Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life for Teens: A Guide to Living an Extraordinary Life

If you could only get past feelings of embarrassment, fear, self-criticism, and self-doubt, how would your life be different? You might take more chances and make more mistakes, but you’d also be able to live more freely and confidently than ever before.

Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life for Teens is a workbook that provides you with essential skills for coping with the difficult and sometimes overwhelming emotions that stress you out and cause you pain. The emotions aren’t going anywhere, but you can find out how to deal with them. Once you do, you will become a mindful warrior—a strong person who handles tough emotions with grace and dignity—and gain many more friends and accomplishments along the way.

You will:

• Use the power of mindfulness in everyday situations
• Stop finding faults in yourself and start solving your problems
• Be kinder to yourself so you feel confident and have a greater sense of self-worth
• Identify the values that will help you create the life of your dreams

Written by three Australian experts in the use of ACT with teenagers – psychologists Louise Hayes, Joe Ciarrochi, and Ann Bailey – this is an easy-to-read well-written book, packed full of useful resources, invaluable not only for teenagers but also for their parents/teachers/therapists.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Introduction: This Book Is for You

Part 1. Getting Started

1. What If Everybody Is Hiding a Secret?
2. Becoming a Mindful Warrior

Part 2. The Battle Within

3. Beginning the Journey
4. Finding Your Inner Stillness
5. Observing the Battle Within
6. Making the Winning Move
7. Meeting the Machine
8. Not Buying the Mind’s Evaluations
9. Developing Wise View

Part 3. Living Your Way

10. Knowing What You Value
11. Learning to Value Yourself
12. Creating Friendship
13. Seeking Your Way in the World

Conclusion The Spark You Carry in Your Heart

Resources

References

About the Authors

"This book is a fantastic resource, full of wisdom, compassion, and extremely practical tools for helping teenagers thrive in the face of life’s challenges. It is not only essential reading for teenagers, but also for parents, teachers, and any therapists or counsellors who work with this age group."
- Russ Harris, author of The Happiness Trap and The Reality Slap

"In Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life for Teens, Joseph V. Ciarrochi, Louise Hayes, and Ann Bailey provide teenagers with access to the powerful principles of acceptance and commitment therapy. The lessons are broadly applicable to any number of struggles a teen might have. Teens can’t help but recognize their own struggles in the stories told and dare to pursue their own hopes in the exercises offered. Perhaps most importantly, in the midst of a stage when many peoples’ thoughts and feelings isolate them from the lives they care about, these authors communicate clearly that the readers are not alone and don’t have to struggle. I believe this book will be an invaluable resource for any therapist, parent, family member, or friend who wants to help a teen they care about."
- Emily K. Sandoz, PhD, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette

"It’s hard being a human, and it’s not easier being a teenager. Ciarrochi, Hayes, and Bailey clearly know what they’re talking about from their own experiences and from working with youths who struggle. This is a book that should have been written long ago. I wish someone had given it to me when I was a teenager."
- Rikard K. Wicksell, PhD, licensed clinical psychologist and a clinical researcher at Karolinska University Hospital and the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden