What is this exercise?
This Self-Compassion exercise trains two of the 6 psychological flexibility skills you can learn from the psychologists and counsellors at ACT of Living: Openness and Selfing. Openness is the ability to allow your feelings to freely be what they are. Selfing is the ability to distinguish between you and what you think, do and feel.

Why is this important?
Openness allows you to accept what you feel and then to pursue what you value. You can then direct your actions according to your choices rather than to temporary feelings. Selfing gives you a stable starting point from which to make those choices.

[P.S. Don’t worry if this description seems vague or intellectual. The experience of doing the exercise is not. You’ll learn these skills by practising them, not talking about them]

What’s next?

Practise this exercise every day for a couple of weeks and see what changes happen in your life. If you’d like, let us know in the comments below.

Then try one of our other free exercises.

If you’d like to let a friend know about this exercise, share this page with them.