When my children were very young, I used to read to them from an illustrated book of Buddhist fables in the warm glow of a nightlight. Though my children, now grown, may not remember these stories, one tale, in particular, stuck in my memory during those beautiful, exhausting years of early parenthood. It spoke to me in those moments when I got just a little too caught up in my stories of what ought to be...
A zen master and his student walked along a rushing river when they heard desperate cries. Downstream, a boat had capsized, and a woman was struggling in the current. Without hesitation, the master jumped in and brought her safely to shore.
Hours later, the student, still troubled, spoke up. "Master, our precepts forbid us from touching women. Yet you didn't hesitate to help."
The master smiled. "I left the woman by the river. Why are you still carrying her?"
This story beautifully illustrates how we learn cultural rules for behavior. While some of these rules help us navigate and coordinate our actions, others may restrict our ability to adapt successfully to circumstances.
In the third module of the ProSocial training, we explore ways you can develop more psychological adaptability. By psychological adaptability, we mean the capacity to act effectively (i.e. move toward one’s values and goals) not just in pleasant benign circumstances but also in circumstances where difficult emotions might otherwise cause us to react with a fight, flight or freeze reaction.
When you are more psychologically adaptable, you have more choices about how you react to whatever shows up in your life. Instead of getting trapped by rigid rule-bound or habitual reactions, you can more easily choose to act in ways that are more effective for achieving your goals and living in line with your values.
This work is essential in today's world. If you, like me, believe we are entering a period of serious social and environmental challenges, we will inevitably face increasingly difficult situations. People who perceive existential threats do not simply give up; they instinctively fight to protect themselves and their families. This response is understandable when everyone is united against a common enemy, such as an invader or a natural disaster. But, our current information ecosystems are specifically designed to fuel social division, leading people to fight against one another as they react to different realities shaped by the information they consume. This phenomenon is particularly evident in the United States right now, but it is a trend that is occurring globally.
When people are able to pause and notice their reactivity, it can provide space to connect with deeper values such as shared humanity, empathy for others and humility regarding what one knows or does not know. Developing the capacity to be in the presence of provocation, anger, and mistruth and still act in the direction of one’s deeply held prosocial values is going to be key to avoiding a descent into vicious cycles of attack and counter-attack.
So how can psychological adaptability be enhanced in practice? In my last post, I introduced the Extended Evolutionary Meta-Model as a way of thinking about human inner experience evolving in time.
The MAP Mantra: A Healthy Approach to Experiencing
The six facets of the EEMM have been extensively and rigorously tested for over 40 years in the field of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy or Training (ACT - pronounced “act” not “A-C-T”). To help individuals relate to this process of constructing our experience in a healthy way, Moran and Ming (2020) developed the Mindful Action Plan (MAP) mantra: "I am here now, accepting my feelings and noticing my thoughts while doing what I care about."
This mantra encapsulates a mindful and accepting approach to our moment-to-moment experience, aligning closely with the evolutionary components of the EEMM as indicated in square brackets:
- "I am" (Self-as-context): This acknowledges our sense of self without getting overly attached to it. It reminds us that we are the context within which experiences occur, not the experiences themselves. [EEMM: Selfing]
- "Here now" (Present moment): This emphasizes present-moment awareness, a key aspect of attending to our current environment and experiences. [EEMM: Attending]
- "Accepting my feelings" (Acceptance): This encourages emotional awareness and acceptance, allowing us to acknowledge our emotions without trying to control or avoid them. [EEMM: Feeling]
- "Noticing my thoughts" (Defusion): This promotes metacognitive awareness without getting caught up in our thoughts. It helps us observe our thoughts without being governed by them. [EEMM: Thinking]
- "While doing” (Committed action): Observable behaviour. [EEMM: Acting]
- “What I care about" (Values): This connects our actions to our values and goals, encouraging us to engage in meaningful behaviour even in the presence of challenging thoughts and feelings. [EEMM: Valuing]
The MAP serves as a checklist for learning and following through on these six components that, when combined, lead to psychological flexibility. It guides people to act in the direction of their values while being influenced by their verbal behaviour in a constructive way.
By practising this mantra, we can cultivate a more balanced and flexible relationship with our experiences, leading to more effective communication and prosocial behaviour. The MAP can be particularly helpful during stressful and anxiety-provoking times, such as the current global pandemic, by providing a structure for maintaining psychological flexibility and values-based action.
The Acceptance and Commitment Training Matrix
The ACT Matrix is another tool that we make extensive use of in our ProSocial courses. The advantage of the ACT matrix is that it supports group conversations about both what we love and what we fear. Often in groups we have permission to talk about good things, but not our concerns. Facilitated well, the act matrix can create a group environment where vulnerability is richly reinforced rather than punished, so trust and authentic collaboration can thrive.
These days, inspired by Internal Family Systems approaches, I talk about the ACT matrix as a map of the different parts of ourselves: those parts that are pulling us toward connection, expansion and growth, and those parts that are pulling us towards contraction and self-protection. Seeing the different parts of ourselves in this way helps us to realise that just as is true for interpersonal relations, we must be able to take care of fear before we can fully love.
If you would like to see a personal matrix in flow for processing an issue I am finding challenging at the moment, you can take a look at me doing one live below.
If you would like some templates for doing the ACT matrix for yourself, you can find some here.
In our ProSocial training courses, we discuss how you can use these tools and many others to help individuals and groups become more adaptable and effective. If you would like to learn more, take a look at our upcoming courses here.
Reflection:
I provided two tools, the MAP mantra and the ACT Matrix for enhancing psychological adaptability - the capacity to bring more conscious choice to how we wish to respond to experiences, both pleasant and unpleasant. Both tools can be applied both momentarily or in a more extended fashion to reflect upon an issue in depth. Can you see how practising these tools might increase your capacity to adapt to, and thrive in, difficult interpersonal situations?
