Psychological flexibility is the ability to remain responsive to circumstances and act in relation to what matters, even when difficult thoughts or feelings are present.
It doesn’t mean adapting endlessly to what everybody else wants. Your own values and needs are part of what you are responding with.
You can feel awkward and still say the useful sentence.
"I need more time."
The discomfort hasn’t vanished. You have simply stopped making its disappearance a condition for speaking.
At another time, flexibility might mean changing the plan, accepting help or recognising that a goal no longer fits. Persistence and revision can both be thoughtful responses.
I AWAKE’s books explore such choices through reflection, bodily attention and practices that meet ordinary life. They don’t require a perfect inner state before you are allowed to participate.
Values asks what you want your action to serve. Cognitive defusion explores noticing a thought without having to obey it or eliminate it.
Russ Harris’s The Happiness Trap worksheets (PDF), accompanying The Happiness Trap, offers exercises from acceptance and commitment therapy. It is a useful way to explore flexibility within that approach, alongside I AWAKE’s distinct authored practices.