The Mindful Freak-Out

The Mindful Freak-Out is written for people who are suffering during emotionally painful moments, such as when:

• You are facing anxiety or panic that seems to take over your life.
• The ferocity of anger that you are feeling threatens to damage relationships.
• Your life feels overwhelming, like you just can’t take it anymore.

When life serves you up an intensely distressing moment (and life will find a way), you are in a competition with your inner ‘threat system’ for control over you. Your threat system will try to take over and make you react impulsively. When this happens, you not only suffer from the painful emotion, but are left with distressing consequences.

The Mindful Freak-Out presents strategies from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) to give you the evidence-based tools you need to face highly distressing moments. The goal of these strategies is to soothe your suffering while giving you the inner strength, wisdom, and commitment needed to face the emotional pain in a flexible way that you feel good about (rather than deeply regretting your words or actions later on).

Loaded with practical advice, exercises, and information, this book will help you harness the power of mindfulness and compassion to live your best life, even when intensely painful emotions show up.