If you never accept the darkness inherent in the human condition you’ll never find lasting joy. This is because whenever unpleasant experiences or situations arise, you’ll only want them to go away. But, as Hayes’s work and my own experience with OCD show, it is this very resistance that makes them stickier and stronger, and thus more entrenched.

Whereas staying focused on the present had made the agonies of the ice-water ritual more tolerable, it made less unpleasant undertakings – daily chores that might previously have been a source not of agony but of boredom or annoyance – positively engrossing. The more intensely he could hold his attention on the experience of whatever he was doing,

The aim here is to acknowledge your thoughts and feelings without OBEYING them and without STRUGGLING against them.