We've been having a bit of a heatwave here recently and our house has become unbearably hot so I decided to take my toddler to a splash park one afternoon. I find the idea of going to such places quite difficult: the crowds of people, the worry about keeping my toddler's skin safe from the sun, the arduous drying and dressing afterwards; I feel stressed just thinking about it. Despite these thoughts, I packed our bag, dressed in some old clothes, dressed my girl in an oversized sun suit, slavered the rest of her in suncream and we set off.
My toddler is at an age where she still likes to keep me close by, especially in new places and I wanted to stay close to her to ensure her safety. So hand in hand we walked about the splash park. After a short time, I started to notice myself draw back from the various sprays of water my toddler wanted me to go into with her. I would interact half heartedly and avoid getting wet as much as possible. I wasn't having much fun and could feel my stress levels soaring. I felt very disconnected from my daughter.
Once I noticed what I was doing and how I was feeling, I turned to my values - how do I want to be acting in this situation? I realised that I really didn't want to be the parent who sits at the side and brushes off the pleas of their children to play with them. Fair enough, I wasn't being like that but then I asked myself to instead imagine what sort of parent I would like to be like. I instantly imagined a fun, carefree parent getting fully involved and utterly soaked in the process of playing with her child. That's what I wanted to be. Maybe I couldn't be all of that, but that was the direction I wanted to head in. I quickly realised that what I needed to do was to let go of the idea of staying even remotely dry. So I went through the sprays, I put my feet in the fountains, I stood under the tippy buckets and I went down the waterslide with my daughter in my lap a bazillion times. I noticed that as soon as I allowed myself to get soaked I started to have fun, lots of fun. I reveled in experiencing the water with my toddler and felt like I was almost experiencing it all through her eyes. I felt so connected with her. She had an amazing time too - running around shouting “I love the splash park!” over and over.
I used several ACT tools that day - defusion to help distance myself from my unhelpful thoughts about going to the splash park, enabling me to get out the door; noticing my present moment experience to help me realise that I was avoiding getting wet and feeling pretty unhappy; then turning to values to help me understand how I really wanted to be behaving in that situation and using them as a guide to help me change my behaviour. It is quite clear that without these tools I could have let my lifespace shrink that day - without defusion I would have avoided leaving the house and missed the opportunity for so much fun, if I hadn't noticed my behaviour and feelings then I would have had no reason to check in with my values and without exploring my values I would not have known how to act differently and consequently would have had a far less fun experience and likely gone home earlier.
I think overall that this is a nice example of how the different ACT tools can work together to help create powerful shifts in our behaviour and help us live more fulfilling lives one day at a time.
