Transforming Communication with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy with Dr. Diana Hill

Are you ready to transform your communication skills? Let us accompany you on this insightful journey with clinical psychologist and author, Dr. Diana Hill. Be prepared to reframe your approach to challenging conversations, armed with acceptance, compassion, and a respect for the delicate dance of human interaction. Dr. Hill generously imparts wisdom from her own recovery journey and research, expertly merging scientific insights with spiritual influences. She also introduces us to acceptance-based practices such as Aptide Awareness Training and dialectical behavior therapy, showing us how aligning our actions with our personal values can lead to a life of deeper meaning.

Next, we delve deeper into the world of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) guided by a therapist who has co-authored a journal on this very topic. Find out how ACT stands apart from other therapeutic methods and how you can apply its principles in your daily life. We’ll navigate through the concept of creative hopelessness, acceptance, the importance of being present, and committed action, all crucial components of the ACT process. This is an enlightening exploration for anyone curious about ACT or those seeking tools to navigate changes and live a life of fulfillment.

Our conversation doesn’t end there. We examine the challenge of aligning our efforts with our values, particularly for those with ambition and drive. Here we discuss the idea of wise effort, a guide for channeling our energy effectively. Learn about the importance of setting boundaries in relationships, embracing honest communication, and remaining steadfast in our values. This episode promises to be a compass guiding you towards a life that’s healthier, more productive, and ultimately, more fulfilled. Don’t miss this opportunity to turn your listening time into a masterclass on personal growth! Let's dive in!

Today's Guest: Dr. Diana Hill

Diana Hill, PhD is a clinical psychologist and co-author of ACT Daily Journal: Get Unstuck and Live Fully with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, the ACT Daily Card Deck, and the upcoming book The Self-Compassion Daily Journal (May 2024). A leader in the practical application of acceptance and commitment therapy, Dr. Hill trains mental health professionals in ACT, hosts the podcast Your Life in Process, blogs for Psychology Today and Mindfil.org and teaches on Insight Timer Meditation. Dr. Hill regularly leads workshops and retreats at InsightLA, Blue Spirit Costa Rica, Mindful Heart Programs, Yoga Soup and PESI Conintuing Education. 

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Your Host: Kimberly Beam Holmes, Expert in Self-Improvement and Relationships

Kimberly Beam Holmes has applied her master's degree in psychology for over ten years, acting as the CEO of Marriage Helper & CEO and Creator of PIES University, being a wife and mother herself, and researching how attraction affects relationships. Her videos, podcasts, and following reach over 200,000 people a month who are making changes and becoming the best they can be.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:30

If you've ever struggled with knowing what to say to someone because you don't want to hurt their feelings, then you are going to want to listen to this entire podcast. We talk about way more than that in this episode, but the podcast definitely ends with me getting kind of a mini counseling session of how to handle an issue where I've been ghosting someone in my life and I know that I need to approach them, but I've been struggling with what to say and how to say it and how to have acceptance that it's what I need to say and compassion about the situation, which is really the context of today's conversation. I'm interviewing Dr Diana Hill. She is a clinical psychologist and she is also the author of the Act Daily Journal Get Unstuck and Live Fully with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. She's also created a card deck that goes along with that and she has an upcoming book that will be out in a couple of months May 2024, the Self-Compassion Daily Journal.

Speaker 1: 1:26

She is so fantastic. She's done a ton of research just into how to be more compassionate towards yourself, accepting of your own thought processes and things going on in your life, and how to be mentally flexible and how to move forward. Actually it's called psychological flexibility how to have the psychological flexibility to feel the things that you feel right now, but then also act in the values that you want to have. We have a great conversation, especially when it comes to values and especially when it comes to if you're feeling burnt out in work or relationships or other areas of your life. You don't want to miss this episode. Let's dive in. Dr Diana Hill, I'm super happy and thrilled to have you on the show today. Thank you for joining me.

Speaker 2: 2:09

Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Speaker 1: 2:10

Yeah, Now you're a clinical psychologist. What led you to want to get involved in the clinical psychology world?

Speaker 2: 2:18

Oh gosh, that's a tricky question, because if you ask any psychologist, that they're going to have two different answers Right, and the answer that they'll give their academic advisor or the professional setting, because I want to help people and I care about others and I was always a good listener. And then there's the real story and I think for many therapists, psychologists, people that are in this type of profession, the real story comes from their own suffering. People say research is me search, but I often say my mess is my message.

Speaker 2: 2:50

And I struggled in my own life with. I was anorexic, I was blame-yic, I had a long experience with that. But then I also had a strong interest in science and research, in combination with an interest in sort of more like soul-centered, acceptance-centered approaches, and I found that that combination of being able to discover recovery from a place of sort of like spiritual healing but also from the science, was the sweet spot for me and I wanted to go on and research that and actually figure out what are the components of that that made it work for me so I can help others. So that's my true story, but I would say if you were in a professional setting I might give you a different, a little bit of a different answer.

Speaker 1: 3:45

A little more polished answer. Yeah, a little more polished A professional setting, yeah. So what did you find? I'm assuming that you did your PhD dissertation on something in that realm about compassion or acceptance, and what did you do your research on and what did you find in your research?

Speaker 2: 4:00

Yeah, my research was a combination of an acceptance-based approach. I was working at CU Boulder in Colorado and Stanford University, and my advisor at Boulder was really interested in something called Aptide Awareness Training. So that was about learning how to listen to your own body, how to develop your inter-acceptive awareness, which is awareness from the inside out of how to eat, how to take care of yourself. And that was in combination with a researcher at Stanford who was looking at something called dialectical behavior therapy, which is how to relate to your emotions differently, how to be able to accept difficult emotions and still be able to choose the behaviors that are in line with your values. So my research was a combination of those two Aptide Awareness Training with a dialectical behavior therapy and then over time, I got more interested in this approach called ACT Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which has a lot of work around values and being able to identify what type of life do you want, not just what type of life looks good on the outside, but what is it really deep inside that you want your life to be about, and how do you pursue that?

Speaker 2: 5:14

How do you create meaning in your life? How do you let go of other people's expectations and choose what's right for you and then also accept all of the difficulty, pain, suffering, all of that that comes along with that, except that sometimes choosing meaning or choosing your values is the more painful path to take.

Speaker 1: 5:37

Now, I know very little about ACT. I know actually, probably the extent of what I know includes what you just said. And so, when it comes to acceptance and commitment therapy and I've heard great things about it but is it something that's like dialectical behavior or like cognitive behavioral, where there's a lot of aspects of it that are immediately useful, like things that people can begin doing on their own, or is it really something that they need to go and find someone who's been trained in ACT in order to go really into that modality?

Speaker 2: 6:12

Well, part of the reason why I wrote the ACT Daily Journal with Debbie Sorensen was that for a long time, it was that the only place that you could get ACT was through a trained professional. But a lot of folks don't want to be in therapy and a lot of people don't need to be in therapy but would really benefit from some of these tools and processes, and that's why we designed it in a way that made it for folks that you know you could do it outside of the therapy room. Sometimes it's helpful to have a coach or guide, sort of like you could. You can exercise without a personal trainer or you can exercise with a personal trainer. Either way you're going to get benefit. You may get a little extra boost by doing it with somebody that specializes in that, but with ACT it's it is something that you can apply right away.

Speaker 2: 6:55

The way that I like to conceptualize it is that it has these six core processes that are helpful for anyone that is navigating change, like how do you adapt to change when it happens in your life? How do you go for what you want, that you what, what you really care about be the type of person you want to be in the world, how do you deal with all the thoughts that show up along the way, that try and sabotage you and may throw you off course? And then also, how do you stay present in it all? And so these six core processes of ACT have to do with things like practicing and learning how to get a little space from your thoughts, which is called cognitive diffusion, how to accept whatever is happening in this moment inside of your body without getting rigid and tight around it or swept away by it. So, cognitive diffusion we have acceptance, we have values. What is it that you really care about? Who do you want to be in the world?

Speaker 2: 7:53

With ACT, we also talk a lot about perspective taking, because when we're, when you're in it, sometimes you can't see clearly. So you need to zoom out a little bit, sort of like be like an airplane in the sky, looking down and you see a clear review on yourself. Perspective taking on yourself, perspective taking on others. The fifth process that we'll work with folks on in ACT has to do with being present, and then the sixth one is about taking committed action, which is really behavioral.

Speaker 2: 8:20

So, if you're talking about CBT or DBT, these are all behavioral approaches to psychology, that it's not just about thinking about it or wishing for it to be true. It's actually putting one foot in front of the other, like, how are you going to make that happen? What does it look like? What are the behaviors you're going to be engaging in to be able to pursue the life that you want to build? And those six processes are sort of encompass what ACT is. You can learn them one at a time. You can put them all together, but it really is more of a dance than a protocol.

Speaker 1: 8:49

In the workbook or the daily journal that you've created. So does it kind of start where people like you're prompting them to think about a certain situation or what's kind of the their beginning? How do you get into working through each of these six principles and the person implementing them? Is it by them thinking of a thought or a situation or a dream that they have? How does it begin?

Speaker 2: 9:13

Well, maybe I'll say how I work with people in my therapy room. The book is broken down to each of those processes one process per chapter, gotcha, and you can go through and just learn about that one process and there's prompts and questions and a little teaching around it. But how I work with people in my in my therapy room and how I even work with my own self is I start an ACT. We start with something called creative hopelessness, which is looking at if you have a problem in your life, something that you're struggling with, as all of us do, people can think about a problem that they have right now. Looking at what you're doing to try and solve that problem. That's not working for you. And it's not that you're hopeless, but oftentimes the attempts to solve the problems of our lives are just digging us deeper. We're, like you know, like gardeners stuck in a hole and we're just digging because the shovel has been the thing that has always worked for us, so why, as well, just dig harder? And what happens with creative hopelessness is that I want people to be able to see that our attempts to solve problems, the way that the human mind attempts to solve problems. It makes a lot of sense, you know.

Speaker 2: 10:21

But when you're trying to solve your pain, your grief, your sense of inadequacy, in the same way that you're trying to solve a math problem, it's not going to work, because the nature of human problems is that solving them isn't getting rid of them.

Speaker 2: 10:41

Solving them is learning how to be with them, how to be with your own insecurity. While you still go up and ask that person or that social anxiety why you still go, ask them a question or show a little bit more vulnerability, it's not that you're ever going to get rid of your vulnerability or get rid of your insecurity. And so, looking at the things that are keeping you stuck, and then the creative part in the act is could we do something different? And then doing something different are things like could we practice acceptance here? Could we step back from your thoughts here? Could we identify what really matters to you and pursue that instead of just pursuing whatever? You know what everybody else wants for you? That's the place that I begin, and then I use the processes as tools to be able to help to find a creative solution, something that they've never thought of or experienced or done before.

Speaker 1: 11:28

And that's where freedom can come in. Yeah, you mentioned kind of at the beginning that it was for you really taking principles and things like this but then combining them with a spiritual part of it spiritual practices, what, what do you mean when you say that and what of that has worked for you, either for you or for the clients that you work with and really helping them the most?

Speaker 2: 11:54

Well, spirituality is something that's been I think is newer in psychology research and sort of even just the openness to spirituality and it's also something that's very personal to each individual.

Speaker 2: 12:07

So my personal experience of what I practice in my, you know, has been more from a Buddhist contemplative practice perspective, and for somebody else it may be a Catholic or Christian perspective or a Jewish perspective or, you know, there's lots of different or non religious but connected to nature is their spiritual path.

Speaker 2: 12:27

For me, early on my I, when I was in my twenties, I went in, went to Plum Village Monastery where Tick-Nut Huns was teaching and was able to learn directly from from him and that was a real opening of the door for me around, because I was in such a competitive, high performance kind of one track mind to be able to get back to the basics of really being present in our lives as they are, that the happiness is here and now. There's no need to hurry. There's no need to rush, it's all. It's all just the simple. You know sort of the simple things of like enjoying my kids with me on the couch or, you know, having a cup of coffee in the morning. That was really helpful for me and over time it's evolved. I've gotten much more involved into yoga and to just opening to other perspectives, but I do think spirituality, the nature of spirituality, is that your mind is maybe open to something bigger and also seeing that you're not alone in it, and that can be very helpful to not feel so alone in your struggles.

Speaker 1: 13:37

Yeah, and maybe that you don't have to have all the answers.

Speaker 2: 13:40

Yeah that there's a lot that's unknown, yeah.

Speaker 1: 13:44

Let's talk about that competitive spirit. I've been known to be called competitive, as I'm sure many of my listeners have as well, and we were speaking just a bit before we started the podcast just about how a lot of times when people are very driven, very ambitious or very competitive, it can be difficult, not just because they have a lot of drive, but because when other people don't understand it, they may say things like well, you just need to take a break or just rest or just not be so competitive, which is really difficult, like I've found. I can't turn that wire off in my brain. I haven't found the switch. Maybe it's somewhere, and you were talking about how you have begun to really look at some new and maybe more appropriate ways to look at that situation and help people who are very driven and competitive do some things. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Speaker 2: 14:41

Yeah Well, my interest has been in more recently in a concept called wise effort, which actually is one of the steps on the eightfold path of Buddhism. There's a lot of these like ethical principles of Buddhism, things like wise action, wise intention, wise mindfulness, wise concentration. But this term, wise effort, caught me when I was reading through these principles, because wise effort is about knowing how to put your effort in the right spots, how to dial it up, how to dial it back, and that that solution of just don't care so much, which is oftentimes. I'll have clients that come in that are really burned out and they're maybe they're pursuing something, but people are telling me, just don't care so much, why don't you just, you know, take a go, get a massage, get a pedicure, whatever they're like? That's that's not. That's not actually solving the issue. Because what if I care a lot and I want to be pursuing this thing, but maybe the way I'm going about it isn't working for me? And that's going back to this creative hopelessness idea. It's sort of like a bird that's caught in a kitchen. If you've ever had a bird caught in your kitchen, it wants to fly up and out and it hits the window a million times over, and it's sort of like telling a bird to not fly. It's not that you don't want the bird to fly, it's just you need to fly in a different direction. So, wise effort.

Speaker 2: 16:00

One of the things that I'll have folks do is create a little bit of a diagram where on the X axis, like across, is values, and if you're sitting in the middle, to your right, is towards your values and to your left is away from your values, and starting to look at OK, what am I doing here that I'm putting effort into that's away from my values, and where am I putting effort that's towards my values? And even just making that distinction, you'll start to also see that if you put a line up and down of high effort, low effort, you'll get four quadrants. When you're putting effort in places, high effort in places that are away from your values, you get a quadrant of burnout. And that's where I see a lot of people that are coming into my practice where they're burned out by a certain relationship, they're burned out by certain jobs, or even just burned out by social media, certain aspects of social media that they're putting a lot of effort into, but it's away from their values. And we want to start to, either with that burnout category, either start to figure out how can I put my values in here so that it makes it makes it worth it, or what do I need to let go of? And that's where acceptance comes in. You know the acceptance of letting go of something that isn't working for you.

Speaker 2: 17:22

Then you also have another quadrant, which is away from things that are away from your values and low effort. And this is where things like procrastination comes in. It's easier to procrastinate, it's easier not to call that person back, it's easier to not go to the event, but it's kind of away from my values. Because what if I'm procrastinating on the very thing that I care about? Or what if at that event is somebody that I want to make a connection with? Or what if applying for that job is something that deep down inside, I really want for myself?

Speaker 2: 17:56

So the low effort away from our values is another place. I call that the not worth it zone. It's another place where I see people really struggling and get really stuck in the cycles of avoidance. So that's one side of the diagram and then a lot of my work and wise effort is helping people shift from that side to high effort towards values. So that's the bird that's flying up and out, but it's going out a door, and high effort towards values actually feeds energy back to you.

Speaker 2: 18:26

When you're engaging in a project that's really meaningful to you, you feel. I just interviewed this woman who studies something called Sisu, which is the finished art of like perseverance and determination, like when you get this like upsurge of whoa. I feel like I can do this right now. You get energy fed back to you by moving towards your values. And then we also have another category, which is low effort and towards your values, which is what is just enjoyable, meaningful and easy for you. Those are the moments that you savor, and it could be that you're engaging in things that you just have personal strengths in, or in relationships that are really soothing to you, or environments, and those are the two places that I call the worth it and the savoring category that I work with people on to help develop more of.

Speaker 1: 19:17

Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, that makes total sense. When I first wrote down like low effort but towards the value, I was thinking, well, maybe that one's, you know. I thought that would be a less than, but it's actually kind of more of the pinnacle, maybe because the maybe. This is the premise of why is effort, like something doesn't have to be very effortful in order to get joy from it.

Speaker 2: 19:39

No, no, not at all. Some things that we can just get joy from. I'm looking outside I love gardening and gardens and nature, looking at this oak tree that I just like, adore this oak tree because all these birds come and say it's no, zero effort. But actually when I'm so engrossed in my work I forget to look out and see the oak tree. Right, and we know from the neuroscience of just looking at things in nature, looking up and out, looking at the horizon, it activates more allocentric parts of our brain.

Speaker 2: 20:12

That's low effort but it feeds back to you, and high effort things, if they're in line with your values, will feed energy back to you as well. So it's the values part is really important, because when you're not engaging with your values, you get depleted and drained and you can't quite like something's missing here or the feeling of longing or the feeling of depletion. And when you are engaging with your values, it still can be hard, but maybe you're not drained in the same way. And then you balance that out with the ease and yoga that's often what's talked about is the balance of effort and ease and the strength and the surrender that they go hand in hand and so often we think it's an either or, but it's really a both hand.

Speaker 1: 21:04

How can I know what my true values are not just maybe what I say they are or what I want them to be but how? How can I know what the values are? And do you find that people can get stuck there where they are saying, well, these are my values, but then it's not aligning with what they're actually wanting to work towards? If it's such a crucial aspect, how do you get that part right?

Speaker 2: 21:28

I think there's two entry points into values and this is what I'm like. I see myself as a, as a when I'm a psychologist, I'm like a values highlighter, like my whole job is to like beginning of the session. What does this person care about? What is it and what is getting in the way of them pursuing a life that they care about? So two ways to know what your values are. One is what hurts the most for you in your life, what's most painful. Pain is an indicator of values.

Speaker 2: 21:55

A really simple thing that people can do is ask themselves what do you regret? Looking back over your life, what do you regret the most? And Daniel Pink, who did a large survey of over 4,000 people just looking at regrets the American Regret Survey found that our grits tend to fall into four categories. We tend to have foundational regrets, which are the little things that built up over time that we didn't do, like, you know, not wearing sunscreen. By the time you're in your 30s, you start to see oh, I regret that, you know, we have connection. Regrets, those relationships that we, that we let just you know, kind of slip away. Maybe they're like high school friends that you just haven't connected with, or the rifts that you haven't repaired. We have moral regrets the things that we've done that are against who we want to be. And then we have boldness regrets the things, the moments that we didn't step up and say something or do something or go for it, and those regrets.

Speaker 2: 22:55

When you start to look at those categories of regrets, they actually tell you a lot about what you care about. I don't regret that I didn't go out for, like the I don't know the bowling team. I do not regret that, but I regret some other things that I didn't go out for. And when you identify what your regrets are, then you can start to say, oh, how could I live out that value in the here and now? Not about getting caught in your regrets. So that's one entry point. What's painful to you? What relationships are painful to you? What do you regret and what does that say about what you care about? Because what is painful to you is directly it's like on the other side of what's most important to you. The other way you can look at values which is more kind of I don't know for the positive people that like, oh, I don't want to go to look at my regrets is what brings you the most vitality If I were to say you know, look back over the last 24 hours of your day.

Speaker 2: 23:47

When did you feel like you're at your best? When did you show up in the way that you feel proud of? If someone were videotaping you and they're like, oh, that was me, that I feel like that was the full expression of how I want to be in the world. When was that and when did you feel that uplift of energy and vitality? And that sometimes isn't what you would expect it to be. You know, I went to a yoga class midday with a girlfriend that's like a friend of mine that I just really like, and we had three minutes to connect, like we were, you know, going to and from work, and just those three minutes were the best part of my day. I'm like, wow, what does that say about what I care about? I care about connecting with friends. How much time are you spending connecting with friends? Three minutes, well, maybe you want to spend a little more time in that area, right? So your vitality can tell you a lot about your values as well.

Speaker 1: 24:38

Those are really good. Yeah, I'm just sitting here thinking, even as you're saying, that pain is an indicator of values and so a way to process that is. What do you regret? And, man, don't you feel like a lot of people? That's where they spend a lot of their mental energy in. Maybe they're not thinking of it as regret, or I'll talk about it as me. Maybe I'm not thinking of it as regret when I'm processing it, but I tend to think back of like, uh, I hate. Like there's random thoughts from like high school or two weeks ago or yesterday, and it's like I wish I would have handled that differently, I wish I would have said something different or been, and I don't know that I've ever thought of it in terms of, well, dig deeper and let me see what is it that? That's the flip side of that. That shows me what I care about and how. I didn't show up authentically in that moment because I wasn't representing what I care about Exactly.

Speaker 2: 25:31

And so the two steps that are missing are what does it say about what I care about? And step number two, which is actually empowering one, is and how could I act on that? Care right here, right now. Let go of the regret, don't get stuck in the great, because your head will just circle around and ruminate on that forever. You know, like that's not useful or self berate yourself or just like flagellate. You know it's okay, so I care about that. If I care about those three minutes with my girlfriend, how am I going to make it 10 minutes with my girlfriend? How am I going to call her up and say let's do that again next week?

Speaker 2: 26:06

Because when you start to take action in your life based on what your you know, what your regrets or your vitality are telling you what's important to you, then you start to feel pretty good about your life, that discrepancy that you talked about, the discrepancy between where I am and what I care about. When that gets too big, we either get so depressed that we feel like we can't you know I just nothing I can do, or we start to blame ourselves, and neither of those are solutions, neither of those are out. So those are all the old patterning that we tend to do, which is ruminate on stuff, blame ourselves, get down on ourselves or think it's impossible, yeah, so taking action in the here and out little tiny, little tiny actions is where it's at.

Speaker 1: 26:52

I use this example often because this is like a person that I really feel for.

Speaker 1: 26:58

So I'm thinking about the single mom who the places, the things she regrets and the things that she feels give her vitality is the time she's able to spend with her kids, but her life circumstances, she feels like, are keeping her from doing that the most that she wants to.

Speaker 1: 27:15

Like she has to work and work it has to be from these times, and so she's not able to be there to pick her kids up from school or XYZ. And I feel like you know that's one example, but we could take that to a lot of people who, like they, realize that there's a misalignment in their daily actions and their values, but they feel kind of stuck or in kind of prisoned into, into something they feel like they don't have control over. That's keeping them from doing those things that give them vitality. So how do you help people begin to understand, like, how to maybe accept some of those things or, as you kind of just said, do the things that they can do with the time that they have, when they feel a lot of maybe shame, maybe regret, maybe you know a lot of negative ruminations because of what they feel like they aren't doing.

Speaker 2: 28:06

Okay, so there's a lot of different parts to my answer in that one is just attending to context. Psychology has long-standing had a problem with blaming the individual and not looking at the context and the way in which people the context of people's lives is impacting how they're acting or what they're doing, or the choices that they have.

Speaker 2: 28:27

You know, as if you had a choice to have more time with your kid. You don't. That's the reality or the context that you're in. Is that you only have 30 minutes of the day, right? And does that mean that you're not living out your values, right? No, not at all. Actually, if you start to look at it, you know that example of a single mom or just anybody that's pressed for time.

Speaker 2: 28:49

We all feel time poverty. I think many of us feel time poverty and yet what we do is we tend to speed up the less time that we have, the more hurried we become and then the less time that we feel like we have, because we're skinning the surface of our lives and so, when we have a lot of time poverty and there's actually been there's actually was. There was an interesting research study on this where I think it was at a Stanford where they had seminary students that were told to go give a speech on the Good Samaritan and they and half of them are randomly assigned to be late and half of them randomly assigned to have enough time and then, on the way to the speech, there was, I think, an unhoused person in the street or somebody that needed help, those that felt like they did not have enough time. Even though they were giving the speech on goods, being a good Samaritan, were less likely to stop and help the person in the street Right. So context matters a lot and that doesn't mean that we can't live out our values in the context that we're in. So acceptance is one of them. Accepting, accepting the reality of the situation in the context that you're in.

Speaker 2: 29:57

What can you control, what can't you control is a really important like some stuff like, say, write a line down the middle of the page, put on the right side what I can control, put on the left side what I can't control, because if you're trying to control what you can't control, you're going to be miserable. But in the parts that you can control, in that 30 minutes with your child, are you rushing through it or are you living out the values that you want to be living? Those values are things like I want to be an engaged parent, I want to be a present parent, I want to be a loving parent. Could you live that to the fullest in those 30 minutes, even if you're folding the laundry and making dinner? My little son came up to me. I had like 10 minutes.

Speaker 2: 30:36

I was on a run this morning. I was running too late and he was going after school and I was coming back from running and I was going to get on a call with a client. And I walk in the door thinking I just got to get, like you know, showered in and out 10 minutes. He comes up to me. He's like Mom, I have a loose tooth. And I was like, oh, what's what's most important right now, the shower or the loose tooth? And I was like loose tooth, because there's not a lot of loose teeth, you know. And so that's, that's the, that's values Making that decision in that split moment. You don't need more time to live out your values. You live out your values in the time that you have. And then the other part of it is the expectations and the inner chatter and the self. I'm not, you know, I'm not doing enough, I'm not good enough, and we can turn anything into not good enough.

Speaker 2: 31:26

We can turn values, and now I'm not living out my values good enough, right? So that's also where compassion and self compassion come in, which have to do with looking at yourself in the context of your life. In the struggles that you have, you're doing the best that you can and having a voice in there that is encouraging and kind and wants the best for you and is courageous and brave and on your side. And most of us do not have that voice going on in our head most of the time. So being able to start to cultivate a more compassionate voice within ourselves helps us better live out our values each and every moment of our life. So that would be my answer to that, one sort of a complex answer to a complex question.

Speaker 1: 32:09

I know I love it. I love it so overall in the premise of wise efforts. So we've talked about the values that we have in that being a starting place, and we have the quadrants that we're looking at Before we went, our kind of pre conversation. You said there were two other things, though, and I remember one of them was psychological flexibility. I think I think that's right, and I cannot remember it's compassion.

Speaker 2: 32:34

Compassion. That was it. Psychological flexibility and compassion, yeah, they're the overarching skills that helps you move into the quadrants that you want to be in, because you want to be in the worth it quadrant and you want to be in the savering quadrant In order to move from something that's burning you out or something that's not worth it, like. How do you get yourself from procrastinating to taking action? It requires psychological flexibility and compassion. So the psychological flexibility part has to do with knowing your values, being willing to feel discomfort in the service of those values.

Speaker 2: 33:11

The compassion part has to do with how are you supporting yourself as you make that courageous move? You know, and everybody has something that they don't want to do, that they know that probably would be good for them to do right now, whether it's starting a movement exercise program or it's, you know, calling someone back that they've been, or texting someone back that they've been avoiding, or it's whatever it is. We all have something. You have something, I have something, and it requires that combination of psychological flexibility and compassion to be able to shift us enough to get into that spot of living in a place that's more worth it.

Speaker 1: 33:47

Hmm, there's okay, I have an example. I want to help you. I want to see if you can help me work through this one. So there's the example that came to mind is I have, I have a friend and I have been, and we don't live close, but this friend and I wouldn't say that this friend is necessarily in like my closest circle of friends, but we've been, we've been more than acquaintances, but they're not like a best friend, and sometimes when I'm with them I'm just like kind of drained of like, oh, we kind of we've gone on hikes together and things like that, and and the I have much more, like I have kids and a spouse and so and this friend doesn't, and so sometimes it's like they don't necessarily understand that I have all of these other things, and so it can feel like they're kind of demanding of my time, and so over the like the past year, I've really distanced myself and I feel bad.

Speaker 1: 34:45

And here's why because I will just like not respond to text messages because I think I don't know what to say, like I don't know what to say back, because they're going to want to spend time together and I have to put my family first, like my weekends are now for my family and I just am unwilling, at least for this relationship, to like invest that time to go and spend with them. So I don't know what to say, and this is it bothers me because I feel like I should say something. So I feel like there's a compassion side of this, of what I need to say. As well, as you know, I do care about this person and I don't want them to think poorly of me and I don't want to lose the friendship. But my values would say that my first value is my family. But I don't know how to like not people, please, in this moment, so I just avoid.

Speaker 2: 35:36

Okay, perfect, good, this is such a good, this is such a good example. Okay, so if we were looking at actually the burnout category or the not worth it category, what I'm, what I'm hearing in there is part of what you're flip flopping between is either you're burned out with this friend because you're not spending time with your family. You want to prioritize your family. I would say family is a domain, not necessarily a value. It's how you want to show up in your family, in fact, because you can't get rid of your family, I mean. But how you want to show up with your family is you want to spend time and be more present with your family, and so when you're spending time with this friend, which it doesn't really feel like it's giving back to you, it burns you out.

Speaker 2: 36:12

But then there's the other category that you're kind of stuck in, which is the not worth it category, which is the putting off and avoiding texting her, because in some ways it's just easier not to text her, because if you were to text her back or contact her, you'd have to engage in something that's uncomfortable, which is being honest about what you're in needs are and being honest about the boundary that you're wanting to set and you just end up people pleasing, which, again, is a not worth it. It's easier in the moment to people please, but for all of us that are people pleasers, it bites us every single time down the road. Short term great people pleasing works for you. Short term, two weeks out people pleasing when you have to go meet with her because you were people pleaser, exactly.

Speaker 1: 36:55

And you read it and you don't want to go.

Speaker 2: 36:57

Yeah, yeah, and this is what the human mind does is we choose the easier short term solution to make the pain go away, and then we're stuck with the longer term discomfort of it. So to move from that side to the right side, which is how could I be engaging more in the worth that activities being aligned with my values, how I want to be with my family and be direct I mean, I'm guessing that you also want to be direct with this friend and be a clear communicator there's probably some things that you would have to be willing to feel to do it. I don't know if it's truly that you don't know what to say, because I actually think you do know what to say.

Speaker 1: 37:36

That's a good call out.

Speaker 2: 37:38

You have a podcast. You're successful at saying a lot of things. It's you don't want to have to feel what you're going to feel. In saying what you know you probably need to say, and that's the acceptance part Am I willing to feel that, in the service of being more aligned with my values and having what I really want in my life, you actually may find that it deepens your relationship with her, because you're not doing this like flip flop between burnout and not worth it, and nobody likes that. She doesn't like it either. Honestly, yeah, it doesn't feel good to her. So what is it that you need? What is it that you actually know that you need to say? That's not what. And what is it that you're avoiding feeling in saying it?

Speaker 1: 38:20

Yeah Well, I believe what I need to say is because she recently texted me for my birthday and I just haven't responded there's like two weeks ago and just haven't responded because I'm like, oh, because in it she said like I know you've been ghosting me, and I'm like, oh crap.

Speaker 2: 38:35

I know, you know I've been ghosting because I haven't known you Smell it.

Speaker 1: 38:40

So I know what I should say is something along the lines of change it to not should want to or need to say yeah, yeah, it's like, are you saying will what?

Speaker 1: 38:51

I will say, no, I don't. What I want to say is I appreciate you reaching out and continuing to, you know, continuing to try and maintain our friendship. I really want to. Honestly, I'm pausing because I'm like, is any of this right? But I'm just going to say it, diana, I really am wanting to spend more time with my family on on the weekends and in the evenings, and so I I have not. No, I have not, I have just. Should I say that? Should I say like I've been avoiding or anything? Or do I just say that, like, do I end there? Do I give the reason why? Or do I just set the what I'm trying, or do I just set the, not the boundary. It's not really a boundary, but like the expectation of what I'm trying to do?

Speaker 2: 39:44

Right or just telling the truth. Well, it depends If giving the reason why, if the reason why you're giving the reason why is about people pleasing that's part of the behavior that we're trying to change Right. But if giving the reason why is about compassion. Those are two, they're like cousins, people pleasing in compassion but you can get them mixed up with each other. Compassion is just about being kind and being caring, and this is a friend of yours, and so when we set a boundary, we don't wanna slap them in the face. Exactly Right. We wanna own that. This is about me and my values and where I'm kind of reflecting on how I wanna use my time and it is strapped, and right now I have a families or like, and this may change over time, but the reason why could be helpful in having that go down for her in terms of the compassion and even sometimes even just acknowledging with like I am so sorry that I've ghosted you. I can imagine that that has felt really bad.

Speaker 1: 40:49

And I apologize. It's a really good point and I own that.

Speaker 2: 40:52

And I own that. I also wanna change that, and the way that I think would be best for me to change it is just to be honest with you that I'm really like my time, like I'm strapped for time, and right now I'm feel like it's really important for me to prioritize my weekends and evenings with my family, and I hope that doesn't mean that we can't be friends, but or and so that's the languaging of it is sort of like what are the values that you wanna show in your language? Do you wanna show honesty? Do you wanna show compassion? Do you wanna show humility? And that's different for everybody in terms of what those values are for them. But if you keep those at the forefront, then it'll help. You choose the language as opposed to languaging. We get back into the cycle of avoidance in our languaging Like and people pleasing again. How'd that sneak in?

Speaker 1: 41:40

Yeah, well, as you were talking about earlier, like pain is an indicator of what we value and a separate situation. But I was thinking about how recently I've had some unfortunate situations where I've had a friend who didn't tell me the truth about something. And even just today I was thinking like man, this is really hurt, like it really hurts that this has happened. And the next question I thought in my head was Kimberly, are you doing a good job being truthful too? And so, even as processing, like what do I say to this person? I am leaning more towards on the side of truth, of course, because that's just a core value that I have, but also because I've recently been hurt by it, and so I'm like I don't want other people to feel the hurt that I have felt this week by them thinking that I'm not being truthful, even if I'm not lying to someone. If there's things that I'm hiding that later come to light, that they feel like I was being deceitful with it or just didn't give the whole truth. Like that I don't want to happen.

Speaker 2: 42:49

And that is the power, yeah, and that is the power perspective taking, because you were able to zoom out when I said like an airplane looking over the land. You're able to zoom out and say, like wait, tables, turn. When somebody was not truthful to me, how did it feel? Oh, not good, okay, then I want to embody that truthfulness for myself and for some people, honesty is a very, very core, central value for them. For other people it actually really isn't and that's actually that's okay, you know whatever. But because it was painful for you, it's an indicator of, it's a value for you and that you, it's that high values, high effort, moment of being honest, that we've all had that moment where like oh gosh, okay, I'm just gonna say it, I'm gonna be honest here, the freedom that happens there's, that.

Speaker 2: 43:36

I think it's a Christian, I think it comes from the Bible, christian line. The truth will set you free. It's so true, like when you're in that moment and you say it and it frees you up and then you get lifted up with energy. So I would hope that if you actually act on that value, you may oftentimes our mind is a bad predictor of what's what is gonna happen you may find that something very different happens with this friend than what you expect. That's true, but either way, your side of the street feels good.

Speaker 2: 44:04

Yeah, that's it isn't it.

Speaker 1: 44:06

Doing the best we can with the way that we can show up and living in line with our values, as you've been talking about, because that's what we. We can control us. We can't control the other person and how they respond.

Speaker 2: 44:18

No. And then the last part of it is cause we, if you are honest with her and you set the limit or the boundary or whatever is also to remember the savering quadrant of when you do have that time on the weekend with your family, or the time with your kids in the evening, to remember like I lived out my values and I participated in making this happen, and I'm gonna savor this, I'm gonna enjoy this, instead of what our mind could do is go go into like a little bit of rumination or you know what else, like actually take it in and that's also would be nourishing for you and reinforce you to help you do it again in the future. It's Y's effort, y's effort. When is your book?

Speaker 1: 45:01

coming out.

Speaker 2: 45:02

That one's not out till 2025, but I have a book in 2024 on self-compassion which is really a precursor. I see that I see act in self-compassion as sort of the foundational skills In order to be able to do the harder, bigger work of Y's effort across the important domains of our life.

Speaker 1: 45:19

Yeah, so they're like the the Psych 101 and 201 courses before getting into the deeper stuff. I mean, I feel honored and blessed that we got a sneak peek into that, because, oh, I can't wait for the book. Now I'm like 2025, that's another year.

Speaker 2: 45:35

I can't wait to get my hands on it, yeah, but it takes the.

Speaker 1: 45:40

It'll be absolutely worth it by the time it comes out for sure. There we go For sure. Dr Hill, thank you so much for your time with me today. I've loved our conversation and thank you for your coaching and guidance through that situation. I'll have to let you know how it unfolds, as I'm not one to sit on things, so I'm probably this evening I'll be sending a text message, but I just so appreciated in the work that you've been doing and I know that the listeners are going to enjoy listening to our conversation as much as I enjoyed having it with you.

Speaker 2: 46:14

Well, thank you, kimberly. I love it when people bring in their personal stuff. You never know like, is this gonna be all interview or are you gonna be willing to go there? And the fact that you were willing to go there makes me like you even more, and sometimes it feels super vulnerable to share, especially when you're in the position of the host to share personal stuff. I do that a lot on my podcast, your Life in Process, where I do these real plays, and half of the time it's me doing a real play on somebody else and the other half it's them doing a real play on me. And it's like good. You know, it's like I don't wanna put it in a therapist, I'm just getting good stuff right here and now, so that's awesome.

Speaker 1: 46:46

Isn't that it? I feel, and for my podcast, part of me feels like I just get to. It's like me learning thing. It's like continuing to pay for college without having to. Well, I am paying because I'm getting my PhD right now, but I'm like the people that I get to talk to and what they teach me and what I learn like this is amazing, and so I think it's funny how some people the podcast is great for the listeners as well, but the things that we can get from it just personally by doing it is super rewarding as well. Right, very life giving and that worth it. Column, I would say. I would say Well, definitely link to all of your books and your YouTube, your Facebook, your Instagram and your website in the show notes If people are watching or if they're listening. Thank you again for joining me today.

Speaker 1: 47:35

Here are my three key takeaways from my conversation today with Dr Diana Hill. I loved the conversation and actually my personal the biggest takeaway was when she said to me I have a feeling you do know what to say, you just don't want to say it Y'all. Sometimes you need people in your life who are gonna call you out on things, and you know what she did call me out and even though this was my first time talking to her, I she knew, she knew she knew she's done this before you can tell. You can tell she's a clinical psychologist. And that is exactly what I needed to get that flip to switch in my head to say you know what, sometimes you do just have to do the hard things and have the hard conversation, but it's for the benefit of the relationship in the future as well as to the benefit of continuing to live in line with my own values. That's a super important thing and it goes right in line with the spiritual part of the pies working on yourself physically, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. When we don't live in line with our beliefs and values, then we enter into that stage of cognitive dissonance, we enter into that stage of burnout like she was talking about, and it can be that you're not living in line with your values because you're avoiding having a difficult conversation with a friend that you want to honor, but they don't feel very honored. Ugh, I've got some work to do this evening, y'all. Maybe it's brought up some things for you too that, hopefully, is encouraging you to act on them.

Speaker 1: 49:08

My other key takeaway was the question of what are my values and using the two questions of what are the things that I regret or what are the things that bring me pain, and then the opposite of what brings me the most vitality when do I show up when I feel proud? What or what did I do when I feel proud about it? What are those things? I'm gonna actually take some time to use those as my thinking time questions over the next couple of days because, while there are answers that I could think of super quickly, I believe that these are so important that I wanna really let them simmer and go back to them several times over, not just the next couple of days, but I mean ideally throughout life, to really help me figure out what are my values. And then the second question and my third key takeaway is am I living in line with them?

Speaker 1: 50:04

Living in line with your values isn't just something that you can kind of put on cruise control. It's a constant intentional focus on looking at the things happening in your life and being proactive and asking yourself how can I best align with the person I wanna be and the values that I have with the situations that life is currently throwing at me? I really enjoyed today's conversation and I hope you did too. I would love if you would share this podcast and this interview that I had with Dr Diana Hill with anyone that you think would benefit from it and, as always, if you could leave a review of the podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. Then it helps us to reach even more people and I would be grateful for you to do that. Until next week, stay strong.