Nurturing environments foster psychological flexibility. People are not rigidly attached to their beliefs and so are tolerant of the things other people do. They are clear about their values and act in the service of those values, even when doing so feels difficult or frustrating. They tend not to criticize or complain about other people’s behavior. Because they are less judgmental, they are less likely to punish or hurt others and more likely to praise, support, attend to, and care for others.
The best example I can think of is the patient mothering of an infant. I watch my daughter-in-law Jen with her five month old infant, Ashlyn. Ashlyn cries frequently and lately has been hard to get to sleep. Jen certainly feels frustration at times. But although she sometimes feels impatient, she continues to be soothing. Thanks to her patient teaching, every day Ashlyn develops new behaviors that are alternatives to being distressed.
Recent work in mindfulness therapies, such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, shows that when people are helped to adopt this type of acceptance, they become more flexible in making their way in the world. Rather than being focused on feeling good, they focus on acting in the service of their values. Research shows the benefit of this approach to life for people with all kinds of problems, including anxiety, depression, diabetes, cigarette smoking, hallucinations, and even epilepsy.
What I find most interesting, however, is the evidence that when people become more accepting toward their own thoughts and feelings they become more caring toward others. There are at least three studies showing this, two by Steve Hayes and his colleagues and one that I did with colleagues at Oregon Research Institute and the Early Education Program.
What happens is that people first become less judgmental about themselves. Most people (myself included) harbor doubts and criticisms about themselves. If you believe these things, you have to struggle to control them, deny them, work harder to prove they aren’t true, argue with yourself and others when any criticism comes up.
But once you get the hang of this accepting, nonjudgmental stance toward all the self-criticism that comes up, you are really adopting a more accepting and caring stance toward yourself. Yes, I have the thought that I cannot write well (a current one for me) and I can have that thought and not hate myself. I can accept that I am this struggling human being, trying to make a difference in the world and write something anyway.
And once you become more caring toward yourself, it becomes easier to care for others. If another is angry with you, you can accept the feelings that come up for you when you are criticized and not struggle with whether they are really true—and with whether the other person is “right.” In that context, you can be in better contact with the other person.
I am convinced that our families, schools, workplaces, and communities will become more nurturing, if we can encourage this kind of mindfulness. As people learn to hold their thoughts and feelings more lightly—to accept them not as reality, but as thoughts and feelings they are having–and as people dedicate themselves to living their values, we will have less punishment and coercion and more caring and support.
Try it!
Tony -
First, thanks for starting this blog. It is very nice to have more frequent access to your good thinking, and the topic (and the way you’ve taken it up) is very engaging, important, and timely. I look forward to what it will bring!
Regarding today’s note on acceptance: I too have been drawn to this idea for some time. There’s an interesting overlap between recent attention to mindfulness and acceptance in a variety of behavioral treatments (Dialectic Behavior Therapy, ACT, and depression relapse to name a few) and the long-standing and well-articulated features of Buddhism.
But when considered from Buddhism’s perspective, another wrinkle arises: In the same way we should accept the transitory way of unpleasant events as you describe in your post, we should accept the transitory nature of pleasant ones too. This latter feature is sometimes described as avoiding “attachment,” but it seems to me to have a good number of similar features.
And that, I think, presents an important dilemma — can we be joyful and nurturing while being accepting of both negative and positive events? I think so….but I know it takes practice on my part, and may warrant a bit more thought about the role of acceptance in creating and sustaining nurturing environments.
Thanks again!
I have spent the past twenty years teaching and developing acceptance and values oriented interventions. Most of the work has been aimed at individual providers of health care. I have spent less time thinking about ways that we can bring these sensibilities to bear in communities as a whole. I appreciate your persistent effort to provoke my colleagues and I to think through the ways that these interventions could be applied on a more community-wide basis.
One thing that has struck me, teaching about Acceptance and Commitment Therapy all over the world has been my sense of the latent longing people have for connection and kindness. I have watched literally thousands of individuals come into workshops guarded. And, I have watched a few in the group open up, make plain their own vulnerabilities and values, and show acceptance towards themselves and others. What inevitably follows is a pouring forth from the group.
Again and again I have seen a sort of synergy. A few make a place where acceptance and kindness can blossom in others. It seems very clear that the desire people have to participate in such a community is fundamental.
I grew up during the Vietnam era, have lived through two wars in Iraq, and countless lesser conflicts. As I reflect on all that, I wonder if perhaps I gave up a bit on communities and brought my attention to individuals, where I could see the impact of my efforts clearly.
This last year has been an eye opener for me in a lot of ways. I was inspired by our soon-to-be president. I had thought that the 60’s had killed off my capacity to be inspired by anything or anyone in the political realm. I was wrong about that. Perhaps it is time to return to the aspirations of my youth. Perhaps I am seeing in myself the reemergence of a hope for community that has been armored up in me for a long time. Perhaps the longing for community that I have seen in thousands of individual faces at Acceptance and Commitment Therapy workshops is opening me up to the possibility of broadening my own efforts.
I look forward to an ongoing dialogue. Maybe, just maybe, we have another “Yes we can” in us.
Peace to all in the new year.
Kelly
Kelly,
I am so warmed by your comment. Last week I watched as a whole room full or people experienced the kind of caring that emerges in the context of an ACT workshop. I look forward to seeing what happens when we extend this pragmatic orientation beyond the clinic. Of course your clients are already doing that. But suppose they went out into families, schools, workplaces, and organizations that shared this pragematic, caring culture.
Scott,
I think you are right about the issue of attachment to the “good” things that happen to us. I suspect that the way it works is that if you really, really like feeling good, you are, to that extent, unwilling to feel “negative” things. And, in that context, we step out of the present moment.
Tony, Dennis,
Enjoyed your post. I am a long time follower of ACT. Suggestion, get yourself set up on feedburner. I tried to subsribe with RSS and nothing seems to show up. If you haven’t already already, all you have to do is go to feedburner.com and register your blog and then put the info in your blog options.
Just a thought