The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living

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An excellent book I would recommend to anyone interested in mental health, either their own or those around them, or the concept at large. In The Happiness Trap, Russ Harris crafts a persuasive, intelligent argument for why we should stop aiming for happiness and instead aim for a mindful, values-driven life. His ideas in this book come from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), a newer, third-wave cognitive behavioral therapy that has shown promising effectiveness in research studies. He starts the book by dispelling “happiness myths,” such as how happiness is the natural state for all humans, or how to live a better life we have to get rid of negative feelings. After this first section, he goes on to provide several strategies for increasing psychological flexibility, core principles that help us cultivate a rich and meaningful life. I will provide a super brief synopsis of each one: I'm a little at a loss about this one. But I'd like to start by saying that this book has made a significant impact on my motivation and overall quality of life. It's been months since I read it, but its message is still paying dividends. I've always been skeptical of the self-help genre, but this book came at the recommendation of a trusted friend, and I can honestly say that it's one of the most important things I've ever read. My approach to my own mind has always come from a psychoanalytic perspective, in which I have believed that unearthing traumatic elements in my personal history might somehow help me to banish bad thoughts forever. But this book gave me my first exposure to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and more specifically, the branch of it known as Acceptance Commitment Therapy. This approach to the mind is based on the acceptance that no matter what you do, a massive portion of your thoughts and self-talk will be negative. These thoughts can't be overpowered by positive visualization or a talking cure, but only by accepting them for the negative thoughts they are and moving on. Bad thoughts are not YOU; they are simply "things" being secreted by your brain and need to be treated as such. Committed Action: Taking effective action in line with your values, no matter what the outcome and even if it is hard

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain – p. 216 This is not some fleeting feeling – it is a profound sense of a life well lived. And although such a life will undoubtedly give us many pleasurable feelings, it will also give us uncomfortable ones, such as sadness, fear and anger. Values: Clarifying what is most important to you in your life, what sort of person you want to be, and not just focusing on external goals – focusing more on the expression of those values (e.g., “I want to practice connection with people” instead of “I want to be married to a romantic partner”) Sooner or later we all will come face-to-face with a crisis, disappointment and failure. This means that in one form or another, we are all going to experience painful thoughts and feelings. The word ‘happiness’ has two very different meanings. Usually it refers to a feeling: a sense of pleasure, gladness or gratification.In fact, the harder we pursue pleasurable feelings, the more we are likely to suffer from anxiety and depression. The other meaning of happiness is ‘a rich, full and meaningful life’. ACT) آشنا می‌کند که اگر بخواهم خیلی خیلی خلاصه بگویم هدفش رسیدن به انعطاف پذیری روان‌شناختی است که با تمسک به شش استراتژی می‌توانیم به این مهم دست یابیم. A grande rasgo, el autor propone percibir nuestros pensamientos como lo que son, solo palabras, y prestarles atención solamente si son útiles para poder construir una vida plena y llena de sentido. Y este último es el otro gran elemento de la ACT. Para ello, el autor define qué entiende por "una vida plena y llena de sentido" y propone identificar nuestros valores, o dicho de otra forma, qué es más importante para nosotros, y emprender acciones y objetivos para vivir en consonancia con estos valores.

This is only to be expected. If we live a full life, we will feel the full range of human emotions. Body awareness exercise: notice each of the different aspects of the body--posture, location of parts, temperature differences, scanning for stiffness, tension, pain, discomfort; scanning for pleasant or comfortable sensations. A gem. Russ Harris provides the most approachable primer to what you will learn in a long course of ACT, one of my favourite modes of therapy. This book is geared slightly more toward the clients and patients than the therapists, but contains so many exercises that can be used in session. It looks at upping awareness of the pernicious cycles we get bogged down in, while nudging us in the direction of a value-driven life, as opposed to a goal-driven one. For me, it’s the perfect combination of cognitive-behavioral therapy, Eastern practices, mindfulness, emotion-focused therapy, and a big one, existential therapy.Try telling a victim of rape or severe domestic violence, for instance, to “just make space” for their anger and shame and trauma. Or telling a grieving wife who lost her husband of 60 years and is now potentially homeless with no support that she should “accept” her fear and heartache and helplessness. I suppose that ACT might be appropriate after some time has passed and folks like this are experiencing more stability, but I also think that there are some things that need deeper exploration than ACT can offer.