Finding your values

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Marie: Hello and welcome to another episode of This Complex Life. Today I have with me Patch. Hi,

Patch: Patch. G'day.

Marie: Could you tell the listeners a little bit about yourself, who you are and

Patch: what you do? Yeah, my name's Patch Callaghan. I work as a clinical psychologist at the moment only In private practice, so they're predominantly saying individual clients for face to face and telehealth work do a bit of couples work as well.

That's my, that's my main thing during the week.

Marie: Awesome. And then on the weekends,

Patch: well, I have a long weekend every week. That's perhaps, you know, maybe that's a little bit aligned to what we're going to be chatting about today. That's a, you know, a choice that I'd make in my life to to have try and balance out.

My weekends and my work week.

Marie: Awesome. And one of the reasons I thought of you for this particular topic was you've got a really great knack for metaphors. And after [00:01:00] a recent you know, the use of a cacti in a therapy session, I was really

Patch: intrigued. And maybe cactus is not mine. I must say that. I've

Marie: given you full credit for that.

Maybe we'll explain that a little bit at the end. But one of the things that we have connected over is the use of it. Act, so acceptance and commitment therapy. And I find that some of the clients I work with, or even friends and family, when I talk to them about values, they're like, I don't know what buying a, or they go into therapy and their therapist be like, okay, so what are your goals?

Like, I don't know. It's like, okay, what do you value? Well, I don't know. So I thought that'd be a really great place to start. How do you, how can you explain the importance of values in the context of act or even just broader counseling and psychology.

Patch: Yeah, look, I think it can be helpful in the context of act, because when we use this term values, it can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people.

So when we, when we [00:02:00] talk about values and acceptance and commitment therapy, we really. Talking about you know, chosen life directions. These are instructing how we want to be and behave in our life. So a few elements to that is that, you know, that these are freely chosen things that we connect to, that we, that we choose, that we name, that we pursue in our lives.

You know, it's very different when. We might have a value that might come from our history, perhaps, or our family of origin or religion or schooling. We even know that, you know, it's a, it's a big thing in, in sort of organizational workplaces, you know, to have organizational values. So when we look at it from a sort of, particularly probably from any therapeutic stance or counseling stance, we are thinking about, you know, what is it that I choose to care about in my life, about how I want [00:03:00] to behave, about what I want.

In my life. And

Marie: how does, how do you explain the difference to someone who is maybe engaging with therapy for the first time? We're just listening to this. The difference between a value and a goal.

Patch: Yeah. So, I mean, a very simple way of differentiating them is that a goal is something that can be achieved or Achievements are not those.

We think about checking it off a list. We can put a goal on a list. A value is sort of the direction. It's the reason why we might engage in a goal. You know, so we could ask you know, I'll, I'll ask you, you know, if you want to say you know, I want to go for a hike in the Grampians, would that be a goal or a value?

It would be

Marie: a goal, but probably based on a

Patch: value, right? So it's a goal because you can go out there this weekend and go for a hike in the grampians. Yeah. And you've achieved that thing. You come back on Monday and said, I did [00:04:00] it. I did the thing. Why would you though? Why would, why would you go out and do something like that?

You can, you can speak to your own experience here. Yeah.

Marie: I think it would be either because I value nature or for you know, clarity and fresh air or movement. Or if I was going with a friend, it would be maybe to be supportive or

Patch: connected. Yeah, great. So connection, support you know, engagement with the natural world, a bit of sort of freedom in there to, to move.

They might all be underpinning that thing, but when you get home from that trip on Sunday night, do you stop caring about those things? No. So that's one way to sort of differentiate the two. The goals might be something we can achieve and check off a list. But we might also continue to have that life direction of those values, even after we've done the goals.

So we can get a bit too caught up at times in goal setting [00:05:00] and neglect values. And I think if we really take. You know, values from a personally chosen angle that, you know, our goals can fall into place when we know what we care about, then the goals will make more sense and our capacity to move towards our goals just makes more sense and is and is easier to do you know, name metaphors earlier, a common metaphor used in this area is like is our values being like a compass, you know, the compass gives us direction and when we, you know, the compass is, is a compass.

Pointing you know, northeast towards you know, human connection, then, you know, we go out have a kind of deeper, more meaningful conversation with somebody who we care about. Well, at the end of that conversation, you know, the compass is still pointing northeast. We just because we arrived at our destination doesn't mean that.

The compass stops giving us direction. So, you know, those goals are like getting to that next point and checking something off the list. And [00:06:00] the value is, you know, why, why are we doing that? What's that in the service of?

Marie: As you're, as you're talking, it makes me think that this could actually be quite confronting to some people.

Cause if you slow down to figure out what you value. You then have to, or then have to, but you can choose to then, if you want to live that way, you might need to make some changes to your life or routine or, or something. And it can depend on what it is. So something like kindness, for example I work a lot with young adults and they'll be studying something and they'll, they'll focus on that end on that graduation.

I'd be like, I'm studying nursing or healthcare and it's because I care. And they forget that even in their fast food job, even in retail, even in. Whatever else they're doing, they can still show care and kindness as a value while they're working towards that bigger goal. So some things don't require huge changes, but if you value authenticity and vulnerability, and you're terrified of showing that [00:07:00] vulnerability, that's going to be quite confronting,

Patch: right?

Yeah. And I think it's a really nice. Point Marie, because sometimes when we're setting those goals, we set those goals so far and so high, you know I think often, you know, people can relate to the idea of, you know, valuing freedom and what does freedom look like or what it looks like, you know, not working and not studying and having like 12 months and all this money to pack a backpack and go off, you know, wandering on a one way ticket around the globe.

Yeah, sure. That's freedom. Right. But, you know, also, you know, You know, getting on your bike and choosing which way you ride your bike to work is freedom as well. You know, choosing what music that you put on the stereo is freedom as well. You know, showing up and being the person you want to be when you've got difficult stuff going on in your inside world, that's freedom too.

And so, you know, what are all those little ways in which we can live a value? Your life, I think, is potentially more impactful than having [00:08:00] those big, long sided kind of goals aligned to values is that really showing up, you know, I think there are a number of ways we can approach values and that is to, you know, we can.

Establish something that we care about and, and kind of generate a goal from that that's aligned to that. It might be, you know, as you named earlier, a value kind of connection to the natural world and freedom and supporting friends. And so I'm going to organize to go on a hike with a friend of mine who I know is having a rough time.

I'm going to go out and spend a couple of days in the bush together, but that's, you know, that's always setting. Goals in line with our values, we can also move about in our day, not necessarily setting goals, but another way of living our values is to choose how we show up moment to moment, you know, as I walk through the door when I get home, or as I kind of going [00:09:00] to pick the kids up from school, you know, what is it in that moment that I want?

Find important. How do I want to show up to that moment? So it's not necessarily setting a goal in the service of that value, but it is trying to be mindful of choosing how we're showing up. Moment to moment throughout our day. So where does

Marie: someone start defining their values and how specific do you need to be?

So if it's something just like I value family, like, like, do you break it down more or is it like, like I used, I have a range of different tools and techniques that I use, but I'd be curious to hear, like, how do you get someone who's maybe it's their first time into therapy or, you know, someone asks you what you do for work at the pub and you're like, Oh God, do I tell them?

You know, and they're like, well, how do I even do it? Where do I even, where do you start? Where, where would you get someone, encourage someone to begin?

Patch: Your kind of statement about, you know, I value families is a really good one. It's something we bump into a lot, I think, in, in the [00:10:00] counseling room. And that is that, you know, I'm not rigid.

About this, but one sort of school of thinking is that, for example, when you say I care about family is that family is kind of an area of your life, a domain of your life, and you've got this kind of common breakdown of domains into things like our leisure and our personal health and family and relationships, work, education and those things, you know, I think absolutely start there.

You say, be. You know, you identify that family is really important to me. We say, you know, that is, that's great. That's great. You know, this kind of values question from perhaps an actor perspective might then go on to ask, given that that thing is important to you or that area of your life is really important to you.

How do you want to engage with it? You know, what feels like a kind of meaningful way to engage with that? What feels like you kind of yearn for or long for in that, So we then might get [00:11:00] into starting to talk to things that might help us to inform our behavior and what we do. So we might say, okay, there's a family dinner on, on the weekend.

Now, if I just say family's really important to me, when I go to that family dinner, family's important to me. But that statement alone or connecting to that idea of family being important alone doesn't necessarily. Give me guidance on what to do or how to show up to that meal. So we kind of then go and ask that extra question of within that area of your life, what feels really important to you.

So we might say, well, kind of vulnerability feels really important and, and, you know, and And kind of reliability or dependability that feels really important in my family unit. And so, all right, that starts to guide me, you know, maybe after lunch, when we're all sitting around having a yard, I might share that thing that's going on in my life with my brother or my [00:12:00] mother or whoever it might be.

So connecting a little bit deeper to specific kind of ideas that inform behavior. And again, this is where we come back to. That definition that values we are hoping will inform our behavior and how we act in the world. So family. Yep. Family is really important to me. But actually, these are the specific things that feel really important.

And that can change as well. You know, like, it might feel that, you know, when I go to that. Family event on the weekend. What really matters to me here now in this context might be different to what felt really important to me two months ago

Marie: as you're describing that. That was a really good example. It has me thinking about the work I often do with parents when they'll say, oh, you know, my kids are the most important thing or value them.

But then it is it is really breaking it down into You and sometimes it can be really confronting. It's like, Oh, you know, I want to be a better parent than my parents, or I want to [00:13:00] do things different or I want them to feel this way. And then you start breaking it down. And that's really, really important to think, well, how it's that, how am I showing up?

Like I want them to feel loved. Okay. So is my behavior making them feel loved or am I absent or absent minded or distracted or not spending quality time? So it's really then. Using that maybe as a starting point and then funneling really down.

Patch: Look, I think it's, it's exactly what we want to do. We want to kind of get to some sort of tangible point where that it's sort of, you know, we're good at thinking and we're good at ideas, us humans.

So we really want something here that can be a real guide to, to what we do. And I think you asked, did you ask me a double barrel question before? Was that sort of it? How might we sort of get into it as well, or so did you ask about it?

Marie: Yeah, I think that, well, I guess that kind of a natural flow is that is once you identify a few, how many would you [00:14:00] start with?

Like, would you give someone? Look,

Patch: it's it's a, an interesting question. I don't really have a clean answer for that. I, one of the exercises bullseye.

I love that one. And it's got a great introduction and guidance. It asks the necessary questions in there. So people could go in. You wouldn't need to be in counseling or therapy, you know, to go and do something like that. And it does touch on some of these different life domains and ask questions about what feels really important to us.

I'm just thinking of a, you know, client that I was working with earlier today, who, who came in with you know, completed bullseye from over the week and, you know, had a truckload of values in there. Now, fantastic to have all those values on the page, but I guess the risk is that That perhaps that can get diluted a little bit if we're naming kind of 20 different values in the area of relationships, then, [00:15:00] you know, it might be difficult for any of them to really resonate to sort of feel embodied with it with any of those values.

So I think. It's not a clean answer on how many, but certainly getting yourself down to a handful, you know, maybe 5 or 6 in a, in an area of your life that you can kind of hold on to, and that they mean something to you that each one of those kind of. Activate something in your body and, you know, connects to a kind of future that you want to have and you want to be engaged with.

So it also means that it's a little bit more tangible when we kind of, when we, when we head out to the Grampians or when we go to that family event. You know, we can kind of hold on to a few things. I don't know about you, but I can't, I can't hold on to much more than probably 2 things at a time.

Pretty basic in that sense, but we might be able to grab onto 2 values and say, like, I really want to live these values in this, in this kind of context in this moment. Hmm. [00:16:00]

Marie: You, when you think, tell me about your client who had that many different questions about, or values for the bullseye. It made me think, what if you've come from either a family that's quite overbearing or maybe you know, significant trauma, where you might not have had the opportunity to actually figure out what you want for yourself.

How could someone kind of through maybe trial and error, like how would they start to kind of actually get a sense of. What this feels like, like if you're, if you've been really socially anxious, you might actually value connection, but the social anxiety overrides that. So how would you start to even maybe explore what works for you?

Like to

Patch: even know. Yeah, I think it's a, it's a fabulous question. Oh, thank

you. Values that we. Get in touch with don't have to be things that we're doing brilliantly at the moment. That bullseye questionnaire kind of touches on this. So we do a little bit of a self assessment. You know, these are things that I care about. And how am I, how am I going on that front? Like, how am I doing when it comes to these?

And that [00:17:00] sort of evaluation helps again, to clarify a little bit more direction. You know, I think lots of people who It can feel stumped and stuck. People can actually find values work in itself. Very activating because. Either they have absolutely no idea of what they want and what they choose and what they care about, or because they've never been allowed to choose or want you know, that they haven't been valued enough by either.

It could come from their kind of family of origin or primary caregivers or other things that have happened in, in one's life. That means that you just don't know what it's like to choose. Your life to choose what you care about, you know, that we might have situations where people are compliant to the needs and wishes and wants of others, or of, as we said, the sort of organizational school, religious values, any of these types of things.

And [00:18:00] so I think the first point is just acknowledging that that's a really normal experience for. You know, a lot of people to feel really stumped when it comes to this question of, you know, what do you what you're free to choose? Ah, I don't want the freedom to choose. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to choose.

And so I think just acknowledging that when we start to think about what sort of life do I want? What do I care about? What do I kind of yearn for? It's it's it's really normal to feel stuck. One of the cool things I think about values and sometimes again, when I said earlier, I'm not too rigid about these things, but sometimes we can get this sense that, well, I need to find my top 10 values and, you know, put them up on the board and they're my top 10.

And that's not necessarily a bad thing to do. But, but it can move around and we can experiment and we can, we can kind of try things out. And that would be probably the thing that I would encourage most in people who maybe notice that beginning to think about or talk about [00:19:00] values is anxiety provoking, or it's a, it's a scary thing, or it feels like there's a lot of barriers in the way.

I really value connection, the example that you gave, but you know, I get really anxious in those social settings. We can begin to sort of experiment with different ideas. So we could say, all right, like, you know, maybe I don't have the types of connections that I want. I don't know if I really value it, but, you know, I could spend some time checking that out.

I could, you know, try before you buy. It could be for adventure or for freedom, or it could be for curiosity. You know, we might be might be just sort of ideas. Initially, I don't know. Curiosity sort of seems interesting. But let's give it a go. Like, what is being curious look like? What could I do in the service of, of curiosity this week or today or now?

You know, could I kind of, you know. Open a random recipe and like, go to the supermarket, get the ingredients, like cook something I've never even heard of before just for interest sake. Yeah. And then we [00:20:00] might, and then, and then we evaluate as we go, you know, might sort of do, you know, that was actually kind of cool.

I'm going to make my world a little bit bigger. I felt a little bit excited and I felt like I learned something. So yeah, like kind of, maybe this kind of curiosity things, something that I'm interested in. So, you know, I think people don't need to feel like there's a, there's a top 10 in there and you just got to find it, you know, and it's on you.

I think holding this stuff lightly, like, certainly like pursue values and work on them and set goals and change our behavior. But, you know, Check them out, check different things out and, you know, work out for yourself. What is workable for you? Because it's not the same for everyone. And it changes over time as well.

You know, I've got you know, kids is probably the most obvious thing that that was a transition in my life where my values shifted in a big way. I didn't stop caring about. The other things that I used to care about, but the shift in resources and focus and things that I cared about broadened out and got bigger, you know, so when we [00:21:00] move around to a different job or friendship group or life stage, like different things will matter to us at different times.

So keeping a, keeping a rolling eye on our values and checking it out from, from time to time. Can be really helpful

Marie: as you were saying that, I guess the next question I want to ask is, how do we live in alignment with that? But I kept thinking of you know, I consume a lot of Brené Brown's, you know, podcasts and content, and she uses this thing of choosing courage over comfort.

And for some people, you know, if that was your value to choose courage over comfort and to be vulnerable and be authentic, how would you use something like that to guide? Your day to day interactions, like how, how do you then bring the values alignment

Patch: in? Yeah, I think one of the cautions here would be that.

Knowing what you care about and pursuing it is not going to magically alleviate us from the difficult human experiences that will inevitably show [00:22:00] up. And I, that would be my read on what Brene Brown is talking about, you know, courage over comfort. And that is the courage to step into discomfort that comes with, you know, living your life.

You know, fully and, you know, from an ACT perspective, this is very consistent as well in ACT, you know, that we, we can't really pursue values just on its own. Wouldn't that be nice though? It would, you know, sometimes it's easy, sometimes it is easy, but often living our values is not easy. Often living our values does require.

Courage, or it does require a willingness to tolerate some, you know, tricky stuff in our inside world. I think the example that you just gave of somebody who might value connection, but, you know, notice that they, they experienced quite significant anxiety in social settings would be a great example. Now there might be some practical skills [00:23:00] that might need to happen there.

How do we support this person to be able to just get through the door and, you know, manage in that situation. In the service of, of connecting to other humans, but we can't expect that they're going to, because they care about connection that they're going to show up and the anxiety won't be there. So, I think the act model, you know, it's not certainly not the only model, but, you know, act offers these different components to the therapy alongside this sort of values and action pace is, is this sort of.

Learning how to skillfully have the difficult stuff that inevitably shows up when we move towards things that are important to us. So that could be any internal experiences, could be our thoughts and memories. It could be sensations, feelings, emotions in the body. It could be urges, and so we want to find ways to have that stuff as it is, but be driven primarily by our [00:24:00] pursuit in living our life.

In a way that's aligned to our values, rather than living a life that is driven by trying to not have difficult or aversive stuff showing up in our experience. And I think that's a really key point that, you know, most people rock up to therapy or counseling because they want to find a way to not have difficult stuff that they've got.

And that's, yeah. An obvious way that people would show up to doing the work, and it's a totally normal human experience to want to not have tricky stuff that you do have. Yeah, but in act, we take a slightly different approach. We kind of prioritize in a way we prioritize this values and this action, you know, moving towards what we want.

A little bit over kind of symptom reduction and actually don't really even necessarily target like making you feel less anxious or be less depressed or you know, try to not have self criticisms, for example. [00:25:00] Interestingly, you know what we often see in if we're doing taking data and outcome measures, you know, you often see that.

As we get stronger kind of connecting to values and taking action on them with an ability to kind of step back a little bit from our experience. So those, those unwanted experiences aren't, you know dictating what we do. That often we see that symptom reduction that people are after anyway, it's just not like the number 1 goal in act.

So, you know, I might be branching out there a little bit to sort of looking at. Act more broadly rather than just values, but you know, hopefully that gives a little bit of context. So we're not asking people to just kind of, you know, choose what you care about and launch yourself into it, expecting that everything be hunky dory.

Marie: I mean, I can think of one example. I'm just, I've got my calendar up here on the second screen. And, you know, for example one of the things I've been trying to do more of is being like showing up. So being reliable and consistent, [00:26:00] and then there's like, okay, so many then strategies in order to live that it's taking the time to put it in the diary.

And then there's making sure not to overschedule. And then there's, you know, the, the, the. Difficult bit like that discomfort is in often saying no to someone and sitting with that disappointing someone else. So you can see that even something as practical, like there's a practical component and then like a distress tolerance of, you know, yeah, if I say yes to that dinner.

But then I've also got this other thing booked. I can't go both. So I'm going to bust my value of being consistent and showing up. So I have to say no to start with. And that might then require me to work on setting boundaries on my assertiveness skills or communication. Like you can see how one it's, it's really linked to a practical task and a goal, but then a value, like they are quite enmeshed when you start to kind of nut them out that way.

Patch: Yeah, [00:27:00] absolutely. And, and it's the different types of approaches to those. You might have somebody like yourself who has a really kind of maybe full, you know, very engaged meaningful life, but that can also cause issues too. Right? Like, if we are over committed, and then that's when we need to come back to things like our, you know, within self values of self care and Yeah, absolutely.

Sometimes some values need to take priority in a particular moment over others. So you might value being kind of dependable and reliable, but you can't, there's not two of you, you can't be in two places at once. And, you know, maybe actually your self care values might indicate that, you know, one of the things I'm working on is saying no and having some downtime, at least for a half day on a weekend or something.

And so in order to do that, I need to be willing to tolerate the discomfort that comes with like saying no to somebody and my outs. Story coming up that I'm being a let down or unreliable. And yeah, like, you know what, I'm willing to have that stuff in the service of taking good [00:28:00] care of myself, being kind of caring and compassionate that I'm thinking about, you know, the long game in my wellbeing and actually, you know, prioritizing myself sometimes.

Great.

Marie: And is there, is there a way we can like segue this somehow to include the story of the cactus and kind of leave people with that additional metaphor?

Patch: Yeah, how do we segue into the cactus? Sure. Well, look, the cactus metaphor is really about learning to hold things lightly. Well done. Pardon? Well done. So, you know, in, in, with these values, examples, you know, what you might be doing there is holding lightly your value of, you know, dependability and reliability in saying that, you know, like if I, if I cling down really tight on those values and I hold them kind of rigidly, then actually you become quite inflexible and have a physical.

Practice in my room that I get, you know, get my clients to hold on [00:29:00] to and just notice what it's like to hold on to a spiky thing, you know, really tightly and that might be, it could be, you know, your anxiety if we're going to a social event. Valuing connection, but I have anxiety there and I hold on really tight to that anxiety when we hold on really tight, you know, it sort of creates more pain and rigidity and now what would happen like if you're holding on quite firmly to a spiky cactus, what happens to your attention focuses on what hurts and what happens to your behavior?

Like if I could watch you holding onto a cactus, what would I see?

Marie: Wanting not to or like wanting to let go or grimacing in pain or being distracted, like not being able to focus on anything else. I might get angry if I'm hurt.

Patch: Right. It's all wrapped up around the cactus. You've been holding the cactus.

Isn't that like trying to get away from it or being angry about it or just attending to it? There's a very kind of [00:30:00] limited range of. Behaviors that you have in that moment. And so we can find ways like this just conceptually here with the metaphor to kind of hold out, for example, anxiety, holding it a bit more lightly.

Like, what if this is something I don't need to clamp down around or get rid of? What if it was something that, you know, is. As a place. What if that anxiety was something that's trying to keep me safe? What if this anxiety was something that actually informs me about my values, right? You know, in that social situation, maybe this anxiety is something that tells me that being accepted by other humans in a tribe somewhere is really, really deeply important to me.

And so the risk of getting rejected is like, Profoundly risky. So if we can hold it more lightly, we can kind of look at it from some different angles. And maybe we could find a place where our behavior is a little bit more broad and flexible when we go to that social event. And yeah, that's not the anxiety still there.

Maybe it hasn't [00:31:00] changed in any way, shape or form, but most of our energy and resources are about showing up. And. Giving ourselves opportunity to have connection to other humans, rather than showing up really focused on how can we not have the thing that we've got. That's my best job at pulling in the cactus metaphors.

Yeah,

Marie: it's perfect. So it's the psychological flexibility that we talk about. We won't go into that because we don't have any more time, but also the holding it lightly. It was making me goodness, I forgot my train of thought now, just around emotions being information, not directives.

Patch: Yep, absolutely. You know, emotions are data. And I think within values work, we can use emotions as, as important data sources that they can, you know, often our deepest pains are connected to real meaning in life. And [00:32:00] often the most meaningful things that we do are connected to. Pain and hurt or suffering, you know, like if people think about their greatest achievements in life, you know, most of the time we'll find that there's pain involved with that, whether that's doing a PhD or, you know, giving birth to a child or starting my own business, you know, that big sort of things in life that feel really meaningful have often come with a whole lot of discomfort attached to them and it.

You know that a willingness to kind of go through that discomfort in order to get to things that we really care about is in is to some degree enriching the experience, right? Like if there was no discomfort to run a marathon, it probably wouldn't be. That big a deal, like if I could just walk into the shop tomorrow and say, like, yeah, I'd like to start my new, a new business, you know, here's some money and then your business is there, it probably wouldn't feel like a very big accomplishment.

So [00:33:00] there is absolutely, yeah, there is data and information in our difficult emotions. And I think that for people to have a good understanding of what emotions are and where they come from and what each of the different emotions actually do, why we have them, why, why, why have we actually evolved to have this.

Emotion. Yeah, it's really tricky and it's difficult and it's painful, but, but we've evolved it for a reason. And if we can understand that about different emotions, it can be tremendously helpful because we can be much more willing to have the difficult stuff if we know where it comes from and why we have it.

And as you said, that it is an information source. Doesn't just have to be this kind of bad experience that we want to not have, you know, can contain really useful, you know, directive sort of, well, I say directive in terms of like directing us towards values and meaning information within them. Yeah.

Marie: Amazing. So if people want to get started, they can we'll put in the show notes. I'll put a link to one of the values, the bullseye activities, which I love to use as well. [00:34:00] If people want to find out more about you or reach out. Can they get in touch? Where do you

Patch: frequent? People are welcome to get in touch with me.

I have a bio on our website at active living. So that's just act being acceptance and commitment therapy, act of living dot com dot a, you have a bio on there. I'm happy to put some references into some other, you know, self directed. Values exercises as well in the show notes, perhaps. Yeah, I can do that.

And yeah, I think this is definitely an area that people can begin to do sit down with a pen and paper and carve out some time, like really carve out some time to open up, open up and think about what could be and if I was free to choose, which you kind of are You know, if nobody else was here judging me and evaluating me about the things that I write down on this piece of paper, like if no one was there assessing me, then, you know, what would I, what would I [00:35:00] care about?

I don't think you have to be in a therapy space to start that process. Could be something you do, but while you're on a wait list or something you do, if you're in a court and take to therapy, or you do it just outside of any therapeutic intervention, it could be still kind of meaningful self directed work.

Awesome. Thanks so much, Patch. Absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me.