How to Live a Fuller Life with PMDD with Shamash Alidina
In this episode, Shamash Alidina and I discuss:
How living with PMDD, or other chronic illness, can lead us to pause our life while we try to heal
And how this can lead to losing touch with ourselves and the things that bring value, meaning and purpose to our lives
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Shamash and I talk about how making room for our challenges, and turning back to the things that are meaningful for us, can help us to live a richer, more purposeful life, even with PMDD.
I share how fighting less, and opening up more, actually led me to find some relief from PMDD symptoms.
Shamash is best known as the internationally bestselling author of 10 books including Mindfulness For Dummies and The Mindful Way through Stress. He also co-founded the world's first Museum of Happiness in London, and often collaborates with UK Charity, Action for Happiness.
Shamash pioneered online Mindfulness Teacher Training, launching his program Teach Mindfulness Online, and has been training practitioners in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy–or Training–also called ACT.
Mentioned in this episode:The Little Book of ACT: A Simple and Fun Guide to Living a Meaningful Life Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy by Shamash Alidina
Empower Yourself: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Colouring Book by Shamash Alidina
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How to Live a Fuller Life with PMDD with Shamash Alidina
Episode number: 25
Date: 11/01/24
Guest: Shamash Alidina, Mindfulness for Dummies, Daily Mindfulness Club
EXCERPT (00:00:00)
Shamash: So we put our life on pause, understandably, because this experience is painful, and we want to fix it. So if there is a way to fix it, then that's fantastic. This is what ACT would also say: you're welcome to do whatever helps to reduce your suffering and helps you to move toward more meaning and purpose.
Shamash: So you kind of pause your life, and that includes pausing the things that you were doing before, which were creating meaning and purpose in your life, to try and fix this problem. And you try it for a week and you try it for a month and you try this technique and that technique, and this therapy and that therapy, and you keep trying them. But it keeps coming back. So you blame yourself. You say, I haven't found the right technique yet, or I need to work harder. And so your life goes on pause.
Shamash: And so what ACT is saying, and this is the way it's kind of radically different, is that we're not going to try and fix getting rid of this pain. What we're gonna do is learn the skills to make space for this physical, mental, emotional pain to be there. And we're also going to learn the skill of turning our attention back toward what was meaningful and purposeful for us. And you commit to taking these tiny, tiny, tiny steps. And what people find, amazingly, is that when you go back toward focusing on what makes your life meaningful and purposeful, actually, you know, that pain that was there before doesn't seem to be there that much.
INTRO (00:01:29)
Diane: If you want to learn how you can live better with PMDD, this podcast was created for you. This is Mindfulness for PMDD with Diane. I'm Diane and I'm a registered dietitian and lactation consultant. I'm also a mom, a PMDD warrior, and a trauma-informed mindfulness teacher. And this is where I discuss topics related to PMDD through the lens of mindfulness and meditation, and where I share all about how mindfulness has gotten me to a place of greater peace and acceptance with my PMDD.
Diane: I also chat with people who have helped and inspired me along the way, so they can share their wisdom with you too. So let's get started.
SAFETY NOTE / DISCLAIMER (00:02:21)
Diane: This podcast is not a substitute for psychological therapy or medical advice. Please take care when listening to this podcast, as some may find certain words or subjects triggering or difficult to hear. Take only what serves you and leave the rest behind.
MEETING SHAMASH AND THE MOMENT MINDFULNESS CLICKED (00:02:47)
Diane: Shamash Alidina is best known as the internationally bestselling author of 10 books, including Mindfulness for Dummies and The Mindful Way Through Stress. He also co-founded the world's first Museum of Happiness in London, and often collaborates with UK charity Action for Happiness.
Diane: Based in London, Shamash runs online trainings and speaks at conferences all over the world. He's a keen educator who spent 10 years teaching mindfulness meditation, as well as science, in schools. And since then, he has trained almost 500 mindfulness teachers. Shamash pioneered online mindfulness teacher training, launching his program Teach Mindfulness Online, and has been training practitioners in acceptance and commitment therapy or training, also called ACT.
Diane: ACT is a cutting-edge approach that skillfully combines acceptance, flexible mindfulness, values, and committed action to help people live a rich and meaningful life. So please enjoy my chat with Shamash Alidina.
Diane: So welcome, Shamash.
Shamash: Thank you. Thank you for having me, Diane.
Diane: Thank you for being here. I'm so excited. So, Shamash, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got started with mindfulness, perhaps in your own personal journey and then in your work, and what you currently do in terms of mindfulness and acceptance and commitment therapy?
Shamash: Sure, sure, sure. So my journey, I guess, into mindfulness started back when I was in university. I started my degree in engineering when I was 18. And at age 20, I tried doing, in the summer vacation, like a mini job, and I got a decent pay packet for the first time ever.
Shamash: And all my life up to this point was to make money. And I thought, oh yeah, when you spend money, that's going to really make me happy. And so finally I'd had this money and I remember spending it. There was this great feeling of emptiness. I was in Oxford Street, central London, actually the typical capitalist location to spend money. And there was this great sense of emptiness there, unfortunately.
Shamash: And I thought, oh, I've been sold this dream that, you know, you work really hard, you get good grades, you get a good job, and then you get this money, which will be your reward. But it wasn't the reward I was expecting. And so there was this feeling of frustration.
Shamash: And then luckily I saw a poster in the underground for a philosophy class. It said, it was like a quote of Socrates. And I thought, yes, philosophy is the total opposite of chemical engineering. Let's just see what happens.
Shamash: So I showed up to this class and that was, they didn't call it mindfulness then, but they talked about Eastern philosophies a little. They talked about consciousness specifically, and they said we can have different levels of consciousness and awareness. And you've got, you know, your sleep state, which is the lowest. You've got dream state, which is slightly higher. You've got your normal waking state, which is the state that most people are in when they're on the underground or trains in London, you see. They're half awake, half asleep.
Shamash: And then they said, there's exercises you can do to raise your level of awareness. This had been practiced for thousands of years, and you can learn to do these exercises. When you do them, you actually feel more present. You have more choice in your life and you feel more alive. I thought, oh, that's interesting. Okay. I was still very skeptical. I had my science hat on.
Shamash: Anyway, they did an exercise where you went through all your senses. So you went through the sight and you notice the colors, and then scent, sense of smell, the touch of your body. And then what was the life-changing moment for me, that was like 25 years ago now, but I still remember, is you connect to your sense of hearing.
Shamash: So you listen to the further sounds and then you notice that your thoughts are just like those sounds. They're just thoughts arising and passing away, just like the sounds that you hear. And they said there's this silence beyond the thoughts and the feelings. You're like this observer, and these thoughts are coming up and they're going, but they're not you. They're just arising one after the other.
Shamash: And so they're not necessarily true. They may or may not be true. But you are not that, because if you were the thoughts, you wouldn't be able to hear them or notice them. There's a part of you that's the observer of these thoughts and that's totally free of them. And they described this as, you know, that connects us all together and there's this oneness about it.
Shamash: And although I was very skeptical, this started to make sense for me and I really clicked into it. And I really started to go from a kind of person who didn't care about the present moment at all, I never even knew that was a concept. I was constantly planning, constantly thinking, constantly trying to be successful in whatever I was doing by planning and setting goals and all that kind of stuff, to actually, hey, let's look at the clouds. Let's look at the trees. Let's just be in the moment rather than constantly trying to create this future, which may or may not be in a positive place for us to be. Let's be fully present and enjoy that.
Shamash: So yeah, that was the beginning of my journey. And then very briefly after that, I became a school teacher where all the children also did mindfulness and meditation. And then in 2010, this book came out, Mindfulness for Dummies. When that book came out, I decided to take the plunge and go full-time into being a mindfulness teacher. And in the last 15 years, I've been first of all teaching mindfulness, then training mindfulness teachers, mostly online. And then I got interested in ACT as well, acceptance and commitment training. We'll probably talk a little bit more about that soon. But I got interested in that and sharing that with others as well. So yeah, that's been my journey in a nutshell.
Diane: I love that. I love how you said that thoughts are just like sounds, and you are, I think you said, you are not the thoughts themselves, because otherwise you wouldn't be able to notice them because you would be that thing, right?
Shamash: Exactly.
Diane: That's so cool. And then I didn't realize this. This is awesome. You said that what kind of was that final thing, the push where you decided to begin teaching mindfulness, was when you picked up that book, Mindfulness for Dummies?
Shamash: Yeah. Well, when I published it, actually.
Diane: That's what I thought. Okay.
Shamash: Yeah. Yeah.
Diane: When you published it. I thought you said you picked up Mindfulness for Dummies. I'm like, haven't you written that book? And I thought, oh, well, maybe he's done like further versions of it. I've missed a step.
Shamash: That's like a good comedy episode, where you publish your own book and then you see it in the library and you're like, wow, this is really good.
Diane: I'm pretty good. Well, I thought, you know, maybe other people do future iterations or something. I was like, I've missed a step.
Shamash: They sometimes do. In fact, I had read CBT for Dummies before I wrote my book. And that's when I found out that these Dummies books were quite good. And there was another one called Meditation for Dummies, which was also excellent. So that's when I got into the whole Dummies books.
Diane: Got it. Got it. So yes. Okay. So I was right. So you have published the Mindfulness for Dummies book. Yes. Without someone else having published it first.
WHAT ACT ADDS TO MINDFULNESS (00:10:13)
Diane: Okay. So Shamash, of course I have an understanding of ACT because I incorporate ACT principles in my program. But I'd love if you could talk a little bit for our listener, and also because I would love to hear your perspective, about what is ACT? And then, how is ACT different from mindfulness? What's the same? What's different?
Shamash: Great question. So ACT stands for acceptance and commitment training or therapy. And that's the first important thing, because it's not just a therapeutic model. Like in mindfulness, there's a program called MBCT, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy. It's kind of designed from the ground up as a therapeutic process.
Shamash: If you look at ACT and where ACT was first kind of designed and developed, it's connected to a very interesting story from one of the co-founders, Dr. Steven Hayes. And he was suffering from a lot of kind of panic and anxiety. And all the techniques that he used, the best techniques at the time, didn't help him to overcome that panic. It just got worse and worse until he was about to call an ambulance because he thought he was having a heart attack, but realized it was a panic attack.
Shamash: But in that night he had what I think he would describe as a spiritual experience. He doesn't often use that word, but he actually wrote a scientific paper on spirituality. And it was a spiritual experience, but it's similar to what I described with that meditation. He became the observer of his thoughts. He became the observer of that anxiety and the panic. And he realized that because he wasn't that panic, he was the observer of it, he didn't have to act on it.
Shamash: But the interesting thing is then he didn't just say, okay, I've had this spiritual experience, I'm going to become a guru and teach everyone this or act like this authority. He went back to the very basic science of how the brain works and behavioral science, and he created a theory, quite complicated theory, called relational frame theory, which is about how the brain works, how the human brain in particular works.
Shamash: Why is the human brain different to other animals? Why have we got all this science and all these space rockets? How come we can communicate in such complicated ways? There are different theories for that, and he came up with a cutting-edge theory, which he spent, I think, a decade or so developing and testing. It's called relational frame theory.
Shamash: It's a complicated theory, but the simplicity of it is that human beings, because of the way our brain works, we can connect anything to anything. So even something which might be a positive experience, like watching a sunrise, if we'd had a negative experience about something that happened when you were watching the sunrise, then every time you see that, you could be reminded of that.
Shamash: So we have this ability to create suffering in the present moment by things that have happened in the past and also push it into the future as well. So anyway, he did this very basic level of research into this relational frame theory and then developed it into ACT. But he researched it in a way that's very flexible.
Shamash: So rather than, you know, with mindfulness courses, quite often the eight-week courses, because they've come up with this concept of an eight-week course and they try it out on a group of people, let's say that have anxiety, and they think, oh yeah, it seems like it works, and they repeat it, but it's not proven for other processes, other ways of sharing it, for example.
Shamash: Whereas the way ACT was researched, they found these six specific skills. They call them flexibility skills. And if you cultivate each of these six skills, it leads to a greater sense of resilience and mental well-being and greater sense of fulfillment that you can cultivate. So they didn't even really use the word mindfulness, but they just did this research and they found that these six skills create what is called psychological flexibility. That creates resilience. It leads to a flourishing life.
Shamash: And as it turns out through their research, four out of those six skills could be considered mindful skills: acceptance, being able to unhook from your thoughts, being the observer of your thoughts, which is what we've been emphasizing today, and being able to be flexibly in the here and now, in the present moment.
Shamash: And then the other beautiful thing about ACT is that they provide very kind of creative ways in which you can cultivate these skills. So, you know, if you like practicing meditation, great. Meditation can help cultivate some or many of those skills. But then there's these other quite unique, creative, unusual little techniques that could take you five, 10 seconds, or 30 seconds, or a minute.
Shamash: And they may sound as if they're a bit gimmicky and fun, but actually they're very well tested in the world of research and science. Arguably, according to Steven Hayes, these six skills, if you kind of cultivate and develop them, they are more well proven than any other kind of measure in psychological science to cultivate a sense of flourishing and build our resilience. So they're really well tested and very well accepted, you know, places like the World Health Organization recommends them. And I think as time goes by, more and more people will be cultivating these skills because they're really beneficial for us.
VALUES, PURPOSE, AND TAKING TINY STEPS (00:15:54)
Diane: And so you mentioned that four of the six flexibility skills can fall under mindfulness, and they were diffusion, or like separating ourselves from our thoughts and unhooking from our thoughts, observing, engaging with the present moment, and acceptance. Can you talk about what the other two flexibility skills are?
Shamash: Sure. Yeah. So what I like to call the fifth one is opening your heart to your values, a values-based approach to living. Because if we can have lots of goals in our lives, but if our goals aren't driven by values, then when you achieve the goal, there can be a sense of emptiness and all you can think about is, what's my next goal?
Shamash: And I guess that's what my experience was in that moment when money was the goal and then I made the money, I spent it, but then there was a sense of emptiness there because there was no values behind it. Like, you know, what's the meaning and purpose behind it? So becoming clearer about what our values are, this is what drives meaning. And in a way, the goal of ACT is to live a meaningful life, a purposeful life.
Shamash: Recently, just a few days ago was International Day of Happiness. And I went to the World Happiness Summit, and the theme of the whole summit was about purpose. How do we live with more purpose? And they were saying that, you know, if you think of happiness just as a feeling, then it just comes and goes. Some days you feel happy and other days, not so much. And so it's a goal that's constantly elusive. Whereas if you cultivate a sense of values-based living and connect with your values, that can give you much more resilience and can give much more meaning and purpose. So becoming clearer about your values is the fifth one.
Shamash: And the final one is learning to take steps to turn those values into action. So how do you set goals? And I've been learning to kind of do this more recently where you set a goal for the year, a goal for the next 90 days. I think that's quite a nice length of time to think about. And then even every month and every week. And mindfulness can often shy away from goal setting, but actually, you know, having goals to move toward can give us a sense of meaning and purpose because it turns those values into action.
Shamash: So the final of the six flexibility skills is being able to set very, very small goals that you can achieve on a daily basis that move you toward your meaningful life.
Diane: And, you know, as a matter of fact, talking about moving away from your goals, moving toward your goals, and we'll get to this more in depth in a few moments, but I can share that when I first was diagnosed with, well first really postpartum PTSD in 2017, when my son was born, and then a couple of years later with PMDD, which is premenstrual dysphoric disorder, which is the condition that I coach on, there was a period of time where my whole focus was, well, first kind of survival, and then it was sort of like learning to manage again.
Diane: And because I was so hooked and brought down by my thoughts and feelings, I began to have sort of this singular focus, and I was moving away from my values, even if on some level I knew what they were, intentionally or unintentionally. I was moving away from them because I was saying, well, I'm just going to focus on this right now. I'm going to focus on feeling better physically, feeling better mentally, whatever it was. Survival mode.
Diane: But also certain things were taken away or moved around in my life in terms of things I could or couldn't do. It felt like the things I was doing previously to take meaningful action toward my values were going away and moving me away from my values. And I think that's where a lot of grief came from. And I think that's why finding mindfulness and ACT kind of helped me to come back around. So just kind of something to share on that point.
Diane: So here's what I'm wondering, though, because I love how you talk about the way that this theory and these skills have been well tested. And also you mentioned something about the way some other programs are maybe tested in one very specific framework or setting. And so that's wonderful and that's great to know, but then we cannot be quite so sure if we move them out of that setting or framework. And so I'm wondering if you can share a little bit about anything you know or want to share about some of the research behind ACT, and also something that I've heard you talk about in the past, which is this transdiagnostic nature of ACT, where ACT is not meant to, it wasn't created for any one or two particular conditions or challenges, but rather can be applied in a wide variety of challenges and settings.
WHEN PMDD PUTS LIFE ON PAUSE (00:21:00)
Shamash: Yeah, absolutely. That's another fascinating part of ACT, and I think it's really interesting. Transdiagnostic. Yeah. So like you said, ACT is still tested in this way, but you take specific conditions and you see what kind of modality or way of sharing ACT would be beneficial.
Shamash: But the way ACT was researched is that, that's why I kind of talked about this relational frame theory at the beginning of our conversation. They created this theory about how they believe the human brain works. And by understanding the way the human brain works, you can see that it can go in this direction, which causes more suffering, and if the brain can go in this direction, it can create more meaning and purpose.
Shamash: So if we understand that there are these six flexibility skills, and these are skills that they've also found that we can improve upon, and if we develop these skills, it leads to what they call, they've given it this fancy name, psychological flexibility. So the more we develop these six skills and when we have psychological flexibility, this helps to move us toward a life that's more meaningful.
Shamash: Now what happens, and you gave a great example of that, is that we all go through different difficulties and challenges in our lives and barriers and things get in the way. So let's say, for example, let's continue with this example of something happens and you're feeling anxious. It could be through what you've shared, PMDD, or it could be some other cause of it. But there's something that's causing us suffering.
Shamash: And so we put our life on pause, understandably, because this experience is painful and we want to fix it. So if there is a way to fix it, then that's fantastic. This is what ACT would also say: you're welcome to do whatever helps to reduce your suffering and helps you to move toward more meaning and purpose.
Shamash: So you kind of pause your life, and that includes pausing the things that you were doing before, which were creating meaning and purpose in your life, to try and fix this problem. And you try it for a week and you try it for a month and you try this technique and that technique and this therapy and that therapy, and you keep trying them. But it keeps coming back. So you blame yourself. You say, I haven't found the right technique yet, or I need to work harder. And so your life goes on pause.
Diane: Yeah.
Shamash: And then eventually you come across a podcast by Diane talking about ACT and acceptance and commitment training. And so what ACT is saying, and this is the way it's kind of radically different, is that we're not going to try and fix getting rid of this pain. What we're gonna do is learn the skills to make space for this physical, mental, emotional pain to be there. And we're also going to learn the skill of turning our attention back toward what was meaningful and purposeful for us.
Shamash: And you think, oh no, I can't do that. That's going to be so hard. I can't make space for this pain. Well, you say, okay, let's look at what you've been doing for the last few weeks, months, years, decades. Do you want to continue doing that? And it's not something said in a bad way or negative way, but I guess you have a choice. You can continue and you may have this hope that you may find something that works. I will fix it. But maybe it's now time to try something different.
Shamash: And so very slow, in very small, steady steps, you get taught mindfulness skills. And these, you could call them mindfulness skills. If you don't like the word mindfulness, you can call it skills for making space, skills for being present, skills for being open, skills for being able to turn your attention to something else. And so you learn these different skills. Some of them you may have come across, some of them are quite creative and unique. And I'm sure maybe Diane's talked about some of these techniques.
Shamash: And so you start to create some space between you and your thoughts, between you and these painful thoughts or these painful feelings. And then once you start to get that little bit of room, you use that space to start turning toward, ah yes, I used to love this particular hobby, or I used to love connecting with, say, friends, these friends I've lost touch with. So let me set this tiny goal of texting one of them. And there'll be some fear and reluctancy. Use these other skills to help you to overcome those fears, or you work with your coach or your therapist or through a book, whatever, you start moving in that other direction.
Shamash: And so what this ACT is about, acceptance and commitment, it's about learning the skill of acceptance. That's not a great word for a lot of people. So you think of it as openness, opening up space for it, or making room, you could call it. So you can call it making room and commitment therapy. So you make room for what you're struggling with and you commit to taking these tiny, tiny, tiny steps.
Shamash: And what people find, amazingly, is that when you go back toward focusing on what makes your life meaningful and purposeful, actually, you know, that pain that was there before doesn't seem to be there that much. But that's not the goal. Even if the pain is just as much there or even more, this approach is saying, let's make space for that and let's keep moving toward what makes our life meaningful.
Shamash: And you know, 99 percent of the time it does tend to, because your attention is not there. Your attention is on what makes your life fulfilling and full of purpose. And then maybe you start to have more creativity and you can think of more solutions to your challenges. But that's why it's radically different. Why is it transdiagnostic? It doesn't say if it was for anxiety, we're not saying your anxiety would go down. If it was for low mood and you're using ACT, your low mood may go up and down. What we're focusing on is our actions. That's what ACT is saying is something that we do have some control over. We don't have much control at all on thoughts or feelings or bodily sensations. But what we do have more control on is what makes our life meaningful. There's much more control there. So it helps you to accept, make space for what you can't control, and take action on what you can control. And that's why it's so unique. And that's why I think we both enjoy sharing it, because it makes a lot of sense and it's quite empowering as well.
EMAIL LIST NOTE (00:27:24)
Diane: Hey, PMDD friend. If you want to be the first to know when a new episode is coming out, head to the show notes to join the Mindfulness for PMDD email list. I'll send you a heads up when I've scheduled a new episode to be published. I'll also give you sneak peeks at topics I'm working on and guests that I've booked. And maybe you can even submit your requests and suggestions for upcoming episodes. Get on the list in the show notes below this episode.
THE ONE PERCENT VERSION OF ACCEPTANCE (00:27:52)
Diane: And you know, this part about how the goal of ACT is not symptom reduction, and yet there are many people who have found that as they do find themselves able to focus more on their values and on taking meaningful action to live more in line with their values, somehow there is some relief of whatever that symptom is or that challenge is, maybe some sort of alleviation. And I even found that for myself and I'm still really blown away by it.
Diane: It's wild to experience because for me, my real-life version of it is that I got to a place where I had tried so many things. I felt like I had exhausted the list of things a person can do in terms of self-management and treatment, and I ticked all the boxes and still, I was having a very difficult time.
Diane: And what I noticed was, what I learned was, as much symptom relief as I could experience, one, my condition goes on and it's going to fluctuate no matter what I do. It will fluctuate and it will throw surprises at me sometimes. And two, life will go on and life will throw curveballs at me. And what I learned was no matter how air quotes good I got or felt, there were going to be bad times.
Diane: And my response to those bad times was with a lot of resistance and anger and resentfulness. And so my whole response was fighting, fighting, fighting. And you're right, as you say, my whole energy, my whole attention was focused on, how do I fight this? What else can I throw at this? What else am I not doing that I should be doing to make it better?
Diane: And that's what started to bring my focus away and my actions and my time away from things that were important to me. And it makes sense because when we're feeling badly, we want to try to feel better. We want to try to do everything we can do. We do turn to that instinct to survive, right? And then if we can get past that, to thrive.
Diane: But when I, and I felt that resistance to the word acceptance, but when I was able to say, okay, let me at least give this a try. Let me see if I can be more open or more willing or just to make that little bit of space. The more I did that, the further down that path I went. And not to say that that's a path that you're always going forward on in one direction, because maybe sometimes you feel a little less willing or a little less open. But the more I was able to practice this, actually, the more symptom relief I did begin to feel. And that was shocking. And to this day, it's still shocking.
Shamash: Wow. Wow. That's incredible.
Diane: Yeah.
Shamash: Powerful personal experience that you've got there.
Diane: Powerful.
Shamash: That it works. Yeah. And it works in a way that it's not about fixing. It's just the amazing thing.
Diane: Yes. Right. Because that wasn't even the point or the focus.
Shamash: Yeah.
Diane: And even more powerful when I start to read some of these research papers and see that, yeah, that's an actual observation, you know, kind of printed in this research paper. Like this is not the point, but this can be a byproduct. You're not the only one who's had that experience. You know, to see that in writing, like, what?
Shamash: But the really interesting thing is that if we're doing it from the perspective that this is going to get rid of the feelings, this is going to get rid of the thoughts, then it doesn't work so well. So it has to be, it has to be, because your mind knows the tricks that your mind is playing on itself. It knows what's going on.
Diane: Yes.
Shamash: Because acceptance is so kind of difficult and everyone is so kind of reluctant to do it, pretty much, what I like to do is to break it down, make it really small. So, okay, think of acceptance as a sliding scale, zero to a hundred percent. Can you be one percent more accepting of it? And just notice what that feels like. Or can you be a hundred percent accepting for just 10 seconds, or five seconds, or for one second? So you really, really break it down to super tiny bits and then think of it like that.
Shamash: And just to experiment, you know, you can be playful with it and experiment with it and see what happens. Everyone's allowed to do that. You can even do that with values. You can take a value and you can experiment with it. See, okay, I think my value is creativity. Let me try doing something in a creative way and see what happens. So it can be flexible in the way we apply this approach too. But it can apply to acceptance. They call it making room, making space, allowing. Find the word that works for you and see the tiniest, tiniest minimum dosage that you can do, which can be down to one second or a split second. And it could be a fraction of one percent acceptance. Start there. That's quite a fun thing to do.
Diane: Yeah. I love that. I love that sort of practical tip or view. And I want to continue down sort of a more practical path because we did, I think, jump in a little bit more with the science, but I wanted to lay a foundation and make sure that anyone listening has an understanding of what we're talking about. We're not just throwing around words like ACT.
Diane: But I do want to apply this more to real life situations, and particularly because my audience is either living with this condition, PMDD, or has some interest in it for one reason or another. And so in that case, what we're dealing with is you've got this chronic, debilitating condition and it's cyclical. So it's coming and going. And even though you pretty much have a sense of when it's going to come back around, and when you're going to be feeling pretty miserable, and when it's going to go away again, it still can throw you surprises from month to month, week to week, day to day.
Diane: And it really can throw a wide variety of symptoms at you. So they can be psychological, they can be physical, they can be cognitive. So for many people, it even affects their work, their ability to work the way they previously are. They might feel really incompetent because of things like brain fog and decreased executive function and things like that.
Diane: And because it really can affect every area of your life, there can be a lot of feeling of losing oneself, losing your feeling of your identity, or feeling like your life no longer resembles what it used to or what you hoped it would. And I mentioned for me that was a lot of resentment, resistance, just trying to fight, fight, fight, fight.
Diane: And so I'm wondering if we can explore a little bit more about how something like ACT could potentially benefit someone who could be going through something like this, whether it's something like PMDD or some other condition where you really feel like suddenly your life's almost been like the puzzle's just been kind of thrown up in the air and all the pieces are everywhere. And you just feel like, I'm never going to be able to get this back together. I've got lost pieces. I don't know what's happening anymore. I can't even identify what the image was. How could we possibly apply ACT to something like that to potentially get the benefits of it?
BUILDING A PRACTICE FOR THE HARD DAYS (00:36:08)
Shamash: Yeah. So really challenging situation. And if you can find someone to work with you through ACT coaching or therapy or something like that, then that would be ideal. But in addition to that, you can read a book on ACT. You can go through those six flexibility skills. And maybe in the days or weeks where things are a little bit easier for you, cultivating some of the skills.
Shamash: So you can cultivate the being open skill and you could maybe do a few minutes of mindfulness, mindful acceptance, and you can practice it. So you're building up the skills when the times are not so challenging. You can learn about diffusion or unhooking, and you can practice unhooking certain thoughts and learning to create some space between you and the thoughts. You can learn to be this observer self, this transcendent self. You can see yourself in this different context with that third mindful skill.
Shamash: You can do everyday mindfulness. Like you can practice when you go for a walk, feeling your feet on the floor, noticing the breeze of the air against your skin, looking at the colors around you, trying to take just a breath or two or three breaths every now and then so you're not rushing so much everywhere. So you're going through all these different skills and you're developing them, and you're starting to get a little bit better at them. And so then when you meet the peak of your challenge, maybe you'll have some of that opening available to you from the skills that you developed.
Shamash: Another thing you could do is you could take a sheet of paper and write down the skills that you find helpful or the exercises that you think would work well for you or you've tried, exercises you've tried that you kind of quite like. And then look back at that at a time when you're going through the challenge.
Shamash: And in the mix with all this ACT stuff that we've been talking about, I would say self-compassion is also a huge one. When we're going through a difficult time, we can be very harsh on ourselves, where it's not really your fault. You've found yourself in this situation that everyone would find challenging. So maybe you could find some words of self-compassion that resonate with you. You can put that on this piece of paper too, something that you look at.
Shamash: Or you could do some small two-, three-minute self-compassion exercises or write a self-compassion letter, something that can help you tap into that self-compassion when you're at the peak of that challenging time. But also, it might involve certain people. There might be people that you can reach out to and talk to, that you know will be compassionate toward you. That might be a helpful approach, calling someone, texting someone. Maybe you'll have two or three of their names on this piece of paper.
Shamash: So putting together, I guess, some resources, maybe even a box where there's some nice scent that can help you connect with the present moment, some messages that you have for yourself, and maybe there's a little booklet or a little book that you really like. That's what comes to mind. It's almost like a resource that you have to support yourself, to encourage you to connect with others or connect with yourself in a mindful and kindful way at these kind of moments of difficulty and challenge.
Shamash: And just connecting with community as well. So with yourself, listening to this podcast and the community around this and other communities like that, just to remind yourself that you're not so isolated and alone as well. Because that can, I'm sure it feels quite isolating when you go through these experiences. And knowing that there are others out there that have managed to work through it successfully or that can help you with it, that can feel really important as well. We're social animals, so social connection is super important. So that can make a big difference too. There are some of the ideas that come to mind.
Diane: No, I love that. And in particular, I really love your idea of finding days or weeks that are easier in which to practice these skills and exercises. The program that I have is a mindfulness and acceptance coaching program for people going through PMDD. And what I've found personally and what I try to apply in my program is this idea that, like one good thing about PMDD, kind of shocking to say that there's a good thing about PMDD, but a good thing about PMDD is that because it's cyclical, we have a good idea of when we're going to go back into the time that we feel bad.
Diane: And what I found in my own experience was that, yes, certain things were really hard to practice or to get going as a habit when I was in the really bad days. But if I could find a way to anchor them to some other habit, or just create a reminder for myself, then in the good days I could start to practice those skills and hone those skills, maybe create a habit, and slowly be able to start applying them during the more challenging times. And so I did find that really powerful and a really good trick. And so I do try to apply that now in my program. And so I love that one.
Diane: And yes, self-compassion is super important because it's easy to kind of blame yourself or feel like you're failing. And so to kind of find a way to reconnect with that self-compassion can really go a long way.
SHAMASH'S RESOURCES AND FINAL REFLECTIONS (00:42:19)
Diane: So Shamash, I'm mindful of time. I could listen to you talk forever, and I do because I'm obsessed with your podcast. However, I do want to wrap us up. I'd like to ask you, though, one, anything in particular new going on that you'd like to share with the listener, and two, where people can find you.
Shamash: Cool. I haven't shared this on the other podcast, but I actually have written a little book of ACT that I haven't launched at all. I'll just quietly put it out there. It's called The Little Book of ACT.
Diane: My eyeballs are popping out of my head. My eyeballs are popping out of my head with excitement. Okay, say the title again, I'm sorry.
Shamash: It's a nice small book. It's called The Little Book of ACT. And the way I've structured it is, I think 21 chapters, and each of them, they go through the flexibility skills that introduce you to the main principles of ACT and then help you kind of turn ACT into action. And each chapter has then got a story or a metaphor that goes with it.
Shamash: And I've taken the effort to create new metaphors and new ideas because you quite often hear the same metaphors again and again, and they're great metaphors, but sometimes people have heard them too many times. So one of my challenges was to put something together in a unique way which might help people, might make it click easier.
Shamash: So yeah, it's called The Little Book of ACT and it is quite small. So something that, you know, could be part of a resource potentially for oneself when going through a difficulty or challenge. You could read a little bit or a few sentences and that can help.
Shamash: And then, thinking about ACT as well, I also created a coloring book on ACT quite a while back. So if you like to do some mindful coloring in, and then the quotations are ACT principles, so they're different kind of little quotes based on ACT. I can't remember what it's called actually. Probably ACT Coloring Book, but I'll have to look it up. Oh yeah, Empower Yourself. It's called Empower Yourself, which is, I like that concept. So yeah, Empower Yourself: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Coloring Book.
Shamash: So there's some nice, easy kind of simple resources. And then the next thing up would be a mindfulness challenge that I've got on my website. It's like a free 31-day mindfulness challenge. And, you know, we've talked a lot about the overlap of mindfulness and ACT. And then if you want to go into it more, I've got a six-week ACT course that you can do online as well. You can get in touch with me on my website. I can let you know what the link is for that if you want to go through it into a bit more depth.
Shamash: But yeah, just like you, I'm very passionate about ACT. So it's really fun talking to you about it, because I often get to talk to other colleagues about it. So it's fun that you've applied it both personally in your life and then you're helping this amazing community of people to help them overcome their challenge around PMDD. And I love the idea that you're bringing mindfulness and acceptance, and you're so passionate about it.
Diane: I am. And you sparked passion. So thank you.
Shamash: Oh, wonderful. I'm so happy to hear that. That's wonderful. That's wonderful.
Diane: So Shamash, I will include all of this in the show notes. And so I just want to thank you again because you are coming to us from London and I'm in Austin. And we mentioned before the recording, we do have a time difference and we had some technical difficulties. So I appreciate you making the time and hanging in there with me. I feel very, it's been an honor and a privilege and I mean it when I say thank you so much.
Shamash: Oh, that's really nice. Thank you. Thank you so much, Diane. Beautiful questions. And I think what you're doing is amazing. So I really appreciate what you're doing. So thank you.
Diane: Thank you, Shamash.
OUTRO (00:45:45)
Diane: Thank you so much for listening. If you liked the show, please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. For links to everything mentioned in this episode, you can check out the show notes and you can find me, Diane DeJesus, on Instagram @mindfulnessforpmdd. Now, I invite you to pause, take a breath, and look around.
