Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to navigate the pain of a friend who inconsistently shows up for you involves shifting away from the struggle to control your emotional experience and toward living in alignment with your values. ACT encourages you to begin with acceptance—that is, allowing your difficult feelings to be present without judgment. When someone you care about lets you down, it’s natural to feel hurt, disappointed, or frustrated. Instead of pushing those feelings away or pretending they don’t matter, ACT teaches that you can simply notice and hold space for them. You might place your hand on your chest and say, “It’s okay that I feel let down. It makes sense—I care about this person.” Acceptance doesn’t mean liking the situation or resigning yourself to it; it means making room for the full range of human emotion without getting stuck trying to control or eliminate it.
Once you’ve made room for your emotions, the next step is cognitive defusion, or unhooking from painful thoughts that arise. You may find yourself thinking things like, “They don’t care about me,” or “I must not be worth showing up for.” ACT invites you to notice these as thoughts—not facts. A useful technique is to say, “I’m having the thought that they don’t care about me,” which creates psychological distance between you and the thought. You might also imagine that thought floating by on a cloud, passing through your mind without getting stuck. This makes it easier to act with intention rather than reacting automatically to whatever story your mind is telling.
Self-as-context is another ACT process that helps you remember you are more than your feelings, thoughts, or roles. Even while you’re feeling disappointed or angry, there’s a stable, observing self that notices your experience. That part of you can say, “There’s a part of me feeling let down, and there’s also a part of me that can respond with compassion and clarity.” This broader perspective allows you to stay connected to your identity and values even in the middle of emotional turbulence.
ACT also emphasizes present-moment awareness, which can be a powerful tool when your mind starts spinning stories about what has happened or what might happen again. You might catch yourself ruminating on the past (“They’ve done this before”) or catastrophizing about the future (“What if they bail again?”). Grounding yourself in the here and now—by focusing on your breath, your physical sensations, or the sounds around you—can anchor you and help break the cycle of reactive thinking. This helps you return to a place of agency where you can make deliberate choices rather than being swept up by emotional reactions.
Once you’ve made space for your internal experiences, you can clarify your values—what truly matters to you in relationships and in your life. Ask yourself, “What kind of friend do I want to be?” or “What kind of person do I want to be in this situation?” You may realize that you value honesty, compassion, or self-respect. Understanding your values doesn’t necessarily tell you what to do, but it offers a compass for how to move forward. For example, if you value connection and integrity, you might choose to talk openly with your friend about how their inconsistency affects you. Or, if you value balance and boundaries, you might choose to invest more energy into relationships that are more reciprocal while still holding space for this friend without resentment.
Finally, ACT invites you to take committed action—doing what matters, even when it’s hard. This doesn’t mean forcing yourself to forgive or forget, but rather taking steps that are aligned with your values. Maybe that means setting a limit on how much time or energy you devote to this friend. Maybe it means letting go of the hope that they will change, while still keeping the door open for connection when it feels right. It could also mean nurturing other friendships that offer more reliability and mutual care. Each value-based action you take strengthens your psychological flexibility—the ability to live well with the full range of life’s emotions and uncertainties.
Throughout this process, practicing self-compassion is essential. You’re allowed to feel disappointed and still choose to respond in ways that reflect your best self. In ACT, the goal isn’t to eliminate pain but to stop struggling with it—to accept it as part of the richness of human experience and to choose actions that move you toward a meaningful life. Your friend’s inconsistency may never feel good, but with ACT, you can create enough emotional space to respond with clarity, purpose, and strength.