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An epitaph can include biographical information, historical references, warnings, testimonies, words of comfort and hope, or prayers. Victorians often quoted scriptures or hymns, but poems were also commonplace. As April is National Poetry Month, this post will explore two examples of epitaph poetry.

People often refer to the Universal Growth Principle as "The 4 A's," which stands for Awareness, Acceptance, Action and Adherence. Dr. Daniels also adds in another A for Appreciation though I'll explore that one in a separate blog.

Defusion is really about changing our relationship to our thoughts by observing them rather than engaging them. ing to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, it's not the thoughts that are the problem; it's what you do with them.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is about helping people to relate to their thoughts and feelings in a more flexible and effective ways and to focus their attention on living well, in line with their deepest values.

Specific skills that are used in ACT therapy to help clients learn acceptance include: Self-compassion meditations. Emotion exposure. Physicalizing emotions or thoughts. Loving-kindness phrases. Experiential exercises and metaphors.

ACT therapy works by focusing on accepting life experiences as they come, without evaluating or trying to change them. It's a skill developed through mindfulness exercises that encourage you to build a new and more compassionate relationship with difficult experiences.

Acceptance – Sometimes called Expansion, this process is about creating space for emotions, impulses, and feelings that we might otherwise suppress or avoid (experiential avoidance, Hayes et al., 2012). This allows us to avoid over-inflating them or wasting too much energy on them so that we can move on more easily.

One way to do this is the tombstone exercise from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). The exercise involves writing your epitaph, which is an inscription written on a tombstone summarizing what your life and behavior has been about. In this exercise, we explore both an ideal epitaph and a feared epitaph.

Client: “I want to change, BUT I am too anxious.” Social worker: “You want to change, AND you are anxious about it.” This subtle verbal and cognitive shift is the essence of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). It suggests that a person can take action without first changing or eliminating feelings.