14. Why self-compassion is important when struggling with anxieties, worries, and fears

PLAYING-IT-SAFE

Many of us grew up in a world that told us that we should be fearless, jump off the cliff, and eliminate fear from our lives. In a very intimate conversation, I chat with Steve Hayes, Ph.D., a co-founder of acceptance and commitment therapy, about his relationship to fear, anxieties, and worries and how his personal experience and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) unfolded simultaneously.

This is Part 1 of a very personal conversation with Steve, and it gives us a peek into the life behind the scenes of a person that published over hundreds of academic papers and academic books, trained hundreds of clinicians, presented at countless of international conferences and developed a model of psychological science that has exploded in the last 30 years.

What to listen for:

• What was difficult for Dr. Hayes dealing with fear
• How Steve made a pivot from struggling with fear since very early in his life to learning to live with it
• How Steve learned to observe his fears, be curious about them, be interested on them, and at times, appreciate them
• How Steve practices self-compassion when struggling
• How Steve determined his values and how they helped him to navigate through daily life
• How Steve handled his fears about his first TEDx talk
• How Steve's personal experience shaped the development of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

Stay tuned for part 2!

(*) Show notes and resources of this episode

(*) Receive free weekly science-based, compassionate, and actionable skills to stop ineffective playing-it-safe

(*) Figure out your playing-it-safe profile in 5 minutes and identify the key thinking strategies that keep you living in your head

(*) Learn ACT skills for anxious achievers by taking Dr. Z. ACT courses

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