TODAY'S GUEST: Steven Hayes, sexologist, sex surrogate and sexuality expert

I'm extremely happy to welcome Dr. Laurie Bennet Cook to Hard Conversations!

Steven C. Hayes is Nevada Foundation Professor in the Behavior Analysis program at the Department of Psychology at the University of Nevada. An author of 44 books and nearly 600 scientific articles, his career has focused on an analysis of the nature of human language and cognition and the application of this to the understanding and alleviation of human suffering. He is the developer of Relational Frame Theory, an account of human higher cognition, and has guided its extension to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), a popular evidence-based form of psychotherapy that uses mindfulness, acceptance, and values-based methods.

Dr. Hayes has been President of Division 25 of the APA, of the American Association of Applied and Preventive Psychology, the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapy, and the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science. He was the first Secretary-Treasurer of the Association for Psychological Science, which he helped form and has served a 5 year term on the National Advisory Council for Drug Abuse in the National Institutes of Health.

In 1992 he was listed by the Institute for Scientific Information as the 30th “highest impact” psychologist in the world and Google Scholar data ranks him among the top ~1,500 most cited scholars in all areas of study, living and dead (http://www.webometrics.info/en/node/58). His work has been recognized by several awards including the Exemplary Contributions to Basic Behavioral Research and Its Applications from Division 25 of APA, the Impact of Science on Application award from the Society for the Advancement of Behavior Analysis, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapy.

• WEBSITE:

  https://stevenchayes.com/

• Books:

• https://www.amazon.com/Steven-C.-Hayes/e/B001IO9PAS

YOU'LL LEARN

• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is an innovative new form of therapy

• The importance of mindfulness while sexual

• Different tricks and methods to be more mindful

• The benefits of ACT for anxiety

• How understanding your purpose in life can lower your anxiety and improve your sexual experiences

• How choosing language to describe your erectile situation can adversely affect your erections

• How to get your mind out of the way

• That sensate focus was designed to get around detrimental thoughts

• Move your mind to the side and notice your thoughts without becoming entangled in your thoughts

• Cognitive defusion

• And more!

THANK YOU FOR LISTENING to my male sexuality and sex therapy podcast!

To get more hard conversations sent directly to your device as episodes become available, you can subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher!

Also, reviews on iTunes are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated! I read each and every one of them, and feel free to share your URL there so I can contact you later on and say thanks!

And lastly, if you have any questions (or would like answers to previously submitted voicemail questions!), head on over to Tim’s website.

About the Show

Introducing Hard Conversations, a podcast about male sexuality, and all things erectile, from the latest natural erectile dysfunction treatment to the best ed medical treatment. Therapist Tim Norton expands the conversation about male sexuality, adds context to why we struggle as a society to have hard conversations and breaks down how in a sex-positive environment there really is no room for taboos, judgment, or shame when it comes to penises.

YOUR online sex therapy and couple’s therapy HOST:

Tim Norton is a sex positive sex therapist working in private practice. He offers online therapy, online sex therapy, online sex coaching, and therapy and coaching for somatic symptom disorder.

Tim obtained his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Southern California. Tim is a proud member of American Association of Sex Counselors, Educators, and Therapists (AASECT), the Los Angeles Sexological Association, and works part-time with the Pain Psychology Center in Beverly Hills.

Hard Conversations Podcast Transcript

Tim Norton: Hello, and welcome to hard conversations. My next guest, Steven Hayes, is a Nevada foundation professor in the behavior analysis program at the department of psychology at the university of Nevada and author of 44 books and nearly 600 scientific articles. His career has focused on an analysis of the nature of the human language and cognition and the application of this, to the understanding and alleviation of human suffering.

He's the developer of relational frame theory. And account of human higher cognition [00:01:00] and has guided its extension to acceptance and commitment therapy act a popular evidence-based form of psychotherapy that uses mindfulness, acceptance and values based methods. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Steven Hayes: Yeah, happy to be here, Tim. 

Tim Norton: Yeah, I really appreciate that. I, you know, before I got into sex therapy, I was a therapist, a regular therapist and act was definitely one of the first kinds of therapy that I got really excited about, um, right out of grad school. And I always, I haven't done an actual, like, Big training, but I I've got a few books and then I'm, I've always got my eye on what you guys are up to and it's, it's really cool.

Can you tell us about act generally? 

Steven Hayes: Sure. You know, it's about 30 years old, but it actually is just now penetrating into the cultural mainstream. There's enough folks out there and a therapist and so forth and books and so forth that people easily can access it. But what. [00:02:00] What we basically tried to do is dig down to what is the roots human difficulty and pointed to how we have this kind of mismatch between things that are ancient, you know, they're half a billion years old being able to respond to your past history with emotions.

For example, that show up in the present that requires a learning process that we know is a characteristic of every species that evolved during the Cambrian period. And then four that's 545 million years ago. With this new thing that you and I are doing right now, and you know, the chimps don't do it.

Other primates don't do it, but your 12 month old baby is starting to learn how to do it. And it changes things and it changes how we interact, even with our own body, how we tend to the world around us. And what ax tries to do is to manage that conflict. Between language and cognition between what's going on in the mind, unquote, and these more ancient processes of just [00:03:00] how your body works and also how, um, basic processes of learning and emotional response works.

So you could say what act is doing is combining the acceptance and mindfulness processes. With commitment and behavior change processes in order to produce more psychological flexibility, more ability to behave in different ways when something that you're doing isn't working anymore. And to, and to do it in a way that, um, allows you to come into the present as a conscious person, but one with a history.

That because you have that mind, you got, you got any past thing, whether it's a betrayal or humiliating event or an anxiety provoking event can be carried with you for the rest of your life and brought to mind at, with just an instant you're never free from pain, uh, because you can always remember it no matter how wonderful and beautiful the situation around you, and to be able to carry that, but then move your attention towards.

What really [00:04:00] brings meaning and purpose in your life. What are the qualities of your being and doing that you want to put into your moments, the qualities of relating and creating and having fun and, uh, and creating habits of action that, uh, fit with what you really desire instead of what you fear. And, um, that combination turns out to be pretty powerful.

The act literature, when you first contacted it and it's moving so fast, you know, something like 70% of the study has been done in the last five years. Um, a new randomized trial every 10 days over the last five years, there's literally thousands of studies. Now that show that, uh, being able to produce your life in a more psychologically flexible way.

Uh, is good for you basically everywhere that human mind goes, whether it's, uh, uh, you know, dealing with mental health issues or physical health issues, or what do you do about your business, [00:05:00] or, you know, if literally they've had Olympic athletes win gold medals, uh, uh, pursuing a path that, uh, act plays out from so.

What is it that's happening in her life? How can new, uh, get your mind out of the way and get your head heart and hands aligned in a direction that you really care about? That's the basic message it's made a big impact on psychology and, and on the world over the last several years. 

Tim Norton: Okay. So, um, I have seen a few of those studies.

That's so great to hear that there are so many happening right now, and I'm trying to imagine the design of a study that would deal with erectile issues. And so I think about psychological flexibility and I think about let let's. Let's identify like a really typical inflexible thought, like my penis is broken or I'm not going to be able to perform tonight.

So how might [00:06:00] an act therapist deal with somebody like that? Who's been struggling for a couple of years with this, and these are the thoughts that come into his head, the moment he set up the date and, and that just played in him keeping up at night. 

Steven Hayes: Well, you know, It's a perfect example of what I'm talking about.

I mean, we wouldn't be here on the planet. If your body didn't know something about, uh, how to do a sexual intercourse. So that's pretty much why we're here. Right? And not too long ago, 200,000 years ago, maybe 2 million years ago. We know it can't be too much more because there are common ancestors, the chimpanzees don't do it.

Your 12 month old baby is doing so somewhere in that timeframe. We created the ability to relate events in this kind of, if then way, the two way street of symbols and the events they refer to begins just with naming, being able to, you know, say that, you know, this [00:07:00] is an Apple or whatever, but then it goes out to if then, and to consequences.

So if I'm sitting there thinking, well, if what happened last week happens here, how humiliating that would be. Uh, well, you've just done about one of the least arousing things on the planet. I mean, you really can't get less sexy than that. Right. And so, you know, really your question to me, Tim, is how do you get your mind out of the way so that you can.

Bring these other aspects of you into the situation and, you know, the early work in sex therapy, sensate focus, and all of that was trying to set up things so that you can kind of think, you know, the, the paradox or whole thing of even prohibiting intercourse. And so it was all a way to sort of get around these negatively self amplifying processes of, Oh my gosh.

What if that is right inside anxiety disorders, that's inside [00:08:00] depression. It, since I substance abuse and yes, it's inside the bedroom when you're dealing with, uh, these kinds of sexual issues. And, and so you're not asking a question. That's, that's a narrow question. It's actually quite a broad, one of what do you do with an organ between your ears?

That knows perfectly well, how to interfere with the Oregon, between your legs in such a way that you don't get to have what you want to have. And, um, part of what the act work would say. And I do have to say that in terms of randomized trials with this problem, I mean ever since for Agra, et cetera, you know, the research on this has plummeted as you know, because so many people have gone directly to a chemical solution, but.

Uh, but what it would say is, you know, part of what you need to learn to do is how to sort of move your mind to the side. If there's a set of skills that are involved in [00:09:00] doing that, that allows you to notice your thoughts. You're not going to stop that without becoming entangled in your thoughts. So to see these kinds of FM formulations show up in your mind without actually.

Grabbing hold and going out into the emotional response that those things produce when you're really buying into them. Men. If I were to say, you know, Tim, uh, there's actually a terrorist outside your doors, we've got a machine gun. And just coming into the end of your, uh, into your little recording studio there in a few minutes, and he's going to shoot the place up.

Uh, you don't believe may Sue probably didn't have much of an emotional response there. Maybe the tiniest little thing. If we had your wire it up. If you actually believed me, I'd say you're terrified right now. Well, you're in the same situation when you're dealing with what your mind has to say about sexual quote performance.

[00:10:00] I mean, even the freaking word performance you're performing really well, like a performing clown. What are you a performing act? Well, what is this? You know, that. Even the way we think about the issue, sexual dysfunction, what is going on? There it is, you know, I get it, but it's very judgmental. You know, people would almost be ashamed to say it out loud.

Oh, I've got, I mean, we have to come up with initials. I've got D you know, you can't even say the words. It's like back when I was a kid that I'm old enough, when they, you couldn't say pregnant, you had to say PG, now we're doing E D you know, because. We almost don't want to say the words because of the emotional punch that they have.

And so, um, part of the agenda here is going to have to be how to reign in your logical analytical problem, solving judgemental mode of mind, which is great when you're, you know, doing your taxes and just, just awful. And you're [00:11:00] in bed with a lover. It's not the Oregon that you want to have run the show. 

Tim Norton: So.

There you said if I see the, if then in my mind 

Steven Hayes: yeah. Which you will, but, but I 

Tim Norton: don't want to buy into it. Right. And you said that there's a set of skills that can teach me how to do that. Can you teach me one? Can you teach the listener? 

Steven Hayes: Sure. I could. Okay. So for example, we've we call it diffusion. It's a made up word.

Yeah, the first word we had for it in the act work was deliberate thing. So we made up another word. Okay. It's not diffusion, like, you know, something that happens with salt and water it's diffusion, the made up word and the word fusion means to pour together. It's from a Latin word. It means to pour and there's, you know, just like lemonade, you know, it's hard to sort of separate out, you know, where the specific things you put together to make lemonade begin and end this one thing called [00:12:00] lemonade.

Right? Well, when the mind gives you something to pour into your whole of your experience, Some of which are sensitive to things that are. Half a billion years old. So I don't go beyond that. I mean, our basic, you know, biology of being able to send some fuel and respond sexually, for example, is as old as multicellular organisms, it's ancient stuff, but it gets poured in together with this mind of ours.

And so the defusion deal is allowing. Yourself too, to have skills that help you have thoughts and notice them without entering into the world that they portray and then trying to negotiate a deal inside that world. Most of us, I think, are used to trying to negotiate that deal, you know, like, Oh, okay.

Yeah. You know, what, if you just let me have this moment, uh, you know, I'll think of something else I'll distract myself, but [00:13:00] really. The tuned is being called by your analytic judgmental mind. So you're already screwed because you're already on the, in the wrong territory. I'll give you an example. This is the, uh, uh, well, I'm going to give you two or three examples because then there's, the ones will sound trivial and I want to drill down to something has a little more heart to it, but first I need some examples that are simple.

Let's say you had a distill, a negative thought that you have, since you do work in the area of, uh, uh, you know, of, um, the sexual issues, distill it down to a critical self judgmental thought. I don't know what it would be like, give me an example of 

Tim Norton: one. So I'm 

Steven Hayes: impotent, I impotent, and then you just. Feel the punch of that and the, and the narrowing down, it has almost like a cage you're in, right?

It's very judgmental. It's harsh. It's categorical. [00:14:00] How are you going to escape this? All of these things are not arousing by the way. If they're a rousing at arousing rousing, totally different way, they're rousing in a fear way. Um, okay. So what if we instead said that word in the voice of Donald duck?

Would it land the same way? I'd say probably not. How about in the voice of your least preferred politician?

How about what would happen if you sang it? It take, uh, you know, there's the things like song of Phi. You can easily get them on the app store. Hmm. Pick your favorite music, say the words I'm impotent into it and they'll create a song out of it. You know, a rap song or whatever you like. Some musical, the Hills are alive with my impotence.

I don't know what it was. [00:15:00] Well in that I'll give you. I'll give another one. This was, uh, Uh, Kitchener's sort of the father of American psychology did this back in 1907. We were the first ever use it clinically, take the word impotent and say it out loud about once per second, for 30 seconds in a row impotent.

And by the time you get to the end of 30 seconds, just anybody listened to me, just do it. Just try it by the time you get to the end of those 30 seconds, you'll experience a diminishment in distress and a diminishment and believability. It's kind of like that movie alien, it's an old movie, you know, where the creature jumps on their face and sticks to their thing down their throat, you know?

Cause it's gonna hold up. If we could pry that monster off our face, that we can look at it rather than just look. So we can look at it, but still see something else rather than when it's right up on our face. And the only thing we can see is I'm impotent thought about in the [00:16:00] normal way, who knows what else is possible?

I mean, you're still gonna have that thought. Of course, if you have a history of quote unquote impotence at a moment in which you're lying there with your beautiful lover and you're picturing how cool that would be, guess what's going to come into your mind. Mary had a little,

what? Just came to your mind, Lam. Yes. Oh my God. What if I'm impotent? Yeah, of course then. Okay. Now, now suppose we try to think of something other than lamb. Let's do that example. So you got to have to come up with an answer, Tim, that has absolutely nothing to do with lamb whatsoever. I'm going to say the words Mary had a little, and then you have to have something to cover it in your mind.

That has absolutely nothing, whatever to do. And everybody listening should try this. Okay. Mary had a little car. Okay. Did you do what I asked? 

[00:17:00] Tim Norton: I tried to come up with something completely unrelated 

Steven Hayes: right now. And you came up a car, right? Okay. Now I'm going to give you a little task here. Hot, cold. Yeah.

Black, white car. Oh, lamp problem. Yeah. It's related look, but your mind is just the negotiation I'm talking about. We try to get in there and negotiate it on its own terms. I'll think about something different. No, dude, if you're thinking about something different in order not to think about that, you're in a bad Verizon commercial.

I'm not there yet. Am I there yet? Not there yet. And they asked her was always no, because the relation of different. Opposite are also relations. It's not logical, it's psychological. There's no delete button in the nervous system. There's no eraser. If you've ever been through an [00:18:00] experience of losing an erection in a way that's embarrassing to you, that experience will be with you for the rest of your freaking life.

And that word impotent will bring it to mind problem on it. So. If you're trying to think of something else that you don't think of, that this is what you've now created yet. Another pathway to think about it now. Thank you very much, Tim. I've got Carr and lamb put together. I mean, we could do it over and over again.

And everyone now would be a new group, a new pathway. It's like all roads lead to Rome. I bet you people listening to us have noticed how, when you struggle with this pretty soon, it's like impotence is every freaking where. Every frequent where, you know, if I say, Oh, I've been feeling a little bit limp lately, you know, uh, you know, even the, even the name of your podcast.

Right, right. It's it's a little play, right. Uh, I had to think about it [00:19:00] hard. No I didn't. And all roads start leaving the room. Happy. Have you not noticed that? Oh yeah. Yeah. Well, so. Eventually, you know, it can become like the central focus of your freaking life. You know, you're talking to a person who's got into act because of panic disorder and, you know, panic and anxiety was the central focus of my entire life.

85, 90% of my waking moments were spent watching out for the anxiety monster that was about to show up because I knew I could get so anxious. I couldn't function. That's called a panic attack. I couldn't give lectures. I couldn't function well. Uh, that's not that different than what you're dealing with and you're dealing with quote E D.

So back to the Mary had a little lamb thing if we're not gonna do it, but just thinking differently, if we're not gonna do it by distraction, [00:20:00] then what if we could diminish the domination of the voice within. Like you just did if you, uh, take that word and said it out loud for 30 seconds, about once per second fast, right.

Or if you actually were somebody, when they heard me, I started imagining what I'm impotent would sound like and the voice of your least favorite politician. It might be enough, a little crack in the system opens up where there's another possibility, which is. What if we had some fun here tonight, what?

You can't have fun and also have a mind? Well, not if you enter into your mind because your mind doesn't know how now really to, to let you off the hook. And, and so what's in the act work are these diffusion methods. There's hundreds of them. I've been giving you just three. [00:21:00] You can make up your own. That gradually diminish the domination of the dictator within cause the dictator within frankly, it doesn't know how to make love.

It only knows how to judge and evaluate and to plan and regulate. And that's fine when you're doing your taxes. It's not fine when you're having fun. It's not fun. 

Tim Norton: Yeah. And why does that dominating voice? Interfere with my erection. If, if I'm saying it over and over again, 

Steven Hayes: Well, because that voice is useful to you.

I don't want to be a dog or a cat, you know, you're talking to nor microphone near without that tool, there wouldn't be any microphone and Oh, by the way, you wouldn't have those clothes. Some of which may have been made from oil, but they look like cloth and those are your funds in your head. Wouldn't exist.

And I dunno what temperature it is, where you are right now, but to be sick, sitting out [00:22:00] naked in the field, and it would be whatever temperatures around you, plus your animal skins, you can wrap around, you know, I, I don't want to live in that world. I want my logical analytical judgmental, predictive problem solving mind, but there's another mode of a mind mode of mine.

There's there is a mode of mind that we all know about. We ha have it. We are not just logical machines. If you were to see a sunset tonight, Tim and it's like, spectacular. My guess is your first word out of your mouth is wow. And you're probably not going to be the next sentence, like, but it needs a little more pink or that cloud over there is a little misshaped, you know, it would be prettier if it had like a, you probably wouldn't do that.

If you had a crying child in front of you right now, talking about an abuse that they've experienced, probably the first word out of your mouth is going to be [00:23:00] wow. You probably not going to say God, but you talk about something a little less depressing. You probably. Now here's what I'm saying. We have within us, the capacity for appreciation and observation and just noticing.

Right. What if you brought that repertoire to that more mindfulness, if you want a word for it, if you want one, that's not so, uh, airy fairy. How about, wow. From this? You've got the wow capacity in you. Everybody listened to me, knows how to do it. The mind doesn't get it. The judgmental mind is going to look at the sunset and say, I need a little more pink.

And your enjoyment of the sunset is now disappeared. You know, it couldn't look at your penis and say, I'm leading a little more hardness and that's what you're going to get exact opposite because that's not arousing. Could you instead come into the wow [00:24:00] fullness, for example, of being with a person that you love and care about and being a whole human being who has.

A sensory capacity for connection with other human beings, which is why we even exist as a species. Could you get out of your own freaking way and just have some fun and okay. If it comes or it goes, if it's harder, it's soft. What freaking differences that make in some grand scheme of things. I mean, you can still, for example, be a pretty good lover.

You absolutely. Can't. Use whatever tools you got, uh, literally or otherwise. But if you really get out of your way, you know, you have the capacity, maybe who's knows, we'll see for a larger set of responses to show up in this situation. Some of it might be just appreciating beauty, appreciating sensation, appreciating [00:25:00] connection.

Being able to be there for someone else focusing on their wellbeing, not just yours, you know, much less about performance and putting on a show. And, you know, I mean, no wonder that leads to limp penis. Is that just talking about it as creepy, you know, like, eh, I don't want to put on a show. I don't want to perform, what am I weird, you know, monkey on a chain.

You know, if you want to make love. Well, let's do what the loving thing is to do, not just with others, but with yourself, just to be a whole human being and to allow parts of you to be expressed that other parts of you don't know how to express the judgmental, analytical, critical, shameful it's cetera mode of mine that we normal.

They rang to the bedroom. It's just not helpful. 

Tim Norton: But these thoughts are so persistent. So I'm [00:26:00] imagining here. Okay. My partner is, is sexy, but I'm not going to be able to perform. And I love, 

Steven Hayes: wait a minute, slow it down. You had the thought you're not going to be able to perform. I had a even performance is the wrong word.

B a future's not here yet, dude. You don't know that you're not going to be able to quote, be able to perform. Now let's just look at it. Ability. Do you mean you never get erection? Yeah. Anywhere really well, you know, you've got to go see your physician, but if you're waking up with a hard-on, if you're a master, that's not the issue.

Right. Right. Okay. So it's not an ability issue. So that's a lie. That is not, not true, right? It's a prediction of the future. Okay. I get it. This problem solving Oregon. If you're going to solve any problem, when you, I didn't finish my rap. But when you asked why this thing is so [00:27:00] useful, problem solving is useful in a massive amount of your day.

How do I get to the meeting? What do I need to be prepared? Do I have enough gas in the tank to get there? I mean, do I have enough money to buy the gas, to put it in the tank? I mean, on and on and on. So massively useful. And here's a place where it's not useful. Well, it's not going to tell you how to dismantle itself.

It doesn't know about that. The problem solving mind knows about problem solving. That's the only thing that knows about it. So one trick cores, and so. It gets in the way, it doesn't know how to get itself out of the way it offers you only the possibility of distraction or thinking about it differently.

All of which put you back into the car Lam problem of grooving yet another new way to be reminded of something that you're afraid of cognitively. So let's slow it down, Tim. We've got okay. So you have the thought. I'm not going to be able to perform very well. One thing I [00:28:00] suggest a quick one, give your mind to name like any new, like Bartholow.

Okay. So thank Bartholomew for his wonderful attempt to be of help to you today. 

Tim Norton: Thanks. Thanks Bart. 

Steven Hayes: I get, you're trying to be a help, but frankly, Uh, you're not very useful here. Right? 

Tim Norton: I thought I was just going to go and have sex now. And now it's like, there's a threesome now. There's no Bart's in there.

Exactly. 

Steven Hayes: It's actually a foursome because your partner has their own Bart. 

Tim Norton: Okay. Partners. So this is, this is almost an orgy here. 

Steven Hayes: It's almost an orgy. Unfortunately, those two over there, like the, you know, the Greek. Chorus judging and criticizing. So they're not very fun for them. 

Tim Norton: They're, they're the worst kind of 

Steven Hayes: sex part.

They're not a really good sex partner, but so, okay. So let's just thank Mart for trying to be of help. Okay. And then shave it. And then now can we learn the skill bills as to how to [00:29:00] bring your attention back to the present moment? Wait, 

Tim Norton: why am I thanking him? I want him to get lost 

Steven Hayes: because he's trying to do his job.

He's trying to keep you for example, Oh God, you shouldn't have even accepted this date. Look yet. Another thing it's going to be so humiliating. They're going to talk about you back at the office. I mean, I don't know what's in your head, but it's something right. All of which are not very helpful to you, but Bart's trying to be of help to you because it's trying to solve the problem.

Yeah. 

Tim Norton: I'm afraid I'm going to be alone forever. Yeah. And, and so he's just trying to make sure that I'm 

Steven Hayes: not, no, you're not, but in that very process is aloneness is disconnection from even who you are, the misconnection from your own body, nevermind disconnecting from the other human being that your mind has now put you in a position of, of performing for.

You know, [00:30:00] why don't you just jump off from the bed and start and put on a costume and start performing. I mean, why don't you just start singing the songs, dancing around the room. I mean, if you want to perform, just go do that. But if it's not a performance, it's a connection. And I love the fact that you brought up alumnus.

Look the mind, doesn't know how fully to connect with another human being, except for one aspect, which is also there. It's not the judgmental mind. It's the part of you that looks at us since that sunset and go, wow. Or the part of you that can look at your lover and just appreciate a whole human being in front of you.

Who's willing to be with you in that moment. And could we be together as whole human beings with minds? I get it. We got mines with a history. I get it. You've had this history and there's times when, uh, you know, your, you know, Oregon's, didn't all line up. Okay, but that's [00:31:00] not the person in front of you.

That's not the connection. I mean, the con, if you build out that connection and you work with how to move your mind a little bit off to the side enough that you can be in the wow of, um, sensation and sexuality in the same way that you're in the wow. Automatically of a sunset tonight. Uh, there's the possibility there.

You don't know this, be careful. I'm not saying this is gives you ammunition to fight your thoughts. This is more like leaving the war zone inside your head and let them fight it out on their own. Meanwhile, you've got some life to live and some love to make it's like that. And I don't want to make it sound like it's easy.

It isn't it's it's not hard. Like it's difficult. It's hard. Like it's tricky. Because we're, we're the only species on the planet that knows how, because of this evolutionary mismatch, this [00:32:00] recent, you know, visitor, this recent, uh, skill to actually, so get in our way that we know, know how to sleep. We've got to take medications for it.

We don't know how to have sex. We've got to take medications for it. You know, it's what else do we have to get permission even to breathe? Well, you know, I know people who focus on their breathing, Oh God, I can't breathe anymore. Yes, yes. Even that you're almost like nothing left, you know, no territory is sacrosanct.

Well, it turns out there are ways to walk that back. Put your mind on a leash. I don't want Bart to go away. There's too many useful things. BARR does for me. I just don't want Bart drive in my car. You know, if my life is like a car, he can be a passenger, not the driver. This is my life, not yours. Bart, thank you for trying to help me with this, but frankly, I don't [00:33:00] need your help.

Uh, uh, in, in connecting with others and connecting with mountain body. Yeah, 

Tim Norton: Bart, it just occurred to me. It is going to remind me to grab a condom. Sure. And maybe before. The day gets here that, that your sheets are clean, that, that, um, you've got something to drink that, that, um, you, you took out the trash, like, and the place doesn't smell, 

Steven Hayes: you got that, you got that music thing, you ready to like all queued up on the Apple music.

Tim Norton: Right. But, but now. Like the guests does arrive Barkin kind of chill out and, and hang out. He's not going to leave. I'm not 

Steven Hayes: going to leave. 

Tim Norton: He's going to be there. You wish he'd go run some errands or something, but he's not going to leave. 

Steven Hayes: So if we've done that work and other places, the place to start is not after you've done all of these things and the doorbell rings.

And here she is. You [00:34:00] know, that's not the place to start this work. This is if work is even the right way to learn this skill now, you know, start with the other ways that Bart sometimes gets in the way. So it could be all the way down to appreciating exercise or appreciating, listening to music or appreciating reading a story or.

Having a conversation or, you know, it, isn't art doesn't get in the way, just an in between the sheets parts, getting in the way all the time, because Bart, even things he's you any tells you that. No, that, that the, uh, what is that emo Phillips? Uh, who's a comedian little thing of, I used to think my mind was my most important Oregon until I realized which Oregon was telling me that, you know, Bart claims it [00:35:00] all.

When I'm doing a workshop like that on this, I, I ask people, is anybody in here know how to walk? And sooner or later somebody says, yeah, they know they're going to get tagged as soon as they say yes. Yeah. I don't know how to walk. I said, great. Cause I want to learn. And I stand up there on stage and I say, I want you to tell me how to do it.

And he says, well, pick up your foot. I said, well, which foot or the right one. Okay. Pick up your right foot. What do I do with it? I pick it up, put it in front. Okay. Well, how do I do that? It's usually a little pause and the person says, well, you. Contract your muscles, which one in your thighs and it bends your knee and you lift up and you then contract the muscles that put your foot forward.

I said, great. How do I do that? Now there's a really long pause. And people realized the mind, doesn't know how to walk. The mind knows how to regulate walking once you know how to walk. [00:36:00] And in fact, kids did not learn that way. They stood up and fell. The average child falls learning to walk a toddler a hundred times a day and they walk the equivalent of 10 football fields and wonder mothers are tired, you know?

So you fall thousands of times before that foot just happens to catch the fall. And you. You know, and even then you don't know how to turn. That's why I call them toddlers. They have this little rocking thing. You can't even pivot on the foot. You can have the skills now, people, when they have a stroke or something and they need to relearn it.

Hey, have a hell of a time learning how to walk even that, not because the stroke eliminated the capacity to relearn, but because they don't want to do it the way the kids did it too bad. That's the way you say shout at their legs, move down. Muted legs. Don't have ears that legs don't give a damn, you know, the legs are not rational beings.

[00:37:00] You're going to have to do it by trial and error learning. That's the way you learned to walk in the first place minds don't like that. They want to do it by problem solving. But also we put bars there. So you can at least hold yourself. You do have a higher center of gravity. Falling is not as easy when you're a big person.

That's a little one. But my point being, you know, you don't know how to give yourself the space to learn something. If it needs to be learned through means that are other than analytic problem solving except in certain areas. So. Let's go to those areas. Even before you get to sexuality, like music, like sports, like art, like appreciation of beauty, mine doesn't know how to do any of those things.

And it also doesn't know how to connect. It doesn't know how to be a whole person because it's not a whole person. It's just part of you. And so you can work on, you know, [00:38:00] nowadays you'd call mindfulness skills. Uh, uh, how to come into the present moment as a whole human being and learn through means other than analytic judgmental problem solving, because that's not going to help you over here, dude, analytic judgmental problem solving is the problem, not the solution when you're talking about E 

Tim Norton: okay.

Um, I liked the music example. I think I realized. Somewhere into my study of mindfulness, that when I go to a concert, I'm enjoying it for about 15 minutes. And then I'm basically. Having a complete conversation in my head and just thinking about things completely unrelated to the concert and not in an, a state of well fullness at all.

Steven Hayes: Exactly. And if there's anything new like of this band, you really like, and they play a different thing because they get bored playing the same freaking things over and over again, just because you heard it that way originally, and they just can't stand it. [00:39:00] So they're playing and then you're going, wait a minute.

That's not right. That should be, and you're judging it. And you either like it, or you don't like it, but either way. You know, as you could get into the chatter, plus you're then glancing at your watch. How long has that going on? You know, they're old, can they do a set? That actually goes three hours? I don't think they could, you know, blah, blah, blah.

Meanwhile, the music is happening and you're often to cognitive land. Hmm. This is very, very similar cause you've lost the wow. That probably is why you liked that band in the first place. 

Tim Norton: So are you saying that if I practice being in a state of wealth wellness at a concert that it might translate in the bedroom?

Steven Hayes: Yes. Yes. If, if you don't turn this into another problem solving strategy. Okay. So this is why it's hard, tricky, not hard effortful. Uh, my son was pointing out to me. He's 13. He got up on a two by four [00:40:00] and he said, watch this dad. And he walked along an eight foot two by four, turned around, walked back, no problem.

And then he said, you know, if this were 10 feet up, that would be hard to do. If this were a thousand feet up, it'd be impossible. And I said, man, that's, is this a smart kid? Why is it a Vostel it's the same freaking movement, you know? Well, because just the fact it's so important, you have to figure out how to walk.

Look that Oregon didn't know how to walk in the first place. And so. It will get in the way of the least thing of just being able to balance yourself, nevermind, having an erection and interact with another human being. That's a pretty complicated, complicated set of behavioral steps. Right. But if we can move the mind out of the [00:41:00] way, if we can take the, Oh no judgment thing, look, the world is not going to end.

And your relationship isn't going to end. If you're a whole human being really connecting powerfully with another human being, there's a lot of ways to be sexual in this moment beyond it has to be this this way, this one way that your mind conceives that your body do the thinking here, but the two of you do the dancing here.

Here's another one dancing. Have you ever started thinking about how to dance and you start thinking about what are the moves you need to dance. And next to get though, you're like your partner's making a movement and you're stepping on their feet. I bet you, there are times where you can just dance. You can dance freely and joyfully.

You allow your mind with all due respect. Bart's not a very good dancer. He's thinking about those little. Did you actually learn those things where you had like footprints with numbers on them? [00:42:00] Yeah. You know, I guess nowadays, you know, dances so informal in so many ways we don't dance the classic dances as much, but I think most of you appreciate, Bart's not a very good dancer.

Right. Also not a very good love maker, also not a very good conversation. And that's also not a very good artist, also, not a very good musician on an Oz. Awesome. Not a very good appreciator of a sunset or being connecting to somebody when they're suffering. So let's bring our wow fullness mode of mind that we have and build that sucker out.

And I would say yes, music dance. But not as a tool to do the same damn thing you started with, which is to self manipulate. 

Tim Norton: If not as a tool then. Well, this reminds me of one of the things that I like about what I've learned about act is there's a focus, especially early on, on values. Yeah. And, and I'm thinking, well, should I just [00:43:00] value.

Being in a state of wealth wellness like that, that has to probably be important to me in a genuine sense that I want to enjoy the music because I want to enjoy the 

Steven Hayes: music exactly. And out of that space, you know, I want to enjoy this moment sexually because excuse me, for living, I'm a sexual being and this is fun.

Right. You don't like it. Bart, you can sit in the corner and watch, but I'm not turning this moment over to you, dude, because I've done that before and I know where you go and it's just not very interesting. It's not very fun. So 

Tim Norton: it's a bit of a cuckold 

Steven Hayes: for sure. He's just, yeah. Okay. So I like what you just said, Jen, because the.

You know, if you can get your values connected up to things like being a whole human being to belong and connect with others, to put love into your life and not fear to accept [00:44:00] yourself as a whole human being, not acceptance like tolerance or resignation, but I mean, the original meaning of acceptance, which is to receive it's from a Latin word means to receive.

And it was used to mean to receive as if to receive a gift. And it's only in English barely. It's like here, would you accept this? And we say, yes, we don't mean no. I'll tolerate your freaking gift. I mean, yeah. Cool. Awesome. That's beautiful. Thank you. And then the same way when you accept you're the whole of you, you're doing something that's right up against the, the vitality of accepting the whole of this moment.

That might include some awesome sex. That would be really cool. And if it's not that well, then it still includes, you know, some awesome body rubbing or some awesome kissing or some just being with another human being. And so I don't know what are the values that are inside your date right now, if it's [00:45:00] performance putting on a show and if it's especially linked to not having acts, your partner is going to feel that.

They're going to sense that they're being objectified and dehumanized in the same way that you're objectifying and dehumanizing yourself in that very moment. And my guess is it's not very attractive. 

Tim Norton: Yeah. If you're not even valuing connection going into this situation, it's going to show. 

Steven Hayes: It's going to show.

And how about, have you ever been around somebody where you're just there as an object? Yeah. Once or twice. Do you want, do you want relationships like that? No. Do you seek them out? You call people up say, Hey, I want to be objectified again. 

Tim Norton: I just want to sit in the corner and let you let you talk at me for an hour or two.

Sure, 

Steven Hayes: exactly. Yeah. So if that's true there, how about this gut check moment? Maybe your mind, maybe this moment, for example, this EDI moment has a message to [00:46:00] you. That is a precious gift. It's a painful gift, but suppress us gifts. It's like, thank God for panic, because without it, I don't know how far I could have turned myself into the Vitta producing robot that I was heading down towards, you know, where, uh, you know, even, um, the, you know, the least human emotion was like something to be overwritten.

If it was, if you stood between me and a publication, you're going down, dude. And I get the little boy who, you know, Ended up there. I get that. And I'm an adult now. Excuse me. That's not what I want my career to be about. Turns out I've published a lot. I've done a lot, but it turns out and get in my own way.

It was a lot of fun things to do and valuable things to do. And the same way can we bring, can we take the deep learning that's inside that painful emotion of, I don't get to be my whole self. If I [00:47:00] turn over my life to judgment and problem solving, self criticism, blame and shame. If I up self objectify, self dehumanize, and out of that, I began to objectify and dehumanize these people that I say I want to quote, make love to, or love is not that you know, when it's done to you, it doesn't feel loving.

So what you doing that in the language of love? How about doing the loving thing, which is to start with. It's okay to be me. And then to really listen and interact with somebody else out of this loving space of who is this human being in front of me and wow, what are they like? And what is, what is their opinion?

And move Bart little bit off to the side to do that. You don't have to put tape over D parts, mouth. Bart can still be there. You want to clean sheets, you know, but, but you know, he's not the whole looking. And, um, that [00:48:00] values based journey cause you're at different place to put the pain you've been through other than, uh, just more wagging fingers of shame and blame.

Tim Norton: Hmm. There there's a lot of really wonderful things for us to fuse with here. In your words, there are some things that, or maybe connect with 

Steven Hayes: them, then you turn it. You actually, you know, we have data on this. If even if you break through and you have those moments, if you then get attached to them, It's another form of the same thing.

So we've shown that we've found just recently and I didn't see it for the longest time. I thought originally I called it experiential avoidance, which is running from your painful emotions. Right. It turns out as you do that, you start running from your positive emotions too. And then yeah, the next thing you do is when you have polished positive emotions, you grab onto them and you try to fix them and place and hold onto them, which means you can't have them anymore.

You know, it's like grabbing a butterfly and sticking it on the [00:49:00] pin and through a pin, into your bulletin board and then saying flat for me, you know, no, it's not going to, it's just stuck there. You know, it's not the same thing as a butterfly flittering, but it's now kind of pale. Little stuck on the board version of itself.

And so you've got these precious little memories of that awesome sexual encounter, for example. And now you've got like a little stone in a box and you can go look at that. And then, you know, meanwhile, you've got somebody right in front of you who you're not even therefore, you know, so it isn't just, it isn't just pain.

We don't know how to connect with pleasure either. Because we want to make a permanent, you know, there's a reason why drug addicts call the things that they take a fix, because it both means repair and hold it in place. And you know, if that's a good model for you of psychological health, then great, you go for it and see how that works out in your life.

Cause you, [00:50:00] you know, if you need to be repaired before you get to be a whole human being and then you get the positive things and hold them in place, what you'll get is, um, Life lived in spite of clown suit that will disconnect you from really being able to be a loving human being 

Tim Norton: well, but then if I can't hang on to this stuff, why bother?

Steven Hayes: Well, because there's a journey here. There's a, there's a thing called life. And you tell me, like, it's think about this. Tim. Think about the moments in your life that are especially meaningful to you, especially powerful. Especially important. If you just allow your mind to sort of scan across that, I bet you find some tears in there.

I mean, I was, satting sat next to my mother about two years ago and watched her die. I watched her feet turned black. I watched her her breath space out, you know, [00:51:00] and that was it. Precious moment is a Holy moment. It was a sacred moment. Was it painful? Yeah. Was it sad? Absolutely. Oh, you know the Oregon between your ears, doesn't get that.

I'll give you a way of your listeners. Consensus. You can only say good and bad. Okay. I'm going to, I'm going to say a word and response. We can only say good and bad. Okay. Okay. Happy, good, sad, bad, or fall. Good. Anxious. Bad. Okay. That system just told me it's sad as bad. You just said it. You said it would. I heard it.

It's on recording. It's recording. You can't run away from it. I 

Tim Norton: can edit this later, but I said it. Okay. 

Steven Hayes: I'm sitting next to my 91 year old mother who I love dearly and I'm watching her feet [00:52:00] turn frequent black as her renal system shuts down.

Sad is bad, right? You son of a bitch. I mean, you told me that, but it isn't just you, Tim. It's me. It's everybody. And it, that Bart is so freaking stupid. That'll take your love for your mother and turn it into an object to be manipulated. Hmm. And it, it we'll do that with sexuality. It will do that with music.

We'll do that with dancing. I'll do that with life. So when you asked that question of why here's, why, because there's life to be lived. There's love to be made there's contributions to be there's communication. There's recreation. So can we open up the windows and get a little air in this room? Cause we're feeding with our media and with our [00:53:00] screens and with the hyper flow of pain and judgment newscasts or judgment casts, you know, if anything sick happened in the universe, you can see it on your screens.

Now I'm old enough to remember when you couldn't put a picture of a dead soldier in the New York times during the Vietnam war without an outcry. Now you can watch people drown. You can watch them have being blown off, you know, So we've, we've created this world in which we're hyper judgmental, hypercritical, and, Oh, by the way, did I mentioned comparison the big, the toxic big three judgment, pain and comparison.

I was looking at a photo recently of an Aboriginal person sitting under a gum gum tree with a didgeridoo and a loin cloth, the whole nine yards. And he's he's has his fingers on his iPhone. Checking out what's happening. Then you can look [00:54:00] in, in, uh, you know, Donald Trump's bedroom, if you want to. I mean, you just go up and get the tour, you know, you can see the gold-plated door knobs and we're, you know, in a billionaire's house.

Well, you can also see these images. You want to watch, uh, you know, hyper competent sexuality. You can watch the porn from morning to night. You're not going to see erectile dysfunction. That's not going to happen. And in there is this idea that you're supposed to be like Peter North or something in order to be able to have a relationship.

It's the functional equivalent to, you know, looking at the gold plate and door knobs in the bathroom. When, when you've got your little house, you know, and it turns out, you know, we don't need gold plate, door dogs, and it turns out you don't need to be Peter North, you know, and basically is that really what we [00:55:00] want to be anyway.

So we're going to have to learn how to carry. Let me say it this way, Tim. We're going to need. Modern minds for this modern world, we need to be especially good way beyond our ancestors at being able to be mindful and being able to come into the present and to be able to focus on our values and build our behavior around that.

And the institutions that used to do that for us, their spiritual religious traditions are weakening. And we need to put something else in the modern world that helps us just be able to be whole human beings if we're not going to do it in the same way. And so I, I think, uh, a wiser way forward with our own emotions, sensations, memories, bodily sensations is there to be had, and I'm here to be learned and people listening to this podcast.

Do you have a, [00:56:00] a goad to learn it? Hmm. Do you have a reason to learn it 

Tim Norton: and modern mind for the modern world? 

Steven Hayes: We better do it because you just look around you and you see what's happening, not just to you, but your kids and to the culture and people are, you know, stumbling under the weight of this constant flow of pain, judgment, and comparison, and even in the bedroom and also.

Uh, nothing sacred. I mean, nothing sacrosanct. There's no place to run. So let's turn 180 degrees and stop running away and start running towards the capacity to be total human beings and learn how to do that. Wow. 

Tim Norton: This is a lot to take in there and yeah, I just want to, I want to thank you for doing this interview.

You know, you're obviously very accomplished. I was very happy when you said yes to this, and it's clear from just talking to you for an [00:57:00] hour that you could probably, we could probably do this for eight hours and come up with all kinds of 

Steven Hayes: fun. I was tempted to, but never went into my own ed history. But let me just say, I know a little bit of this from the inside out.

Oh, okay. So I'm fellow traveler and you know, yeah. I think we have the opportunity as a human culture to soften this space so that we give people. A place to be that is whole and healthy and caring and loving and allows us to do what we would really want to do anyway, which is pretty simple. I think we want to belong.

We want to connect and we want to do what we, what it brings meaning and purpose into our lives. And it ain't all up to Bart. Right. 

Tim Norton: Oh, so that's a really good point to make. And that you're speaking from experience. And I probably could have even asked that when you told me you had a history of [00:58:00] severe panic attacks.

Yeah. You guys 

Steven Hayes: could predict that, right. 

Tim Norton: Uh, that, that might've, that, that you might've had a panic attack, um, being worried about, uh, an upcoming sexual encounter or a host of other things. For 

Steven Hayes: sure. For sure. And so, yeah, it's a. That mode of mind, you know, Bart will, will, uh, once you put Bart in the driver's seat, it will drive you in lots of creepy, direct, just the wrong foods.

This w we are the one who put them in the driver's seat. So a time's up time for something different. All right. 

Tim Norton: All right. Well, thank you so much. Um, anything that you want to plug that you're working on right now, or just, well, 

Steven Hayes: the only thing I would say is if people want to track me, I don't. You know, I don't spam you and all that, but I'll let you know about things coming up or books I'm writing or stuff like that.

Go to Steven C hayes.com. And um, all you have to do is go in there and you know, you've got a little seven, [00:59:00] uh, edition, a mini course on act where I send out it's an autoresponder. It happens automatically about once a week, who got a little bit of the act model. And then if you have, if there's something in this talk and something in that sequence, if you, if you do go there.

Uh, that resonates with you. There's, uh, a lot of resources now in terms of self-help and, and also online communities. There's a, a Yahoo group. I really liked called act for the public, very sweet people, several thousand folks working together, trying to apply these concepts. And of course there's a bunch of therapists and stuff.

If you want that, and you can get that at, uh, contextual science.org. And click on the, find a therapist. Like that's the society of folks who developed back. So, um, I've written a self-help book called get out of your mind into your life. That might be useful to people. So, but there's lots of free resources.

I'm not just pitching stuff. Um, if, if something in here connects with you, I mean, just say there [01:00:00] is a way forward and, uh, there's a community that will try to help. Get that to you in a way that's low cost and no cost. 

Tim Norton: Outstanding. Well, thank you so much, Steven. 

Steven Hayes: Awesome. Thanks for the time, Tim. Thanks for sharing.

Shout outs to the sex positive community, including sex educators, sex therapists. Sex coaches, other fellow sex, podcasters, sex, surrogates, academics, sexual health, medical community, sex workers, the tantric community, and everybody else involved with having hard conversations. Bye bye.