WEBVTT

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Life asks us questions.

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And probably one of the most important
questions it asks us is,

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"What are you going to do
about difficult thoughts and feelings?"

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If you're feeling ashamed or anxious,

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life just asked you a question.

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If you're standing here
about to give a [TEDx] talk

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and your mind is getting very chattery,

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what are you going to do about that?

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Good question.

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(Laughter)

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And the answer to that question

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and ones like it

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say a lot about the trajectories
of our lives

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whether or not they're going to unfold

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in a positive way

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that moves toward, towards prosperity,
love, freedom, contribution,

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or downward, into pathology and despair.

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And I'm here to make the argument
that you have within you

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a great answer to that question

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or at least the seed of it.

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But, you also have this arrogant,

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storytelling, problem solving, analytic,

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judgmental mind between your ears
that doesn't have the answer

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and is constantly tempting you

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into taking the wrong direction.

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My name is Steve Hayes

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and for the last 30 years,

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I and my colleagues have been studying

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a small set of psychological processes -

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fancy words for things people do -

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called psychological flexibility.

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It's a set of answers to that question.

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And in more than a thousand studies,

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we've shown
that psychological flexibility

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predicts are you going to develop
a mental health problem

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anxiety, depression, trauma?

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If you have one it predicts,

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later on will you have two?

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It predicts how severe they are,

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how chronic they'll be.

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But, not just that,

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it predicts all kinds of other things
that are important to us

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even though it's not psychopathology.

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Such as, what kind of parent
are you going to be?

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What kind of worker are you going to be?

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Can you step up to the behavioral
challenges of physical disease?

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Can you stick to your exercise program?

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Everywhere that human minds go,

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psychological flexibility is relevant.

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And what I want to do in this talk

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is to walk you through

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the science of psychological flexibility,

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because we've learned

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how to change these processes

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in several hundred studies

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using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

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or ACT, but not just ACT,

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related methods that target flexibility

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we've shown that we can change it

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and when we change it,

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those life trajectories that are negative

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go positive
with outcomes in all the areas

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that I just mentioned and many more.

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So, I want to walk you through

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what the elements
of psychological flexibility are.

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And I'm going to take you back

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to a moment in my life 34 years ago

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where I first turned powerfully

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in their direction.

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Decades ago.

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Thirty-four years ago at 2 in the morning

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on a brown and gold shag carpet

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with my body almost literally
in this posture,

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and my mind for sure in this posture.

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I had for two to three years

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been spiraling down

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into the hell of panic disorder.

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It began in a horrific department meeting

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where I was forced to watch

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full professors fight

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in a way that only wild animals

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and full professors are capable of.

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(Laughter)

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And all I wanted to do
was to beg them to stop,

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but instead I had my first panic attack,

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and by the time they called on me,

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I couldn't even make a sound

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come out of my mouth.

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And in the shock, and the horror,
and embarrassment

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of that first and public panic attack,

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I did all of the logical, reasonable,

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sensible, and pathological things

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your mind tells you to do.

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I tried to run from anxiety;

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I tried to fight with anxiety;

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and I tried to hide from anxiety.

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I sat next to the door.

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I watched its coming.

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I argued my way out of it.

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I took the tranquilizers

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and as I did all those things,

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the panic attacks increased

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in frequency and in intensity.

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First at work,

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but then while traveling,

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and then in restaurants,

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and then in movie theaters,

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and then in elevators,

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and then on phone calls,

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and then in the safety of home,

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and finally even being awakened

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at two in the morning from a dead sleep

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already in a panic attack.

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But, this night
on that brown and gold shag carpet,

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this night,

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as I watched with anxiety waves,

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my body's sensations

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was different.

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This night was even more horrifying,

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but it was somehow satisfying,

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because I wasn't having a panic attack.

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I was dying of a heart attack.

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I had all the evidence for it.

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I had the weight in the chest.

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I had the shooting pains down my arm.

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I was sweating profusely.

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My heart was racing
and skipping beats wildly.

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And that same spider voice that came up

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and said, "You've got to run.

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You've got to fight.
You've got to hide from anxiety,"

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was now telling me,

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"Make the call.

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You can't drive in this condition.

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You're dying.

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Call the emergency room.

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Call the ambulance.

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This is not a joke. Make the call."

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And yet, minute after minute went by

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and I didn't make the call.

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And I had a sense of leaving my body

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and looking back at myself there

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and I imagined what would happen

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if I did make that call.

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Like a series of scenes,

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little snippets like in a movie trailer

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like when you go to the theater

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for the upcoming film.

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I could hear the sound
of the emergency responders

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coming up the stairs,

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the pounding on the thin hollow door,

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the ride in the ambulance,

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the tubes and wires,

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the concerned look
on the faces of the nurses

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as I went into the emergency room,

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and then finally the last little snippet,

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the last little scene

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in this movie trailer,

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where I suddenly realized

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what this movie was going to be about.

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And I looked at it and I said,

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"Oh, please, God, not that.

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Please, please."

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Because that final scene,

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lying on the gurney in the emergency room,

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here came a young doctor

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in my mind's eye

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walking entirely too casually.

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And as he got close to me,

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I could see there was a smirk on his face,

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and I knew what was coming.

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He got close and he said,

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"Dr. Hayes,

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you're not having a heart attack,"

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and then the smirk broadened,

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"You're having a panic attack."

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And I knew that was true.

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This was just another level down of hell.

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And a scream came out of my mouth,

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a weird breathly, strange sounding thing.

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It sounded just like this.

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(Screams)

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And as I bounced off the bottom,

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another door opened.

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I don't know how long it was,

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but it was a few minutes later

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from a rarely visited,

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but deeply me part of me,

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the part of me that's behind your eyes,

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a more spiritual part,

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from my very soul,
if you want to say it that way,

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words came out.

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I'm pretty sure.

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I said it out loud to no one

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at two in the morning.

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I said,

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"I don't know who you are,

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but apparently, you can make me hurt.

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You can make me suffer.

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But I'll tell you
one thing you cannot do.

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You can't make me turn
from my own experience.

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You can't do it."

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And my then much younger body
ached as it stood up,

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and I could tell from the dried
and burning tracks of tears on my face

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that I had been there a very long time.

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But, I stood up inside a promise.

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"Never again.

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I will not run from me."

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I did not know how to keep that promise.

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To be honest, I'm still learning.

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I had no idea how to bring that promise

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into the lives of others.

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I would learn that
only in the work that we would do

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in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy,

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or ACT, and that was ahead of me.

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But, in those 34 years,

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not a single day has gone by

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where I didn't remember that promise.

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And when you stand here like this,

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the way you know already

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is the wiser place to stand

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with pain and suffering,

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things start happening.

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I can put it into words now

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what the science shows,
what this posture is.

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It's emotional openness.

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We're going to feel
what's there to be felt

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even when it's hard.

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It's being able to look at your thoughts,

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not just from your thoughts.

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So, when you're thinking

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they're not just like this,

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so you can't see anything else,

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you can notice them out there.

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It's connecting with this more spiritual

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part of you and from there

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being able to direct your attention

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flexibly, fluidly, voluntarily

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towards what's there to be focused on.

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And when you see something of importance,

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to be able to move towards it

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with your hands and arms free

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so that you can feel, and do,

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and contribute, and participate.

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That's psychological flexibility.

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And it builds on what that seed is

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that you know because if you put this

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into a word, I think you can see
why this would be the word,

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the single word I would say is, "Love."

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When you stand with yourself

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in a self-compassionate, kind, loving way,

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life opens up and then you can turn

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towards meaning and purpose

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and how you bring love, participation,

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beauty, contribution,

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into the lives of others.

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I didn't see at first that this

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pivot towards pain and suffering

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actually was glued at the hip

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to this pivot towards meaning and purpose.

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I didn't see that at first.

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But I started seeing it in my clients

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as I began to do the ACT work.

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I started seeing it in my own life.

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And just a few years in,

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it hit me very powerfully.

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By then, I'd done a few
randomized trials on ACT

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and I was beginning to do trainings,

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moving around, meeting
with smaller groups of clinicians,

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teaching about the work we're doing.

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And I was doing a workshop

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and I had these waves of anxiety,

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which was totally normal.

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Still today, I will get anxious

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during talks.

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That was fine. I'm open for that.

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Come on. It's cool.

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But then another wave came.

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I suddenly felt as though
I was going to sob

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in front of those clinicians,

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that I was going to weep uncontrollably.

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I said, "What?"

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The moment passed and I did the workshop.

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Didn't think about it again
until the next workshop,

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same exact thing happened.

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And this time I had the presence of mind
to notice I felt very young.

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And I asked myself,

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even as I was doing the workshop,

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"How old are you?"

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And the answer came back, "8 or 9."

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And then, a memory flipped by

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that I hadn't thought of
since it happened,

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when I was 8 or 9.

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I didn't have time to unpack it
in the workshop,

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but that night in the hotel I did.

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I was underneath my bed,

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listening to my parents fight
in the other room.

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My dad had come home drunk and late again.

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And my mother was ripping into him

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about him spending
the meager family funds on his addiction;

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about his inadequacies
as a husband and as a father.

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And he was saying,

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"Shut up! You better shut up or else!"

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and I knew his fists were clenched.

00:15:19.100 --> 00:15:21.523
And then I heard a horrific crash

00:15:22.000 --> 00:15:23.738
and my mother screaming.

00:15:26.000 --> 00:15:27.600
I would find out only later

00:15:27.600 --> 00:15:29.100
it was the coffee table

00:15:29.100 --> 00:15:30.700
going across the living room.

00:15:32.160 --> 00:15:33.463
And I'm thinking,

00:15:33.600 --> 00:15:35.458
"Is there going to be blood?

00:15:35.900 --> 00:15:37.526
Is he hitting her?"

00:15:38.400 --> 00:15:40.200
And then, my little boy mind

00:15:40.200 --> 00:15:42.900
gave me these words very clearly,

00:15:44.100 --> 00:15:46.488
"I'm going to do something."

00:15:49.500 --> 00:15:53.140
And I realized there was nothing
for me to do,

00:15:53.140 --> 00:15:54.800
nothing safe.

00:15:56.100 --> 00:15:58.000
So, I scooted back farther

00:15:58.000 --> 00:16:00.272
and I held myself and cried.

00:16:03.900 --> 00:16:05.233
You get it?

00:16:06.420 --> 00:16:09.540
I'm sitting there,
watching those old bulls fight

00:16:09.540 --> 00:16:11.744
in the psychology department

00:16:12.500 --> 00:16:14.449
and yeah, I'm horrified

00:16:15.400 --> 00:16:17.397
and yeah, I'm feeling anxious,

00:16:17.500 --> 00:16:21.316
but really what I would like to do
is just to cry -

00:16:22.500 --> 00:16:24.513
in a department of psychology?

00:16:24.600 --> 00:16:27.800
(Laughter)

00:16:28.700 --> 00:16:29.863
Really?

00:16:32.500 --> 00:16:34.600
But, I didn't have access to him.

00:16:35.500 --> 00:16:37.300
I didn't have room for him.

00:16:39.400 --> 00:16:42.234
He's why I'm a psychologist,

00:16:43.400 --> 00:16:45.812
but I didn't even know it.

00:16:47.000 --> 00:16:51.000
And I got caught up in the articles,

00:16:51.000 --> 00:16:53.700
in the vita, in the grants,
and the achievement.

00:16:53.700 --> 00:16:55.131
Woo hoo!

00:16:57.000 --> 00:17:00.738
But, I came here because he asked me to.

00:17:01.800 --> 00:17:03.544
To "do something".

00:17:05.099 --> 00:17:07.900
And instead, what I told him

00:17:08.700 --> 00:17:12.000
was tantamount to leading down and saying,

00:17:12.500 --> 00:17:15.300
"Just be quiet. Go away. Shut up,"

00:17:17.200 --> 00:17:21.200
when I ran, and I fought, and I hid.

00:17:22.000 --> 00:17:24.300
It was so unkind and so unloving.

00:17:24.900 --> 00:17:29.261
To who? To me, and the parts of me

00:17:29.862 --> 00:17:34.257
that connect me
even with my life's purpose.

00:17:35.800 --> 00:17:38.700
Because we hurt where we care

00:17:39.600 --> 00:17:42.100
and we care where we hurt.

00:17:42.700 --> 00:17:45.100
These two pivots, these two

00:17:45.100 --> 00:17:48.300
"turning towards" are the same thing.

00:17:49.000 --> 00:17:50.700
When you stand with yourself,

00:17:50.700 --> 00:17:52.570
even when it's hard,

00:17:52.700 --> 00:17:54.947
you're doing a loving thing for yourself

00:17:55.100 --> 00:17:57.500
and out of that then you can afford

00:17:57.500 --> 00:18:00.595
the risk of turning towards

00:18:01.600 --> 00:18:03.300
bringing love into the world,

00:18:03.300 --> 00:18:05.200
beauty into the world, communication,

00:18:05.200 --> 00:18:08.159
contribution into the world.

00:18:08.500 --> 00:18:12.249
And seeing that, I made another promise.

00:18:13.100 --> 00:18:17.324
Never again, I will not push you away,

00:18:19.100 --> 00:18:23.528
nor your message to me about our purpose.

00:18:24.510 --> 00:18:27.409
I'm not going to ask you
to give the workshop,

00:18:27.800 --> 00:18:29.900
or do the [TEDx] talk either,

00:18:30.500 --> 00:18:32.330
(Laughter)

00:18:33.000 --> 00:18:35.900
but I want you here with me

00:18:37.000 --> 00:18:38.868
because you soften me.

00:18:39.500 --> 00:18:44.220
You make sense
of why my life is about this.

00:18:46.900 --> 00:18:49.300
And so, my message to you is

00:18:51.050 --> 00:18:54.686
to look at the science
of psychological flexibility, yeah,

00:18:54.700 --> 00:18:58.543
but look at how it can inform
what you already know,

00:19:00.000 --> 00:19:02.600
which is bringing love to yourself

00:19:02.600 --> 00:19:04.658
even when it's hard

00:19:04.800 --> 00:19:07.446
will help you bring love into the world

00:19:07.500 --> 00:19:11.537
in the way that you want
to bring it into the world.

00:19:13.600 --> 00:19:15.540
And that's important.

00:19:16.600 --> 00:19:17.951
You know it.

00:19:18.300 --> 00:19:20.753
Your crying little 8 year olds in you
know it.

00:19:22.900 --> 00:19:24.537
We all know it.

00:19:26.600 --> 00:19:28.500
Because love isn't everything,

00:19:29.900 --> 00:19:31.569
it's the only thing.

00:19:32.870 --> 00:19:33.790
Thank you.

00:19:33.790 --> 00:19:35.420
I hope I've been useful to you.

00:19:35.420 --> 00:19:36.800
(Applause)