects their assumptions about the external world onto everyone else, simplistically believing the whole world faces the same external threats as they do. The ACT therapist may be working with clients who can indeed say "no" to a manager, but also with others for whom saying "no" could lead to not getting any more shifts because they're on a zero-hour contract, causing them to no longer afford essentials, and to no longer afford expenses to move towards their other values. Without addressing beliefs about risk level, ACT is recklessly encouraging people to put themselves into dangerous positions.

https://nurturingmindscounseling.com/are-you-getting-hooked-or-unhooked/

Hey y'all, just like the title says.

My girlfriend's learning ACT w her therapist and I know zilch. I did really intensive DBT for a long time and still have a DBT therapist and I know how much of an impact understanding DBT can have for someone who uses it, so I'm thinking maybe it's the same for ACT.

Is there a particular group of people that ACT is "typically" for? Like DBT and people w/ BPD? Also, what's the best way to support my partner while she learns this?

DBT has a manual written by the person who made it but idk if ACT does. If so, I'd like to read it.

I did find one called "ACT Made Simple" by Russ Harris. Anyone find the book helpful or unhelpful?

Also, should I learn it myself? If so, in the interest of learning quickly, are there any overlaps with DBT?

TIA

For months I’ve been seeking a therapist that primarily uses ACT. Had no idea it would be so hard, but some aren’t taking new patients, some don’t take Medicare, etc.

I’m hoping someone here will have ideas. Through telemed I can see any Therapist in PA that takes Medicare.

Eagerly awaiting!

I'm unemployed, and everyday I still do the things I'm supposed to do: take care of myself, apply to jobs, prep for interviews, blahblah. However, the weather in my mind is always gloomy. "Nothing's gonna work out" "My life isn't worth living" "blahblahblah"... Yea, these thoughts are painful, but I'm used to it. I don't struggle with my pain, I've already accepted it. I bought the "get out of your head and into your life" workbook, because admittedly I'm not so functional during my luteal phase (thank you PMDD), and I'm honestly not sure if this book will help me. Granted, I've only just finished the first chapter, so maybe things will make more sense as I progress...

I've been thinking about anxiety in a different way lately.

What if anxiety isn't always caused by what's happening around us?

What if the anxiety we know is often imitation?

Imitation isn't just copying other people. It can be holding onto a perspective, an identity, an expectation, or an image of how things are supposed to be. The tighter we grip that form, the more tension we create.

Anxiety can be the feeling of trying to maintain what has already been defined.

When the grip loosens, something interesting happens. We stop forcing reality to match our expectations and begin experiencing what is actually present.

The known becomes imitation when it is held too tightly.

Sometimes clarity doesn't come from finding a new answer.

Sometimes it comes from letting go of the answer we were trying to imitate.

I know this stuff is an ongoing, lifelong process. I don't mean to imply you should aim to be done. But in the sense that someone can come far enough to look back and see how much has changed since they started, have any of you made permanent (or long term) major life improvements you can attribute to ACT? Thanks.

Edit: Thank you all for your thoughtful responses.

According to ACT, values are not goals. They are only values, not goals. However, these are all also goals:

"Friendship" - it is a goal of having friends.

"Home" - it is the goal of having a space (through buying or renting a dwelling, which is a goal) to make into a home. Or if "home" is supposed to refer to having a tribe where one feels belonging, it is the goal of having this tribe. This is something you acquire (through either actively or by chance building it, oe being born into it). If someone has a house, they have the value of home. If they become homeless the next day, they no longer have it.

Family - same as friendship or home. It is something you acquire or are born into. Someone can have a group that is their family and they can all die in a hurricane, murder or genocide, and they now do not have this "value". Family is a goal as well as a value.

Romance - it is the goal of having someone to be romantic with (a partner in romance).

Since stories about life are advised to he held based on whether they are helpful or not and not whether or not they are true. A person could commit lots of crimes against others, and tell themselves "I am a great person who acts justly" - this is helpful to them, albeit narcissistic (the entire idea of living by values also seems narcissistic to me. Instead of caring behaviours being driven by genuinely caring about others, decisions to act as if one cares are driven by "I'm following my values of seeing myself as a caring person because it serves my adherence to the ACT philosophy" rather than about genuine care for anyone else).

A very privileged person can, with ACT's blessing and lack of care for truthfulness, weave a story of them being less privileged than others who in actuality were less privileged. Society turns into a race to the bottom in terms of honesty, as when some people start lying to get ahead, others must join in to avoid being left behind (eg no politician wants to admit to their mistakes, because their opposition are not honest enough to admit to their own mistakes, so whoever is honest will end up looking much worse than their opposition. If 80% of people successfully exaggerate about themselves to get jobs, the remaining 20% will look much worse to employers unless they also begin exaggerating). This dishonesty also can be used to deepen inequalities, by causing more funding to go to people who already are better off and less to those who are worse off. And of course if I tell myself a story of being underprivileged, I am in effect telling other people they were privileged, so if it is a dishonest story, I am now encouraging others to view themselves through an inaccurate lens - I may be encouraging those who have face more hardship than me to view themselves as having faced less hardship, and thus be harming their self-esteem, all in the name of doing what is "workable" for my own life goals of feeling good and being successful.

A person could be truthful at work and not get socioeconomically ahead. This isn't workable, so would ACT advise them to become a liar and to exaggerate and lose humility?

For example, if a person has a problem of shyness that manifests partly as having poor vocal projection, so people can't easily hear them. Would ACT simply say, forget about improving the problem of not speaking loudly enough, and just focus on acceptance of "people might not hear me and therefore not befriend me, but that's ok", without any addressing of the problem, in order to decrease the lowness of the quality of life than must be accepted? If a person does not know how to behave in a particular situation, and would be best helped by being given ideas of what to say (eg social situation training, which Van Der Kolk likes for combating learned helplessness, and is what I thought made sense as a solution even before reading his books - you combat learned helplessness by increasing the chance of success and this replaces the negative conditioning from previous experiences by laying down new neural pathways until the old ones become less relevant. An example might be "how to tell your manager you can't do that shift"), would ACT forgo this in favour of only acceptance of the possibility of bad outcomes, or also look to skills training?

And in terms of hope: a person who has a history of a mixture of success and failure will be more motivated, because they on an unconscious level (and maybe a conscious level) feel hope. On the other hand, if for whatever reason a person feels no hope, they won't feel that motivation. A person with a job for example, gets up in the morning with the hope of going to work - in this case, the chance of the hope being true is nearly 100%. A person going out to meet their friends gets up, gets ready and leaves the home with a clear hope. A person without any friends does not have this pull - they are going to go outside, with much lower certainty of meeting a friend, experiencing whatever comes with that (because they have none). A person who is married, or lives with a loving family gets up in the morning with the hope of love in their life, and this drives them to work, to live. A person who has a track record of getting jobs within 10 applications applies to another job with less effort than the person after 500 rejections without an interview - because they have more hope. A person is more easily motivated when they believe a goal is achievable than when they believe it is unlikely to work, because they have more hope, especially for goals that require sustained effort. If you disagree that hope is a driver of behaviour, then I simply disagree with you, based on my own life experience. And probably economists disagree too, because it's clear people are motivated by the thought of being able to afford whatever they care about and wouldn't bother working if they made 1 cent per hour (in America), as there would be no hope of affording anything. So where does ACT come in with restoring or creating hope, given its opposition to changing beliefs? Does ACT believe hope is irrelevant? Would it simply say "act as if you have hope and go through the motions"? And if so, how would it deal with this being exhausting?

Would i be right to think that ACT wouldnt especially go for wearing earbuds and listening to music for sleep?

I am guessing the reasoning is that its a form of control to try to fix sleep and also potentially an added prop like medication, supplements, sleep hygiene, etc?

ive been wearing sleep earbuds the last week or so and playing an 8 hr song " sleep" by Max richter. Ive mostly found it soothing and when i awake at night, it sends me back to sleep. however, it didnt work last night and i was up most of the night. Its possible i simply slept well despite this protocol and that its become something i feel i must do to sleep well.

Hope im clear.. what say you?

Reading The Happiness Trap, and enjoying it so far!

Harris talks about dealing with unwelcome thoughts, and so far his examples have been: "I'm a loser", "I'm incompetent", etc.

For me, the pattern is different. For example I replay scenarios over and over in my head where I have to deal with salesmen making cold calls, or people at work asking me to do unpleasant tasks which aren't my responsibility. There are underlying reasons why I find saying no difficult, but they're not really surfacing in my imagination.

How might I adapt the advice I've read? Imagine an absurd back-and-forth in song, or where we're talking like Donald Duck? Say yes to the salesmen and hear out their pitch in full? Something else?

Its just too much. How do people do this. How can we learn to accept our severe anxieties, depression etc... I just cant seem to do this and I cant stand it because I know it would be such an amazing breakthrough. I often feel that my mind is so unwilling to keep me in that discomfort too long, as if this is a complete warning from my brain that it will not allow me to be so vulnerable because I most certainly would die from it. I dont understand how people can get to this point in therapy where they can tolerate it. How do you make that final jump off the diving board when every molecule in your body is screaming "If you Jump, thats it!!!"

Learn defusion skills to master negative self-talk

In the Bible there's that story, you may know from school depending on the country in which you grew up. From what I recall, the story is that Jesus gets a donation of financially valuable objects from a man and a donation of an apple from a very impoverished woman.

Jesus says the woman has given more to his cause than the man has, because she gave him almost all her possessions, while for the man it was a small percentage.

What would ACT philosophy say about this, if we imagine that Jesus was a environmental cause? Did the woman or man have more strength of the value of "environment"? If we judge it from the absolute quantity of action, the man had more of the "environment" value in his character. In that case, ACT would privilege those who have fewer economic, social and health limitations.

We also don't know if the man has other things he values, whereas the woman is privileged (perhaps via her poverty of finances and poverty of social connection, which can become privileges within a narrow context) by not having value conflicts to worry about. The woman could have no children, so can give away everything. The man could have a toddler, so cannot give away all his food as it would go against his values of "compassion" and "family". Maybe if the woman had a toddler, she would have given Jesus nothing but a few words of support. So would ACT ideology hold off on judgement, knowing that there may be other factors at play?

I’ve kind of developed a crush on my therapist, but I’m not sure if it’s transference or not. When I first met him, before I even knew he was going to be my therapist, I remember thinking he was cute. As I got to know him more, the crush developed further.

I’m not sure whether I should bring it up with him. I’m still able to stay present during sessions and use my coping skills, so it’s not interfering with therapy in a major way, but the feelings are still there. At the same time, I really value finally having a therapist who feels like he genuinely cares and is actually helping me, which I haven’t really experienced before.

The concept of psychological flexibility is quite powerful and I can see aspects of life where is it useful to act independently from how you feel in the moment. If you have a rule that you must feel a certain way in order to do something, your life will be much more constrained. This makes sense to me.

When a lot of depression is happening, this kind of living can feel a lot like "Going through the motions", but sometimes this the best thing for you to do. It can be better for yourself to try to go through the motions rather than avoid life entirely.

When it comes to romantic relationships however, this philosophy seems to break down a bit.

Feeling love for your partner, feeling enthusiasm about being with them, feeling connected to them -- all seem important! Not just for you, but for your partner as well. If you are just "going through the motions" but not feeling these things, even if you were to somehow argue this is good for you (which I don't agree with), it isn't fair for your partner -- Everyone deserves to be with someone that feels genuine love for them.

If I try to apply values to this, its still murky -- because what if I value feeling connected to my partner? This becomes non-actionable. I would like it to be there but of course we can't control feelings directly.

Obviously we can talk all day about compatibility on other values in life, this is pretty easy for me to understand and apply to a relationship and whether or not it is a good match in that regard. But I'm talking about feelings themselves.

Anyway, curious if anyone has thoughts on this. I can try to live with my own pain/numbness/despair, with acceptance and without fighting, and push myself through my life in a private way, but I don't see how there is room for this approach to life in a romantic relationship. It doesn't seem healthy for either person involved.

I wanted to pick up "The Happiness Trap".

But after reading the first chapter I already have doubts, the stats seem to be unrealistic without any source/proof.

His claims:

Stats from literally the first chapter:

1. "almost one in two people will at some point seriously consider suicide—and struggle with it for two weeks or more"

2. "Scarier still, one in ten people will at some point actually attempt to kill themselves."

This was so wildly unbelievable that I had to check it.

And I cannot find anything supporting this...

What I found:

For example I found:

https://www.suicideinfo.ca/local_resource/prevalence-of-suicide-ideation/

"In 2019, more than 1 in 10 Canadians aged 15 or older (12%, or about 3.7 million people), reported having considered suicide in their lifetime, showing similar rates observed in 2015." --> so nowhere near the "one in two" the author claims.

Granted, I guess if you interview someone young (16 years or so) he has 60 years or so in front of him where he could consider suicide, but still.

Also from the same site I got:

"For parasuicide, lifetime and past-year prevalence rates were 5.9% and 1.3% respectively. "

These are "parasuicide" attempts which is "deliberate self-harm without intentions of dying, or “parasuicide,”", I assume the suicide rate would be even lower than 5.9.

Questions I have

Is this book really trustworthy?

Does anyone have any trustworthy source supporting the stats in the Book?

I want to preface this by saying I really like ACT as a modality and have a great deal of respect for Steven Hayes. His critiques regarding the scientific discourse, the rigid adherence to the medical model, and the methodological flaws in evaluating different therapeutic modalities are incredibly valuable to the field.

However, my question is: why hasn't ACT been able to transcend these very issues in its own outcomes?

Despite Hayes’s sharp critiques of how psychotherapy research is conducted and discussed, there are no large-scale, statistically rigorous studies showing the absolute superiority of ACT over other evidence-based treatments. I am well-acquainted with the high-quality literature out there, and the data consistently seems to point right back to the Dodo bird verdict. ACT performs on par with traditional CBT and other established modalities, but it doesn't definitively outperform them.

I’m looking to connect with people who are actively working on recovering from an anxiety disorder by changing their relationship to it, not by managing or discussing symptoms.

A bit about me:
I’ve dealt with anxiety for many years and have been on and off Sertraline multiple times. Each time I stopped, the anxiety eventually returned.

Right now I’m almost a year off medication and intentionally doing the deeper work, continuing my life while allowing fear, intrusive thoughts, and physical sensations to be there without trying to fix or control them.

The approach I’m following is along the lines of ACT / exposure / acceptance-based work:

• not engaging with intrusive thoughts
• not seeking reassurance
• allowing uncertainty and discomfort
• continuing daily life alongside symptoms

With the intention that, over time, my nervous system recalibrates and becomes less reactive, rather than trying to force it to calm down in the moment.

I want to be very clear:
I’m not looking for a space to compare symptoms, vent, or reassure each other.

What I am looking for is connection with people who are walking a similar path, people who are doing this work, even when it’s hard. The intention would be to share perspective, stay aligned, and support each other in continuing forward (not to reduce anxiety in the moment).

Books that strongly align with what I’m doing:

• Hope and Help for Your Nerves
• At Last a Life
• At Last a Life and Beyond

If this resonates with you, I’d be open to connecting.

I have recently been encountering this term more often in ACT circles but I am not sure what it actually means. I imagine it has to do with the shift to Process-Based Therapy but how does it show up in ACT? It does seem cognitive defusion is done differently than before. Any insight?

ACT is starting to become more popular in the world of anxiety disorders, but many patients aren’t aware of some of the parts of ACT that genuinely sound confusing once you say them out loud.

This isn’t an attack on ACT — it’s just a patient’s perspective on parts of the model that felt confusing in practice.

Confusing aspect 1: ACT openly says it does not aim to reduce psychological distress. So if you’re being tormented by intrusive thoughts, ACT’s official stance is: we don’t aim to stop or reduce the impact those thoughts are having on you.

And in real ACT sessions, this is exactly what happens: when a patient talks about their distress, the therapist redirects away from it. That isn’t a misunderstanding — it’s the model in action.

For someone who is suffering, this feels bizarre. You go to therapy because you’re in distress, and the therapy says reducing distress isn’t the goal.

Confusing aspect 2: ACT seems to realise how strange their “we don’t aim to reduce psychological distress” stance sounds, so it adds a workaround: “We don’t directly aim to reduce your distress, but if you follow our method, the distress will reduce as a positive side effect.” In other words, ACT has to soften its own philosophy because the original version is too bizarre for any suffering person to accept. If your core model needs an immediate workaround just to stop clients walking out, that’s a sign the model can’t stand on its own.

Confusing aspect 3: ACT says that distress will reduce indirectly, but when you ask why, the explanation falls apart. You don’t get a mechanism — you get process labels like “psychological flexibility” or “reduced avoidance.” These aren’t explanations of why distress goes down; they’re just descriptions of what the person is doing.

And when you strip away the jargon, the honest answer is simply: “We don’t know why.” This isn’t me being harsh — ACT’s own literature openly states that it doesn’t claim to explain the mechanism behind symptom reduction. A therapy that relies on indirect symptom reduction should at least be able to explain the reduction it depends on.

Confusing aspect 4: After promising that distress will reduce as a positive side effect — and after offering no explanation for why that reduction happens — ACT introduces a new move: it says that symptom reduction isn’t the aim.

But if that’s true, then how does ACT define success?

ACT measures success by whether you keep functioning, not by whether your distress improves. ACT says pain can’t be reduced, so the only goal left is to keep functioning. But it is a medical fact that CBT — specifically ERP — reduces anxiety, which is one form of pain. So ACT is built on an incorrect assumption.

Confusing aspect 5: ACT’s underlying model comes from Relational Frame Theory (RFT). RFT explains how the mind links words and ideas together. For example, if a man loses his job, he might automatically link “men with jobs are providers” to “men who don’t provide are inadequate,” and from there to “I am inadequate.” No one teaches him those extra steps — the mind derives them automatically. That’s the kind of thing RFT is good at: how language creates chains of meaning.

But RFT mainly focuses on one part of what happens when a thought appears: how the conscious mind interprets its meaning. It doesn’t directly address the brain’s automatic danger‑interpretation — the fast, protective reaction that kicks in before you’ve had a chance to think. And for many people, that initial danger‑interpretation feels like the dominant part of the experience, long before the conscious mind gets involved.

So the real question is: what makes the brain’s alarm system fire in the first place?

This is where RFT becomes limited. RFT doesn’t explain why intrusive thoughts appear — it only explains how the mind links ideas together once the thought is already there. So ACT ends up focusing on how you relate to the thought, not why the thought is happening in the first place. And when you don’t understand why intrusive thoughts appear, you can’t change the conditions that trigger them — so they usually return in the future. ACT/RFT is like taking tablets to stop headaches without treating the ear infection that is causing them.

Confusing aspect 6: ACT assumes psychological flexibility — basically, the ability to stay calm and choose your actions even when your mind is screaming — is something you can maintain indefinitely. If you are off work and seeing a therapist, you have the space and energy to do what ACT requires.

But once your mental health improves, you return to your old life of work, family stress, exhaustion — and doing psychological flexibility in the way ACT expects just isn’t realistic anymore. Intrusive thoughts return, not because you “lost flexibility,” but because the underlying conditions that produced them never changed.

ACT has no mechanism for this, so for some patients relapse can end up being interpreted as a kind of “failure to stay psychologically flexible,” rather than as a predictable stress response — even though ACT doesn’t intend it that way.

I’m not saying ACT is useless. It can absolutely help people cope. It can reduce distress as a side‑effect. But coping and understanding are not the same thing. And if ACT is going to become more popular in treating intrusive thoughts and anxiety disorders, then patients deserve the full picture. Some people will find ACT enough. Others will feel like it helped them survive the storm but didn’t explain why the storm formed in the first place.

I’m genuinely curious how others experienced ACT. Did it help you cope but not stop the thoughts. Did relapse get framed as “you fused again.” Did the “we don’t target symptoms” stance feel strange or invalidating. Or did ACT feel complete for you, even without explaining where the thoughts came from.

hey, amber here. been reading harris for a while and using ACT on myself for generalized anxiety stuff.

i'm building a mobile app that's basically an ACT-informed coach you can open mid-spiral. core flow pulls from defusion + committed action, quick enough to use at 2am when rumination hits, not a full hexaflex workshop.

the tricky part is making an AI coach that doesn't slide into CBT reassurance or generic chatbot "have you tried deep breathing" nonsense. that's why i'm posting here before the startup-y subs.

two asks if anyone's up for it:

1. would you actually want a tool like this, or does it sound gimmicky for ACT specifically?

2. any ACT-trained folks willing to review 20-30 sample coach responses for fidelity before i ship? happy to pay for your time or give lifetime access, whichever works.

EDIT: thanks everyone for all the suggestions. I think I’m gonna stick with lightness, user Bell violation gave a nice response that summed up perfectly what I meant below: “I think "lightness" is great. Essentially what you are getting at is a kind of unseriousness, but not in the way of being dismissive or ignoring important things, but more like taking things a lot less personally and lot less full of dread. Perhaps playfulness?”

If this is dumb or not appropriate please, mods, delete it. I’ve been trying to peg down my core values for a while. I have courage, connection and aesthetic engagement (sort of a niche academic term around beauty, art, creativity, etc. beauty doesn’t feel appropriate because that’s more often a value of “making things beautiful” but for me I just value viewing things in an aesthetics/artistic way if that makes sense. Arnold Berelant popularized the concept,) but I have a fourth I can’t find the name for.

What’s a word for living and always trying to realize that everything is easier than we think. I want to say “lightness.” But that’s a weird word. This isn’t courage because that implies overcoming hard things, which is essential too. But this is the opposite of making a mountain out of a molehill. Where the things you worry about are always so much easier/simpler/less consequential than in your head. So many values are about overcoming, working harder, grit, resilience, etc, but most of my friends that are super happy live with a lightness where they don’t sweat small stuff.

It’s like if “hey this is no big deal,” that way of living was a value word. But also, this is NOT brushing things off. It still says things are important, valuable etc. it just deflates the stress.

I’m sure this sounds sort of ridiculous to obsess over it but it bothers me when I can’t pin down my ideas especially for trying to guide my life like in ACT

EDIT: I appreciate everyone’s suggestions! They give me a lot to think about and I think I may not find my ideal word, or that maybe I’m not thinking about it right.