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Genuine acceptance is impossible without cognitive defusion. When a person is completely identified with their thoughts or experiences, when “I am anxiety,” “I am helplessness,” “I am a failure,” any inner difficulty is felt as a threat to the self. It is no longer just an unpleasant experience; it is a sense that something is wrong with me. From such a position it is impossible to open up to experience: it is too painful, too dangerous.

Cognitive defusion allows us to notice: this is just a thought, this is just a feeling, not the truth and not a definition of me as a person. It creates space between “I” and “what is happening in me.” And in this space acceptance can arise, not as resignation, but as a form of presence and self-respect. I can be with this without becoming this.

Without defusion, acceptance easily turns into fusion, and fusion with pain more often leads to avoidance than to life.
Being with yourself is not just a state, it is a skill.
A skill that forms gradually and not without effort. It is a practice that requires attention, patience and clarity. But it is precisely this ability, to stay with ourselves in any state, that ultimately lets us live more freely. And sometimes, to be happy.