Healing with Purpose: How ACT Transforms Mental Health Care

Making room for difficult thoughts and feelings with acceptance

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is a great evidence-based approach in managing a range of challenges including anxiety, depression, life-transitions and relationship difficulties.

One of the driving principles behind ACT is the art of acceptance.

Acceptance defined

Acceptance means opening up to our inner experiences such as thoughts, feelings, sensations and urges and just letting them be as they are. In practicing acceptance, we learn to make room for our experiences regardless of how pleasant or unpleasant they may be. This helps us connect more to our values and act on them.

These are some benefits of acceptance:

Managing distress

One of the challenges people may encounter is the distress associated with some feelings including anxiety, panic, and low mood. Sometimes a natural response to this is to push the feeling away or engage in un-aligned coping mechanisms such as substance use, overeating and rumination. However, these solutions may not provide long-term relief from the feelings and take us away from our innate values. Acceptance can therefore be used to make room for difficult thoughts and feelings making it easier to manage the distress associated with them.

Building resilience

Resilience is the ability to withstand or adapt to challenges and difficulty events. It is an important factor in how we might approach and overcome demands and ultimately grow through these experiences. By cultivating a sense of acceptance it can transform how we respond to uncomfortable inner experiences. This in turn can help build our psychological and emotional resilience in managing challenges that we may face.

Improved relationships

When we are able to build acceptance within ourselves, it becomes easier to show similar acceptance towards others in relationships. Sometimes when we approach challenges in relationships with judgement or criticism this creates more tension and friction with those around us. Learning to build that sense of inner acceptance also helps us turn this outward towards others. It can help us feel more compassion and kindness towards others and the ways we interact with the people around us may also change as a result. Acceptance may then help us in our close relationships.

Ways to build acceptance

Mindfulness

At the core of building acceptance is learning to focus our attention on inner experiences such as thoughts, feeling and physical sensations. Sometimes greatly resisting inner experiences can lead to a lot of distress when we feel like we are in a battle with difficult emotions or sensations. Acceptance can initially cause some discomfort in leaning into these thoughts or feelings but eventually this helps us make room for them and allow them to pass in their own time.

After you have tuned inward here are some ACT practices that can help build acceptance;

1.      Allowing – can you allow this feeling to be as it is? It doesn’t have to be something you like or want

2.      Expansion – what would it feel like to open up and expand around this feeling?

3.      Physicalising – really tune into this feeling and picture it as a physical object, what form does it have? What is it’s size? Notice any other attributes such as colour, shape or texture

Self-compassion

Another powerful way to build acceptance can be through the lens of self-compassion. Take some time to notice your inner dialogue and pay attention to how you communicate with yourself. It is very common to have an inner critic – a part of you that is hard on you and your decisions. But viewing ourselves from this inner critical lens can make is harder to build a sense of acceptance and in a way it creates more resistance to whatever inner experiences may be arising.

Steps to building self-compassion

1.      Noticing the inner critic – this may be more prominent when you make a mistake or don’t achieve something you were hoping for.

2.      Acknowledge – you may be let down or disappointed as a result of some actions – notice some unpleasant feelings may have arisen for you.

3.      Respond with a little more kindness – ask yourself what you would say to a friend who has been through something similar?

4.      Choose your next steps – reflect on the experience and how you may approach things a little differently next time.

Final Thoughts

Acceptance can be a great tool to master as it helps in managing a range of challenges we might face by building our psychological flexibility to respond to these. Like most things acceptance can be viewed as a muscle that may be weak if it isn’t something we have practice using previously. However, small and consistent practice can help us cultivate and build our skills in acceptance and help with improving our overall wellbeing!

🔷 Transforming Mental Health in the Hills District for 15 Years Located in West Pennant Hills, Breakthrough Psychology Practice has been proudly supporting children, adolescents, and adults in the Hills area with high-quality, evidence-based psychological care for over 15 years.

🧠 Our dedicated team of psychologists are trained in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), an empowering modality shown to deliver lasting results for anxiety, depression, grief, relationship challenges, and adjustment difficulties.

💬 ACT therapy helps clients build psychological flexibility, strengthen emotional resilience, and reconnect with meaningful values—all within a safe, compassionate environment tailored to individual needs.

📅 Book your appointment today and give your child, yourself, or your family the personalised support you deserve from experienced, compassionate professionals.