laying the Game of Life with ACT: The ABAA Process of Human Behavior Change in the Real World- Part 2

Where Part 2 of the ABAA Game of Life Picks Up

This session is part 2 of a series. It carries the same four goals as part 1. You describe an ACT (a model of flexible, chosen action) application of behavior change in daily life. You describe the values behind that application. You name its problems and its best conditions. Then you use experiential exercises (guided practice you do yourself) to build fluency.

Kaitlin Wilder opens with her usual invitations. Give yourself the time. Move one small distraction away from you. Open your mind and your hands. If your attention drifts, walk it back. Keep paper and a pen close by. Keep the opening paperwork and a noticing log (a running record of what you notice) nearby too.

Then comes a quick self-rating. Rate your clarity from 1 to 10 on using a human model of behavior change in the real world. One means you have no idea what is happening. Ten means you know it all. The same rating returns at the end of the session. The rest of the session reviews the values assessment from part 1. Those definitions are not operational definitions (exact, measurable wording for behavior). They are working words that mean what they mean to you. Each thing ABAA values gets paired with the problem sitting across from it.

Our usual invitations, please remember to give yourself this time.

From the talk — Kaitlin Wilder

Strength of Character and the Pull of Creative Hopelessness

The first value is what Wilder calls strength of character. It means your words and your actions line up over time. She says that is a low frequency behavior for many people. She is careful not to turn that into a judgment about anyone. Her reason is plain. Most of us never actively chose our character. We did not pick our values on purpose. We did not choose the life we wanted. We never looked straight at our problems.

Looking at a problem is hard for a reason. Avoidance (moving away from what hurts) comes from the human threat response (the body's alarm for danger). We also tag our problems as bad or wrong. Shame shows up, so we skip the conversation. With all of that running, good intentions are not enough. The moment arrives and we do something else instead. Networks in the mind are driving our behavior, our thoughts, and our feelings.

The paired problem is creative hopelessness (mind bends facts to stay stuck). Wilder describes it as the mind's power to change information to fit its own agenda. She ties it to ACT and to relational frame theory (how we link words and ideas). We get fused (stuck tight to a thought) to beliefs about who we are. Then we build a story about what we can and cannot do. We rarely question the story. When we do try to act, it feels heavy, and we bail.

There is a payoff on the other side of that work. When you learn the processes, you can manage your own feelings better. You gain language to ask for what you need and hold a line. Then the advice you give others matches what you actually do. Think of the executive functioning (planning and self-control skills) tips you hand out. You can model the skill instead of only naming it.

we will make up these stories about why we can or cannot do things.

From the talk — Kaitlin Wilder

Process-Based Life or the Game of Survival

ABAA splits life into two paths. The process based life is what Wilder calls the journey of life. It comes from the flexibility processes (patterns that bend to fit context). The outcome based life is the game of survival. It comes from the inflexibility processes (rigid patterns that resist change). The paperwork includes a hexaflex (six part map of flexibility) that lists both sets side by side.

She makes a point about the vocabulary. You already run these processes, named or not. The specific terms come later in the series. She also blocks an easy mistake. Always being flexible is not the goal. That would actually be terrible.

Sometimes you choose to be inflexible for a good reason. You hold a boundary that matters to you. She borrows an example from Steve Hayes: doing your taxes. There you want to follow the steps exactly. Flexibility does not equal the journey, and inflexibility does not equal survival mode. The difference is whether you noticed and chose.

The power is in the choice of noticing, you know, whatever's going on up in here.

From the talk — Kaitlin Wilder

Choosing Things for Reasons Instead of Running on Autopilot

The third value is a phrase ABAA keeps close. A meaningful life means choosing things for reasons. The opposite is autopilot. On autopilot, assumptions, judgments, and rules run without review. Many of them we never even notice.

The work is to bring those rules into the light. Notice one. Then decide if you want to keep it. Wilder is clear that you do not have to call it good or bad. Noticing comes first. The choice comes next.

The fourth value points at why behavior happens at all. The flexibility processes use the human functions of behavior (why a behavior keeps happening). Hayes calls these core yearnings. Wilder says she does not like those words and uses the behavior analytic wording instead. This fits work that goes beyond the four functions of behavior (the usual reasons behavior happens). The problem side of the page is the same list turned unhelpful: inflexibility processes running with no choice in them.

a meaningful life is choosing things for reasons

From the talk — Kaitlin Wilder

Boundaries, Flexible Language, and Self-Coercion

Value five is about boundaries. You choose them, then you use flexible language to hold them. The aim is to do that without building conflict with other people. Wilder will not promise zero conflict. Staying home forever is the only way to dodge people. Even then you end up talking to somebody in customer service.

Across from boundaries sits self-coercion (forcing yourself with should words). It means doing something you do not have to do. It often is not in your best interest either. Listen for the words: should, have to, can't, don't, won't. Those words carry a lot of certainty.

That certainty is usually not literally true. These are often thoughts we are stuck on. They make a choice feel like a rule. Sometimes the real issue is that we do not like the options. Wilder names that as an element of resistance and offers a question. If this were different, would you be closer to the life you say you want?

No one gets a free pass, as we say.

From the talk — Kaitlin Wilder

Why Breathing Strategies Get Refused: Avoidance and Gratification

Value six is emotional regulation (managing your own strong feelings). Behavior analysts teach these skills all the time. Breathing strategies come up often. Wilder notices that kids refuse them often too. Her read on why is worth sitting with.

Adults often teach the strategy just to get through it. The hope is that the behavior will stop. The learner never gets taught to receive and understand the benefit. Skip the work on networks and inner experience, and the strategy falls flat.

The matching problem is avoidance, and avoidance is the threat response. We are the apex predator, and we are still mammals. Anything different pulls our attention. That scan for danger kept our species alive. Modern threats look different: success, belonging, self-worth. They show up in plain conversation. They also sit far out in the future.

So value seven is the human brain by design. The skill is noticing immediate and delayed gratification (payoff that comes much later). Then you choose on purpose. Quick fixes feel good fast. Whatever you avoided is still standing right behind you. The problem side is that same brain making things mean something else.

Okay, I took some breaths. I don't feel better.

From the talk — Kaitlin Wilder

True Acceptance, Functional Behavior, and Pathological Loops

Value eight is true acceptance (choosing to take life as is). Wilder credits Steve Hayes with the phrase receiving the gift of life. You know there is good and bad in everything. You still say yes to it on purpose. You take it in service of a value or an outcome you want.

Resignation (giving up and staying put) is the copy that fools people. You feel you have to take something. You say you accept it. Then you leave it there and stop trying to change or fix it. Pausing and letting something be is more of a present moment exercise. If it is not part of your ideal life, investigate it. Gather what is good. Gather what is bad. Sit with it until you are ready to move. Resigning to what you do not want brings the most suffering.

Value nine is functional behavior (giving control back to others), and she says she has never loved anything more. Letting go means no attachment to whether the person follows through. It is their life and their responsibility. Dysfunctional behavior tries to control other people. It can also build dependence on your results.

Frustration is the tell. A parent did not run the plan again. You show up and it looks like nothing happened. Wilder names that as the professional being attached to someone else's outcome. Watch for the word should in your own head. Should marks your expectation, not reality. Value ten is choosing responsibility to interrupt your own patterns. The other end is what Hayes and Wilder both call pathological loops (patterns that repeat and trap you). ACT gives you the steps: notice, interrupt, shift, then observe the outcome and decide.

Functional behavior that releases control and returns responsibility to other people.

From the talk — Kaitlin Wilder

The Ideal Life Journal and Turning It Into Goals

The paperwork is a working document. It is built to change as you change. Wilder remembers doing a similar exercise early in her own journey. It felt hard because her realm of possibilities felt small. Reading the ABAA list may bring what she calls the internal eye roll. She treats that as useful information. It means the item sits outside your reach right now. Come back to it later.

Next comes the ideal life journal. The prompt looks 90 days ahead. Wilder reads her own ABAA version out loud as a model. In it you understand how behavior works in the real world. You know how patterns form and how to disrupt those networks. You have clarity about what matters most. Life is still not easy, and the pain carries meaning.

The rest of that picture lands in daily practice. You notice a problem and shift into an ACT process. You extend the skills to clients and to your personal life. You feel freer to try new things. You look within to regulate your own emotions instead of staying in a loop. You build a career in ABA that feels more satisfying. You get comfortable moving away from protocol and having powerful conversations. Her writing tips: paint the picture, describe how it feels, use your values words.

The last part turns that picture into goals. A few examples from the ABAA list: you find solutions where you used to see only problems. You use workability (does it work in context) instead of protocol chosen to avoid errors. You look for flexibility instead of forcing compliance. You treat a problem as a meaningful challenge inside a person's life. That beats a problem reduction model that fixes someone without understanding them first. You choose rather than resign. You take responsibility with less shame and self-blame. Next session moves to the more typical hexaflex and how the ABAA game of life differs. Then the hour closes the way it opened: rate your clarity from 1 to 10 again.

And notice the outcomes as information rather than as evidence of mistakes or failures.

From the talk — Kaitlin Wilder