The SUPER-SKILL for your MENTAL HEALTH: What is Psychological Flexibility?

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Today I'm going to be explaining what is psychological flexibility.

Psychological flexibility is the ability for you, as a conscious human being, to come in contact with the here and now - the present moment, whilst being able to take actions in line with your values so you can create a more meaningful life.

So what do I mean by contacting the present moment?

Basically, in a more simple way - it's about being able to manage your unpleasant thoughts, emotions and bodily sensations. So our internal experiences, our private experiences are our thoughts, images, memories and urges. And they're not always pleasant, are they? Well the ability to be able to be with them and continue to take action based on what you believe in, in cultivating a meaningful life - is what psychological flexibility is all about.

When we're psychologically inflexible, when we have uncomfortable thoughts for example, we start to push them away, fight them or try to avoid them. The same goes for our emotions - we may suppress them, deny them, not come in contact with them, or feel them. And we often avoid or push away our physical sensations that are not comfortable too. This is what we naturally do as human beings.

The problem is when we take this is an approach of experiential avoidance - avoiding difficulties - most of the evidence suggests that's an unhelpful thing to do. You end up being entangled in whatever you’re avoiding.

For example, let's say I want to create a video about psychological flexibility and I'm anxious about it. (That’s totally made up of course, not true at all…coughs). Now I really want to do it but because of my anxiety (and I don't want to feel that anxiety) I'm avoiding making the video. So, I'm not cultivating a meaningful life doing what I'm passionate about, doing what I believe in, because I'm trying to avoid the anxious feelings. Whereas, if I have more psychological flexibility - yes, I still feel that anxiety, I may have these uncomfortable thoughts about it, but I still take the action to do what is meaningful for me.

This ability to have greater psychological flexibility has a whole bunch of amazing benefits and has been researched for almost 40 years.

Low psychological flexibility this is associated

  • higher anxiety or depression

  • a greater sense of overall pathology

  • your work performance is likely to be poorer

  • inability to learn effectively

  • linked to substance abuse and addiction

  • a lower quality of life

  • long term disability

Almost everything but we don't want is associated with low levels of psychological flexibility. Some people even describe psychological flexibility as a super skill. And the great thing about it is, yes, it is a skill - it's something that you can improve and develop with practice and training (especially training in Acceptance and Commitment)

There are three aspects to cultivate greater psychological flexibility :

1. Flexibly Present - You need to be present so it's the skills of flexibly being in the here and now

2. Flexibly Open - You need to be able to cultivate the skill of being open - so being open to the thoughts that may come to your head without getting stuck and caught up to them. And same with the emotions - being open to allowing them to be there.

3. Flexibly engaged - And finally being clear about your values - what's meaningful for you, what kind of life you want to live, and taking action in line with that.

That's psychological flexibility in a nutshell.

Let me know in the comments below what you thought about the video, the blog and the concept.

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