View allAll Photos Tagged bonecancer...
I’m reading a book called The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris. It’s an attempt at a self help guide using ACT. ACT stands for Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.
I’m only a bit of the way in so the description that follows may be wrong. However my understanding of the premise of the book is that unhappiness comes from trying to control our thoughts when we really should accept what we have thought as just being some words in our head. We then get on with whatever we want to do.
Accepting thoughts as just words is called defusion and there are a number of techniques. I’ve had a go at a couple and the one that seems to work for me is to just recognise that you are thinking the thought. So when I think to myself “This task is impossible” I then have to think “I’m having the this task is impossible thought”. In other words it is not necessarily reality that the task is impossible but it is the case that I am thinking that.
Anyway this has set me to thinking about the concept of acceptance and whether acceptance is something helpful to use and accept (sic) or not.
For example I accept that my son Martin is dead as a result of primary bone cancer but I do not accept that this should be the case. I know it to be true but I do not think it should have happened and I do not accept that he or other young people should die as a result of this cancer. So I accept and I do not accept.
If I accept totally this would mean that I would do nothing. Maybe I would be happier. Maybe I would not feel so angry. Maybe I would not feel so sad.
But I don’t accept totally which is why I want to do something about it.
I do not accept that it should take a year of multiple visits to doctors before getting an x-ray or a scan. I do not accept that children in England should be more likely to die as a result of primary bone cancer than children in Germany and France.
I do not accept that there has not been an improvement in survival rates in this country for children with primary bone cancer in the last 20 years.
Instead I have got involved and pushed for earlier diagnosis. I and others have worked with the Bone Cancer Research Trust to get more accurate information in the public domain and push for earlier diagnosis. I and others have raised money for research that the drug companies won’t undertake – because the numbers are low and the profit would not be great.
Finally I know about the research that is being funded by Bone Cancer Research Trust and know that significant improvements are on the horizon. As a result I also know that it is worth not accepting and doing something to bring about change.
I’m raising money for bone cancer research by running 500 miles, the Royal Parks Half Marathon and the London Marathon.
Please don’t accept the status quo either. Please support my fundraising by sponsoring me at my fundraising page: uk.virginmoneygiving.com/MalcolmMatthews
The above text is from my blog runwithmartin.wordpress.com/