Mindfulness + ACT presets — 3 worksheets

Three worksheets from the ACT and mindfulness toolkit — one for the moment of choice, one for values clarification, one for sensory grounding.

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Choice point (Russ Harris, ACT)

A trigger or situation at the bottom of the diagram, with an upward arrow into a central Choice point box (“Notice + choose”). From the choice point, two upward paths fork:

• Toward move (green, upper left) — values-aligned action
• Away move (red, upper right) — hooked by thoughts / feelings

Use it for: the ACT moment of distinction between being hooked and choosing. Russ Harris’s flagship visualization makes the meta-skill concrete — every difficult moment is a choice point, and the work is noticing one is happening before automatically taking the away move. The clinical move: drop the preset, then walk through a recent example. “What was the trigger? Where was the choice point? Which way did you go? What might a toward move have looked like?” Pairs naturally with bull’s-eye values — toward moves are toward your values; the bull’s-eye is where your values live.

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Bull’s-eye values

Four concentric circles forming a target, with VALUES at the center bull’s-eye and four life-domain labels at the compass points:

• Work / education (top)
• Relationships (right)
• Personal growth / health (bottom)
• Leisure (left)

Below the diagram: “Closer to center = behavior matches values.” Use it for: values clarification in ACT, especially when a client is struggling to articulate what they actually want their life to be about. The bull’s-eye gives them a structure: in each of these four domains, how close are your current actions to the bull’s-eye? A practitioner-led move: have the client place an X in each quadrant showing how close their current behavior is to their values in that domain. The gaps become the focus of subsequent work — “what would a move toward the center in [domain] look like?” Drop sticky notes on top of the diagram to capture specific values that emerge during the conversation. Export the result; the bull’s-eye becomes a working reference for the client to return to.

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5-4-3-2-1 grounding

Five rows, one per sense, all in green:

• 5 — SEE: Name 5 things you can see right now
• 4 — HEAR: 4 sounds — near and far
• 3 — TOUCH: 3 things you can feel (clothing, chair, breath)
• 2 — SMELL: 2 scents — or 2 that you like
• 1 — TASTE: 1 taste — sip of water, mint, your mouth

Use it for: in-session grounding when a client is dissociating, spiraling, or hitting hyperarousal. The 5-4-3-2-1 protocol works because it pulls attention through the senses one at a time, which interrupts the dissociation or the spiral. The clinical move: drop the preset, work through it together, slowly. Don’t rush. The point isn’t to finish the list — it’s to slow down enough that the client’s nervous system catches up. Also useful as a take-home reference. Export to PDF so the client has it for moments between sessions when they need to ground. Pairs with the trauma presets (polyvagal and window of tolerance) — 5-4-3-2-1 is the concrete “how to come back into the window” skill.

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