132. Taking Control of Your Brain

In this week’s episode, Dr. Amy Backos invites listeners into a grounding and honest conversation about the power of values—especially as we head into a season filled with expectations, pressure, and anticipatory anxiety. Using the Buddha’s teaching on the “drunken monkeys” mind as a starting point, Amy explores how our restless, swirling thoughts can pull us away from what truly matters… unless we intentionally return to presence.

Amy breaks down the heart of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): identifying what is most important to us, and taking small, consistent, value-aligned actions. She shares how values differ from goals, how to recognize the values already present in your daily life, and how non-value actions—overthinking, pseudo-action, avoidance, distraction, or overindulgence—quietly drain meaning and increase suffering.

In this rich, reflective episode, Amy offers practical tools for returning to presence: two-minute mindfulness resets, mirror practices, grounding routines, mindful breathing at red lights, and small daily behaviors that strengthen your connection to what matters. She also unpacks the “emotional cycle of change,” explaining why so many people stall in the Valley of Despair—and how values help us move forward with informed optimism.

As the holidays approach and the new year looms, Amy nudges listeners to begin preparing now: clarifying your values, envisioning how you want to live them in the months ahead, and biasing yourself toward action with creative, doable behavioral experiments.

This episode is an invitation to reconnect with your purpose, choose the behaviors that express it, and gently return—time and again—to the present moment.

Transcript

“The human mind is like a barrel full of drunken monkeys flinging themselves from branch to branch, jumping around and chattering nonstop. Our minds are busy in constant motion, unsettled, restless, confused, indecisive, and sometimes uncontrollable.” These are teachings from the Buddha, and if you're anything like me, you can relate to the mind. Being such an active, busy, and sometimes uncontrollable place. Hello friend, and welcome in. I'm Doctor Amy Backos, your hostess on this audio creativity journey. We are coming to the end of the warm season here in San Francisco. The time changes and it's starting to get darker earlier. We're having a little bit of rain. It's still an incredible season to be in San Francisco in the fall. Starting to wind down and come to an end. Though here at the modern Creative Woman, we have been out and about talking to lots of different women, and we'll have some amazing interviews coming up for you in the next couple of months. You'll hear from Jennifer Derek. She's an attorney who, while she still practices law, she and one of her best friends opened the most beautiful shop in San Francisco called The Finery, and I asked her to have a conversation with us for the sake of hearing what it's like to make a big career pivot. She's a real delight, and her story, I think, will resonate with a lot of you feeling a little unsatisfied with where you've been going and ready to make a change. We also have an interview coming up with Doctor Lavinia Jackson. She is a former student of mine and an author. She's the chair of the Loyola Art therapy department in Los Angeles. She's a wonderful friend and I think you'll really enjoy hearing from her as well. Is anyone out there experiencing a little anticipatory anxiety about the holidays coming up? Well, I want to chat a little bit about that, and I want you to keep it in mind as I go through our conversation today, which is all about our values, what's most important to us, plus taking committed actions on them. Once I got really clear about what is most important to me, everything else seems to fall in line. Obviously, we want to enjoy time with our friends, our family, and yet we invent our own internal pressure. There's certainly pressure out in the world to make purchases or decorate in kind of this over-the-top way. There's also an expectation that we're supposed to really spend time with people that we love, and we often find ourselves spending time with people that we don't normally spend time with. Some distant relative is coming for dinner. So as I'm going through all of these ideas about values that come from acceptance and commitment therapy, the philosophy is solid. The theory and the research is solid. You can take each one of these into pragmatic action. And that's absolutely what I love about these concepts from acceptance and commitment, is that they are designed to be implemented on a daily basis. So let's get into this. Let's get this started. Your purpose is something that's freely chosen and it's unique to you. And so many times we will choose to make something important because other people taught us that that's what's important. And I can't tell you how many people have come to career transitions or feeling exhausted by the choices that they've made because of what other people said they should be doing. However, it's never too late to switch and get on the track that is most aligned with you. So what I'm talking about is your values, what you find most important and how you're taking action on them. Let me give you a little bit more of a definition. Your purpose is what's most important to you, and it's through your purpose that you're engaging with your life on a day to day basis. You get to choose what's most important, and then make the committed actions to demonstrate your values to yourself and to show it on the outside as well. So first, your values and purpose are what you decide. We are given this unlimited world of choices from which we might consider. We can dabble in all kinds of things, and sometimes we get stuck with the ideas of so many choices. What if I choose wrong? Have you ever had that thought? I work with a lot of women that worry their choosing wrong. There is no wrong choice if it aligns with what you desire. What gets you closer to what's most important to you then? Those are the action steps that you want to take. Your value is the way that you want to live your life. Now, some of these ways might line up with your family, with society, or some of your ideas might deviate from family expectations and what society says you, quote unquote, should be doing. I think this should be doing really shows up for women regarding age. At this age, you should be in a relationship. At this age you should be having children. At this age you should have a career, whatever this should that you heard out in the world. It often gets tagged with by a certain age and that's just made up. People do all kinds of wonderful things at all kinds of ages. There is no hurry. The things that might be important to you, that line up with your family, or don't line up with your family might be in the areas of health, intimate partner relationships, who you choose to spend your time with, your education, who you're hanging out with in terms of friendship, what you do as a parent. You might find that your spirituality deviates from your family, or your choice of work or vocation is different than what someone thought it should be for you. How you express yourself creatively, the way you dress, the art you make, all of that can look really different, or it might be similar, but the essential part of it is that it's chosen by you, not simply adopted because it's what we've been shown or told. You might value community and you want to be maybe close to your neighbor. So when you come across someone being unkind in your neighborhood, you might choose to be kind anyway. That's what a value is. It's that you decide how you want to act, and it's not changing because of how someone else acts. If you see someone litter, you don't start littering. If someone is a little bit rude to you, it's unnecessary for you to be rude back. That's what makes it a value that you can respond with kindness, even when you feel maybe resentful or angry, or even tempted to become unkind yourself. A value is something that we stick with no matter what. You might be wondering where you can find value or add value. Adding more value based actions to your day is one option. Another option, however, is to look for the existing behaviors that show your values. For example, why do you go to the grocery store? Well, you probably want some healthy food. Do you like to eat? You want to feed your family? Why might you take care of your children or your parents? Because you love them. Why do you write? Why do you make art? Because it inspires you. You can also look in other directions as well. Why do you have a pet and why do you care for your pet? Why do you clean your house? Why do you stop at a red light or at an intersection that has a stop sign? All of these are because of values. I value being safe in my car, so I'm going to stop at all the red lights. So the fastest way to really pull value into your life is to look at where you're already behaving in value based ways. Now commit and actions are those behaviors. It's how you demonstrate your values through your actions. Everything you do behaviorally is a direct reflection of your values. Committed action is how you're showing your values to yourself or to other people. And I'm not talking about getting up on stage and lecturing about your values. I'm talking about if you're kind to your children, it's observable to others. To remember, these committed actions are in fact behaviors. They're not thoughts. They're not beliefs. So if you're living your values, they show up in your behavior. Let me give you some examples. If you truly believe in your health, then your behavior will show it. And you'll make perhaps mostly healthy food choices. You'll exercise. You'll work on managing your mind, lowering your stress. You'll also take the opportunity to educate yourself. What do you need to know as you age about your health? It shows up when you practice body care, brushing your teeth, doing a good body scrub or a facial every week. It's investing your time to money into your hobby. Now, if there is someone who is just thinking about, I should take better care of my health, but they're not doing anything about it. It's a value, but the space between the value and their action is really too big, and that kind of makes it more like a wish rather than a value. The expression of our values is what counts, and it counts in large amounts. It means getting out of our mind. We can't just think about our values. That's like shadowboxing. You're just at home alone, staring at your shadow. Every time you brush your teeth. Go for a walk, visit your doctor, take your vitamins, eat some broccoli, or you spend time with friends. You're taking action on your health, so you can find many examples in your current behavior that shows what's important to you. If you have a look at your calendar, you'll see what's important to you. If you've got things on there that are only work related and there's no pleasurable activities, there's no social outings. There's no time visiting family and friends. Then what you're showing is that work is most important to you. However, every time you show up to paint, to knit. To journal. To write something. Cook something new. You're showing your commitment to creativity. And that, of course, is what I am most interested in. I would be remiss if I failed to talk about non value behavior, non value based actions. What happens is we want to avoid discomfort, and it feels sometimes uncomfortable to push ourselves into our value based committed actions. So many people avoid their values. They spend too much time overthinking swirling in their mind instead of living their life. You might be one of the people that does a little over researching. I used to do this. I used to think that I needed to know kind of everything about the subject before I would act on it. You might take pseudo actions, which is an action, but it's not really getting you where you want to go. Sometimes we place obstacles in our way. If you want to start a website, you might spend a lot of time researching how to make a website. You might spend a lot of time considering the best colors. However, these things aren't really necessary. You can just create a website, put it up, and work on colors later as you get more inspired. Pseudo actions are distracting us from what's most important. Avoidance. Avoidance is when we are choosing to not act on our values. In existential psychology, this is an important concept. They refer to it as existential guilt or existential anxiety. Existential guilt is when we fail to act on what's most important to us. We know we need to be doing something, and we're not. Another example of a non value based action is overindulging, and we can overindulge in almost anything as a way to distract us. We can overindulge in social media, spend too much time on Netflix. We might eat too much, drink too much, chop too much. Anything that is more than is necessary becomes an avoidance strategy. It's a way of doing too much of things we don't need. And any time we're choosing to stay the same because we're scared, we stay the same because we know what that is. Anytime we choose that over personal growth, it's a non value based action. Here's why. We really need committed actions. We all want meaning in our life. These value based actions are creating meaning and purpose for us. The simple actions can become incredibly meaningful. Every night I do the dishes and I remind myself how much I love a clean, empty sink in the morning. Committed actions also give us more fun. Value based actions increase our fun when we find like minded women that we can share our interests with, next, committed actions reduce our suffering and when we're moving towards our values, it might create a little bit of discomfort trying something new, experimenting with maybe an art material or a style, or inviting someone to hang out with you. It can all feel a little bit uncomfortable. However, I am telling you from the research perspective and from the personal perspective, not moving towards our values causes an increase in our suffering. Committed actions are also really good for our mental health. We generate that existential anxiety. As I mentioned, when we avoid our intentions, if we're avoiding our personal obligations or we're failing to act on what's most important, it causes a lot of suffering. We can become quite depressed or anxious. I have a couple ideas that I want to share. And is your you're thinking about the upcoming holidays being present instead of worried about the right present, the right decoration, spending time with people you can influence presence in your life by acting with presence and biasing yourself towards action. Let's talk first about acting with presence. The few minutes it takes to get presence and be in the present moment. Make contact saves you so much time later. You can think of it as an investment in your future or a gift to your future self. Two minutes of mindfulness every day can save you so much frustration. I was feeling so stressed the other night and it was just I had things on my list and I was mulling them over, thinking about what I wanted to do. And it was movie night with my family and I thought, oh boy, what am I going to do, sit here and be stressed and anxious or get into the present, make my popcorn and snuggle up on the couch with everybody. My mind did not want me to slow down. My mind wanted to keep mulling over these decisions I was trying to make. It is so challenging to pull away from those swirling thoughts. However, two minutes I sat with good posture. I took some breaths. I thought, I want to be in the present moment while I hang out with my family. And that two minute investment really transformed the evening for me. There is a lot of research about how to use these two minutes. I'll give you a couple examples. You can smile at yourself in the mirror. Do it before and after you brush your teeth. Do it every time you go into the restroom. Any time you pass a mirror smile. You can also high five yourself in the mirror each morning. Another way to get present is to find a little bit of sunshine on your face every morning. And as I mentioned, it's starting to get into the rainy season here in San Francisco. However, I still step outside every morning. Sometimes it's just 10s I usually like a little bit longer. Stepping outside first thing in the morning is a really grounding experience for me. You can also take a deep breath any time you want. You can do it right now, just taking a deep breath and when you exhale, just make a little noise like your sign. You could do this at every red light. I read about a wonderful little trick to increase our patience, and it was while you're sitting at a red light, you can say, I hope this light stays red for a long time so I can catch a few deep breaths. It's creating tension between what you want. You might want to get somewhere. And what is the reality? The reality is you have to sit at a red light sometimes. So in those moments, take a few deep breaths. Give yourself as much time as possible. And there, there's nothing you can do when you're at a red light, so might as well use your deep breath. There's a lot of research on the emotional cycle of change, so when you're engaged in behavior that's pushing you towards what you really want. You'll kind of end up in the spot of, yay, let's go! I'm so excited. This is like January. New year's resolutions. You're not really sure what it's going to take. You're uninformed, but you're optimistic. And by the end of the month, people have moved into informed pessimism. Essentially, they realize what it might take to accomplish their New Year's resolution, and they're not feeling so optimistic about it. What happens to most people is we move into a spot called the Valley of Despair. And in that valley of despair, there are two options. One is quit. Start over with a new goal, do something different, or figure out how to be optimistic. You're informed, you know what it's going to take and you're going to keep moving forward. It's only from this spot of informed optimism that we move into some kind of success. The big problem is a lot of people, when they get into that valley of despair, will abandon their resolutions or their goals. This is a lot easier if you are in touch with your values. What's most important to you? If it's health, then it doesn't really matter. If it takes a long time to learn to use the new machines or to get flexible in yoga class, it doesn't matter, because you know that the value of your health is a long term commitment. It is like going around the world, going west. You never reach west. You just keep going round and round and round. West you go. Our values aren't specific goals. They are a commitment to what's important for me. My health is important. If I miss a date of exercise, it's okay. I'm committed to this long term haul of taking really good care of myself. That commitment also inspires me to try new things. It reminds me that I should see my doctor every year. When you're in touch with your values, you're more likely to continue in the direction that you want to go. So here's the second idea that I want to share with you about committed actions is you can start to bias yourself towards action. It's easier to change your thoughts through an outward action than it is to change your actions by thinking about them. I'll repeat that it's easier to change your thoughts by taking some kind of action than it ever is to change your actions by thinking more. Thinking is not really the most helpful way to change our lives. In fact, it's usually detrimental. It will slow us down terribly, however. Doing little behavioral experiments is a vital way of knowing, and it's a way that often we ignore. We think, oh well, maybe later when time is right. Time is better. However, action is a part of every single success story. We have to do little experiments and avoid what I mentioned before the pseudo action. So here's a couple tips. I have five ways for you to bias yourself towards action. Figure out one value based action each day. It might be text a friend. Chat with a neighbor. Arrive early for an appointment, share something with a new friend. Whatever it is, figure out what would demonstrate your value and focus on it each day. A couple of years ago, I made a list of 30 brave things that I could do in 30 days, and I just went through the list. One of them was rent a scooter and drive around San Francisco, and it was my first time on a scooter. It was a little scary and it was really fun. I don't have any urge to do it again. However, the act of taking some brave actions really helped me wrap my head around this idea of biasing myself towards action. You can value your strengths and what's important to you over comfort and avoidance. In your head, you can look for the pain of inaction instead of the pain of action. Too often we think, oh, if I take that risk, I might lose something. If I take that risk, there's a danger. Instead, ask yourself, what is the cost I'm paying by not changing and finally despair. That valley of despair I mentioned, or just the feeling of pessimism is not a reason to quit. Those are feelings. They're not values. And when you act on your values, you go where you want to go. If you act on your feelings, you're not really going anywhere. So as we're getting closer to the new year and people are starting to have a little thinking about their New Year's resolutions. It is essential that you prepare and you start now. It is terrible to just show up at the gym on January 2nd and think it's all going to work out fine. It requires preparation. So you want to be well slept. You want to start a little bit of exercise long before January 2nd rolls around. The idea of engaging in behaviors to practice before your start date is one of the key recipes for greater success. So I want you to think about maybe making some art about this. So in anticipation of the new year, now's the time to start. What do you want to focus on in the next 12 months? Might be self-expression, creativity. It might be creating art on a more regular basis. Maybe it's health education, your spirituality service. Imagine something that you would love to accomplish that's in line with that value in a year. But remember, we don't accomplish our values. We don't check them off. We move towards them through specific actions. You want to be really specific about the task you want to accomplish, and you want to be really carefully monitoring that you're moving towards a value. I have a value of creativity and a goal of painting something every week. A little project is fine, or working on a larger project that might take several weeks. You might have a value of growing professionally and always remaining engaged. And so then you might want to conduct research, submit some writing somewhere. There's a lot of ways that you can expand yourself professionally. So if you create an image now of how you would like to be living your value six months, 12 months from now, I think you'll start to have a sense of this is related to a value. It's not just a goal that you want to accomplish. This is how you want to be value based. I've really been focused a lot on being a woman who takes action on her values. And as I've mentioned recently, I've spent a little more time volunteering. I've donated some money to the food bank. I want to take action on what feels important to me. I do a loving kindness meditation every single morning and every single night. You can find it in the show notes. I'll drop the episode in where you can have a listen. It's a way to connect with yourself and identify what feels most important to you. So how can you be a woman who takes action on her values. What will you do this week that will allow you to creatively express your values through behaviors? Making art is a behavior. Being kind to your neighbor is a behavior. Speaking gently inside your head to yourself is also a behavior. So now that you know all about how to be creative with your values and taking action, we've talked about the holidays. We talked about anticipatory anxiety around the holidays, and we also talked about preparing for a big change. Maybe you've got a resolution coming up. Any way that you can start now is going to have a huge impact on your success going forward. And finally, remember, a feeling of pessimism or sadness does not mean it's time to stop moving towards our value. It simply means we're having feelings about it. Yet we continue to listen to our values. So now that you know all of this, what will you create If these ideas speak to you, I want to encourage you to join me every Friday on Instagram Live. I'm there at noon Pacific time to just chat a little bit more about these ideas so that you can be inspired to be creative and engaged with your life. It makes a huge difference when you connect with other people who are on the same journey as you. I would love if you would share this podcast with some of your friends. You can also leave a review and that really helps get the information out as well. Have a wonderful rest of your week and I'm excited to talk with you in next week's episode.