Playing the Game of Life with ACT: Self Application in the Real World

Turning ACT on Yourself: The Noticing Self as the Main Tool

Most ACT training points outward, toward the people you serve. This talk turns the lens around. Kaitlin Wilder asks you to run ACT (a way to build mental flexibility) on your own life first. The main tool is the noticing self (the part that watches you think). You use it to watch your own patterns instead of living inside them.

She sets the room up before any content lands. Get paper and a pen. Get a photo of yourself as a child, and she means that literally. If it is a physical picture, take a picture of it with your phone. You will need it near the end.

Then comes a quick self rating from one to ten. One means not at all. Ten means you are the master of your own universe. The question is how clear you feel about using ACT on your own problems. Nothing is graded here, and the number just marks your starting point.

The target is what she calls your greatest hit. That is the problem that keeps coming back in your own life. Hers was perfectionism. Yours might be worry, avoidance, overworking, or plain overwhelm. She also opens with a values check (what matters most to you), tied to that same pattern. One blunt question drives it: where did this come from?

Please open your mind's hands and hearts to all we have to learn today.

From the talk — Kaitlin Wilder

Where the Dictator Within Comes From

The session builds on experiential attachment (suffering tied to symbolic rewards) from the earlier class. The talk describes it as patterns of suffering from fixations on symbolic rewards. Picture the person who keeps checking Instagram for likes. They know the likes do not set their worth. They check anyway, and the checking still hurts.

Where does that come from? She points to life experience, stacked up over years. She calls the result habits of thinking and feeling, and they start in childhood. Those habits build an inner voice. Steve Hayes calls that voice the dictator within in A Liberated Mind. Most of us run on it without ever checking it.

A baby knows nothing at the start. You learn by watching and listening to other people. You pick behavior that gets your needs met in your environment. Sometimes the need is comfort, and sometimes it is safety from something scary. Most of that learning comes from parents and caregivers.

Those early habits turn into your normal, whether they were healthy or not. She ties it to homeostasis (the pull back to familiar feelings). Even an unhelpful pattern can feel like home after enough years. You drift back toward it without ever choosing it. That drift is what these ACT skills are meant to interrupt.

What I like to say about the dictator within is that voice, that voice is not you.

From the talk — Kaitlin Wilder

The Game of Survival and the Limits of Problem Reduction

Wilder shows a picture of what she calls the outcome based life. In that life you chase goals, cut problems, and scan for threats. She names it the game of survival. You hunt for proof that you feel good, or proof that you are good. Only then do you count the day as a win.

She traces that logic back to childhood, without calling it a flaw. Children think in terms of fairness. They also read most events as being about them. Those early rules then follow us up what she calls the adaptive peak (the climb to do it all). We keep doing the things we feel we must, should, or have to do.

Her read on that climb is blunt. The promise of problem reduction is simple: kill every problem, then be happy. She asks how that is working out for us. Her answer is short. Not so good.

The other direction is experiential non-attachment (loosening the grip of symbols). You use ACT to weaken the pull of things you picked up over time. That could be power, outrage, recognition, or outside validation. Attachment narrows you to one acceptable outcome. Non-attachment opens you to a broader range of contingencies (what actually follows what we do). With that range, you can guide your action here and now.

problem reduction model sucks y'all i mean we don't like it it doesn't feel good

From the talk — Kaitlin Wilder

The Noticing Log: an ABC for Your Own Behavior

When a problem shows up, you tend to feel it in your body first. That strong feeling is the cue. Stop, pause, and write the moment down. The noticing log works like an ABC (antecedent, behavior, and consequence chart). Something happens, your problem shows up, and then your response shows up too.

The response is the one you already believe is unhelpful. That is the whole point of writing it down. You are not hunting for a cause out in the environment alone. You are looking at your own chain, inside your own week.

The middle column holds the thought or the feeling, and that is where the real work sits. From there you ask two questions. What assumptions, judgments, or rules are at play in this behavior? And what am I making this mean about my life?

Most people forget the log on some days. She does not treat that as a failure. Take five minutes later and write a few things from memory. Reflecting on the day is still noticing, and she wants every entry treated as an opportunity.

even noticing that we didn't do it is a noticing

From the talk — Kaitlin Wilder

Assumptions and Judgments Hiding in One Sentence

Her worked example is a single sentence: I have to get it all done. She pulls that sentence apart in three ways across the talk. The first layer is the assumption.

So why do I have to get it all done? Somewhere on the climb, getting it all done got tied to worth. For some people it got linked to being good enough. For others it means being successful, or helpful, or needed. None of that arrived with evidence attached.

A judgment works differently, because it is something you have already decided. Hear the same sentence again: I have to get it all done. The have to was never tested against facts. It is a verdict you handed down, probably years ago. The ACT move is to notice the verdict and ask whether it still holds.

an assumption is something that we're accepting as true without necessarily having evidence

From the talk — Kaitlin Wilder

Rules, Responsibility, and the Rule That Caused Burnout

Rules are the third layer, and they run the widest. A rule is not a one time call about one event. You follow it every time, in every setting, often without noticing.

Hers was responsibility, and she says she followed it like religion. She could not put anything down without feeling shame. There was always a sense of not having done enough. The answer was always more, harder, faster. She says that rule is precisely why she burned out.

The math does not work. You cannot be responsible for everyone's everything and still meet your own needs. There are not enough hours in the day. That is not a character problem. It is arithmetic.

She offers a different rule to try on: everyone is literally doing the best that they can. Every human has a finite set of skills and real limits. Being an adult does not mean you should be able to handle anything. That frame keeps the work out of blame and shame.

rules are what we would say things that are going to guide your conduct that you're going to follow all the time

From the talk — Kaitlin Wilder

Pirates, Magic Carpets, and Scientists: Defusion You Will Actually Use

When a problem lands, Wilder says ahoy matey. It sounds like a joke, and it is doing real work. Cognitive defusion (unhooking from sticky thoughts) is one of the ACT processes. Humor is her way in. A silly line opens a gap between you and the old habit.

The pirate bit is hers, not a requirement for anyone else. She tells people to pick a vibe that actually feels fun to them. Her own favorite is the magic carpet ride. The idea is a whole new world, wondrous and unknown. Instead of asking what the problem is, you ride the thing out with curiosity.

Another option is the scientist, mad or maybe not so mad. A scientist wonders out loud, forms a guess, and checks it. Judgment drops out of the process.

Make up your own if none of these land. Use one of them, or use all of them. The frame matters less than the space it creates.

because the scientist is curious right investigative removing judgment

From the talk — Kaitlin Wilder

Re-Parenting the Inner Child and Choosing Your Icons

Here is where the childhood photo finally comes in. Her point is about limits. We learned emotional skills by watching the adults around us. At some point our emotions hit a ceiling, because that was the limit of what we saw. That ceiling was never a flaw in you.

Your adult self can now give your inner child what was missed. This is re-parenting the inner child (caring for your younger self). Wilder is clear that it is not a blame and shame process. She also puts weight on the oxygen mask idea. You care for yourself first, and then you can serve others better.

The second journal exercise is choosing your icons. An icon can be anyone at all. A family member counts. A person from history counts. Nobody has to be famous or glittery. She names two Tennesseans, Taylor Swift and Dolly, and shares a line from each. One is about treating your energy like a luxury item that not everyone can afford. The other is about finding out who you are and doing it on purpose.

Write down what that person had that you want. Write what they would say to you on a hard day. Then keep the log running, and bring the same skill to the people you serve.

i want you to journal about why you're choosing this person and how are they going to help you along the way

From the talk — Kaitlin Wilder