Dr. Kevin Polk

Do you ever feel the tyranny while in the checkout line at the grocery store? Those fabulous looking people on the magazine covers? Then the diet ads promising to make you look like the beautiful people? And then the dessert magazines so you can put on a few pounds to lose?

Top that off with a healthy dose of gossip about the beautiful people and the picture is complete.

We all know that the magazines covers are there to sell the magazines. However, selling them by triggering our insecurities and then selling us stuff to move away from the insecurity in the form of diets, exercise plans, comfort food and gossip is just mean. However, nothing we say is going to change the magazine covers.

So it’s time for a little Verbal Aikido in the checkout line. Verbal Aikido is taking words (and pictures) meant to make you less flexible (I need to buy a diet, exercise plan, dessert recipe or gossip mag!) and spinning that inflexibility into a more flexible response.

It starts at the top of the matrix diagram and the five senses.
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We’ve all seen those movie rating systems with stars, thumbs up, and even rotten tomatoes.

The TAMMS (The ACT Matrix Move Scale) is a new twist on that old theme. Regardless of the number of stars, thumbs or rotten tomatoes a movie receives elsewhere, I thought it might be useful to rate movies according to TAMMS.

The new movie “Frozen” seems a good one to start with. Let me explain…

“A Beautiful Mind” is considered the top “ACT Consistent” movie as the main character first struggles with a very troubled (labeled schizophrenia) mind and ultimately learns how to have that mind and move toward meaningful living.

The matrix diagram for the main character would look something like the diagram above.
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Hi folks,

Today I answered a a question on a listserv about training of “Warm Line” staff. That is, they take telephone calls from troubled people, but most often not suicidal callers who are in need of a listening ear. (The staff of course screen for serious problems and refer those calls.) The time limit for warm calls is usually ten minutes. For many reasons, such Warm Lines are NOT in the business of giving advice. As you can see by my response below, the four questions outlined in the matrix diagram create a nice framework for doing this kind of work.

Click Here for my training schedule.

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“The matrix introduces us to a psychologically flexible point of view. From that point of view we can efficiently learn what works for prosocial living.”

 

I’ve been using this (the sentence above) as part of my elevator speech for matrix work. What do you think? How would you change it? I’m open to suggestions. Leave a reply below.

Kevin