The Happiness Trap E-Book

Dr Russ Harris

• Herausgeber: WS
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 478

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Updated and expanded in its second edition, this empowering book presents the ground-breaking techniques of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), covering more topics and providing more practical tools than ever before. Following on from its million-copy bestselling first edition, The Happiness Trap will help anyone who is facing illness, coping with loss, working in a high-stress job, or suffering from anxiety or depression, to build authentic happiness from the inside out.

Leseprobe

THE

HAPPINESSTRAP

Dr Russ Harris is a world-renowned trainer of Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT). Russ’s background is in medicine, and as a GP he became increasingly interested in the psychological aspects of health and wellbeing, and increasingly disenchanted with writing prescriptions. Ultimately, this interest led to a total career change. He now works in two different, yet complementary, roles – as a therapist and a coach.

In 2015, Russ wrote a stress-management protocol for the World Health Organization to use in refugee camps around the world, catering for the broadest possible range of trauma-related problems, including PTSD, depression and anxiety disorders. It has so far been implemented to good effect in refugee camps in Syria, Uganda and Turkey, and the impressive results were published in one of the world’s top medical journals, The Lancet.

Since 2005, Russ has run over 800 two-day workshops and provided ACT training for over 50,000 health professionals. He has authored four ACT textbooks (ACT Made Simple, Trauma-Focused ACT, Getting Unstuck in ACT, ACT Questions & Answers), and four ACT-based self-help books (The Happiness Trap, The Reality Slap, The Confidence Gap and ACT with Love). His best-known book, The Happiness Trap, sold over one million copies worldwide in its first edition, with translations into more than 30 languages.

THE

HAPPINESSTRAP

Stop struggling,start living

DR RUSS HARRIS

Dedication

To my sibs: Adrian, Darrell, Yulanie and Quentin. There’s an old saying: ‘Families are like branches on a tree. We grow in different directions, yet our roots remain as one.’ Thank you for all the love and joy and kindness and laughter you bring into my life.

Contents

What’s new in edition two?

Part 1: Why is it hard to be happy?

1: Life is difficult

2: The choice point

3: The black hole of control

4: Dropping the struggle

Part 2: How to handle difficult thoughts and feelings

5: How to drop anchor

6: The never-ending stories

7: Off the hook

8: Frightening images, painful memories

9: The stage show of life

10: Leaving the comfort zone

11: The value of kindness

12: Hooked on a feeling

13: The struggle switch

14: Making room

15: TAME it with kindness

16: Being present

17: Reinhabiting your body

18: Worrying, ruminating, obsessing

19: The documentary of you

20: Healing the past

21: The art of appreciation

Part 3: How to make life meaningful

22: A life worth living

23: One step at a time

24: The HARD barriers

25: Difficult decisions

26: Breaking bad habits

27: Staying the distance

28: Breaking the rules

29: Ups and downs

30: A daring adventure

Resources

Acknowledgments

Index

WHAT’S NEW IN EDITION TWO?

When I set out to write the second edition of this book (sixteen years after the first one), I was expecting it to be a quick job; just a few minor changes here and there. But I quickly realised the book needed a major overhaul from start to end. When I eventually finished the task, I was surprised to find over 50 per cent of the book was new material! I guess that reflects just how much has changed over the years in the way I think about, talk about and practise this stuff.

Among many other changes, I’ve added in a lot of new tools, techniques and exercises; new information about the nature and purpose of emotions (and how to overcome emotional numbness); many new topics and chapters, including how to break bad habits, push through procrastination, stop panic attacks, disrupt worrying and obsessing, deal with values conflicts and difficult dilemmas, overcome ‘people-pleasing’ and perfectionism; practical tips for those suffering from trauma; and last, but definitely not least, a stack of new material on self-compassion.

On top of all that, I’ve chopped out a whole lot of waffle, repetition and technical jargon. So if you liked the first edition, I hope and trust you’ll get a whole lot more out of this one.

Happy reading,All the best,Russ Harris

PART 1

WHY IS IT HARD TO BE HAPPY?

1

LIFE IS DIFFICULT

Being human hurts. In our short time on this planet we’ll have many moments of marvel, wonder and joy — but also many of angst, dread and despair. We’ll know the highs of love, connection and friendship — but also the lows of loneliness, rejection and loss. We’ll experience the delights of success, victory and achievement — but also the miseries of failure, defeat and disappointment.

In other words: life is difficult. And if we live long enough, we’re all going to experience pain, stress and suffering in many different forms. The problem is, most of us don’t know how to deal effectively with this reality. We work hard to find happiness — but all too often, we fail; and even when we succeed, it’s usually short-lived, leaving us dissatisfied and wanting more.

So why is it so hard to be happy? I’m glad you asked. This book is based on a huge body of scientific research which shows we all easily get caught in a powerful psychological trap. We go through life holding on tightly to many unhelpful beliefs about happiness — ideas widely accepted because ‘everyone knows they are true’. And these beliefs seem to make good sense — which is why you encounter them in so many self-help books and articles. But unfortunately, these misleading ideas tend to create a vicious cycle, in which the more we pursue happiness, the more we suffer. And this psychological trap is so well hidden, we don’t even realise we’re caught in it.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is, there’s hope. We can learn how to quickly recognise we’re stuck in ‘the happiness trap’ — and, more importantly, how to escape it. This book will give you the skills and knowledge to do so. It’s based on a powerful psychological model known as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), a science-based approach with over 3000 published studies that show its effectiveness.

ACT (pronounced as the word ‘act’) was developed in the United States in the mid-1980s by psychologist Steven C. Hayes and his colleagues, Kelly Wilson and Kirk Strosahl. Since that time, it has spread around the globe. Today there are hundreds of thousands of psychologists, therapists, counsellors, coaches and doctors practising ACT in dozens of different countries — from the United States, United Kingdom and Uganda to India, Indonesia and Iran.

One reason for the growing popularity of ACT is that it’s astoundingly effective in helping people with a wide range of problems. Those 3000 scientific studies I mentioned earlier cover everything from depression, addiction and anxiety disorders to psychosis, chronic pain and trauma. However, ACT is not just a treatment for psychological disorders; it is also used to help people adjust well to chronic illness and disability, and build meaningful, rewarding lives even in the face of serious ongoing health issues. And on top of all that, it’s widely used by the armed forces, emergency services, government departments, professional sports teams and Olympic athletes, businesses, hospitals and schools — to enhance health and wellbeing, reduce stress, improve performance and increase resilience.

Last but not least, we all know about the importance of eating healthy food, exercising regularly and cultivating good relationships with others; these are foundational building blocks for health, happiness and wellbeing. But how hard is it to actually do these things on an ongoing basis? Easy in theory, hard in practice, for most of us. Fortunately, ACT gives us all the tools and strategies we need to break bad habits, overcome procrastination, motivate ourselves to start and maintain healthy new behaviours, and build better relationships with the people in our lives. Shortly we’ll look at how ACT achieves this, but first let’s consider …

Is happiness normal?

Life is not fair. Some people have horrific childhoods where they’ve been abused, neglected or abandoned by their caregivers; whereas others grow up in loving, supportive families. Some live in extreme poverty or areas rife with violent crime; or in war zones, prisons or refugee camps. Others live in good housing conditions with excellent amenities. Some have serious illnesses, injuries or disabilities, whereas others have glowing health. Some have access to good quality food, education, justice, medical treatment, welfare, travel, entertainment and career opportunities, whereas others are deprived of most or all of these things. And some people, because of their skin colour, religion, gender, politics or sexual orientation are continually subjected to prejudice, discrimination or victimisation. In any country in the world, there’s a vast gulf between the least and most privileged members of society. And yet … people on both sides of that gulf are human, and therefore have many things in common, including the fact that no matter how privileged or disadvantaged we may be, we are all naturally predisposed to psychological suffering.

Perhaps you’ve noticed how the self-help sections of bookstores keep growing larger. Depression, anxiety, anger, divorce, relationship issues, addictions, trauma, low self-esteem, loneliness, grief, stress, lack of confidence; if you can name it, there’s a book on it. And with every passing year, psychologists, coaches, counsellors and therapists steadily increase in number — as do prescriptions for medication. Meanwhile, on the television and radio, in magazines and newspapers, in podcasts and social media, the ‘experts’ bombard us with non-stop advice on how to improve our lives. And yet — even with all this support and advice, human misery is growing, not reducing!

The statistics are staggering. The World Health Organization identifies depression as one of the biggest, most costly and most debilitating diseases in the world. In any given year, one-tenth of the adult population suffers from clinical depression, and one in five will suffer from it at some point in their life. And more than one third of the adult population will, at some point in their life, suffer from an anxiety disorder. Furthermore, one in four adults, will at some stage suffer from drug or alcohol addiction. (In the United States alone, there are currently over 14 million people suffering from alcoholism!)

But here’s the most shocking statistic of all: almost one in two people will at some point seriously consider suicide — and struggle with it for two weeks or more. Scarier still, one in ten people will at some point actually attempt to kill themselves. (Fortunately, very few succeed.)

Think about those numbers for a moment. Think of your friends, family and co-workers. Almost half of them will at some point be so overwhelmed by misery that they seriously contemplate suicide — and one in ten will try it!

Now, think about all those common forms of suffering that are not considered to be ‘psychological disorders’ but nonetheless make us miserable: work stress, performance anxiety, loneliness, relationship conflicts, sickness, divorce, bereavement, injury, ageing, poverty, racism, sexism, bullying, existential angst, self-doubt, insecurity, fear of failure, perfectionism, low self-esteem, ‘midlife crisis’, ‘impostor syndrome’, jealousy, fear of missing out, a lack of direction in life … and the list goes on.

Clearly, lasting happiness is not normal! Which naturally begs the question …

Why is it so hard to be happy?

To answer this question, let’s journey back in time, 300,000 years. Life was pretty dangerous for our Stone Age ancestors: huge wolves, sabre-toothed tigers, woolly mammoths, rival clans, harsh weather, food shortages and cave bears, to name but a few of the perils. So if a Stone Age person wanted to survive, their mind had to be constantly on the lookout for things that might hurt or harm them! And if their mind wasn’t good at this job … they died young. Therefore, the better our ancestors became at anticipating and avoiding danger, the longer they lived and the more children they had.

With each passing generation, the human mind became increasingly skilled at noticing, predicting and avoiding danger. So now, 300,000 years later, our modern minds are constantly on the lookout, assessing and judging everything we encounter: Is this good or bad? Safe or dangerous? Harmful or helpful? These days, though, it’s not tigers, bears and wolves that our mind warns us about — it’s losing our job, being rejected, getting a speeding ticket, embarrassing ourselves in public, getting cancer, or a million and one other common worries. As a result we all spend a lot of time worrying about things that, more often than not, never happen.

Another essential for survival is belonging to a group. Our ancient ancestors knew this all too well. If your tribe boots you out, it won’t be long before the wolves find you. So how does the mind protect you from rejection by the group? By comparing you with other members: Am I fitting in? Am I doing the right thing? Am I contributing enough? Am I as good as the others? Am I doing anything that might get me rejected?

Sound familiar? Our minds are continually warning us of rejection and comparing us against the rest of society. No wonder we spend so much energy worrying whether people will like us! No wonder we’re always looking for ways to improve ourselves or putting ourselves down because we don’t ‘measure up’. We only need to glance at a magazine, television or social media to instantly find a whole host of people who appear to be smarter, richer, slimmer, sexier, more famous, more powerful or more successful than us. We then compare ourselves to these glamorous media creations and feel inferior or disappointed with our lives. To make matters worse, our minds can conjure up a fantasy image of the person we’d ideally like to be — and then compare us to that! What chance have we got? We will always end up feeling not good enough.

Now, in pretty much any society throughout the world in any period of history, the general rule for success is: get more and get better. The better your weapons, the more food you can kill. The larger your food stores, the greater your chances for survival in times of scarcity. The better your shelter, the safer you are from danger. The more children you have, the greater the chance that some will survive into adulthood. No surprise, then, that our minds continually look for ‘more and better’: more money, a better job, more status, a better body, more love, a better partner. And if we succeed, if we do get more money or a better car or a better-looking body, then we’re satisfied — for a while. But sooner or later (and usually sooner), we end up wanting more.

In summary then, we are all hardwired to suffer psychologically: to compare, evaluate and criticise ourselves; to focus on what we’re lacking; to rapidly become dissatisfied with what we have; and to imagine all sorts of frightening scenarios, most of which will never happen. No wonder humans find it hard to be happy!

But to make matters worse, many popular beliefs about happiness are inaccurate, misleading or false, and will actually make you miserable if you buy into them. Let’s look at two of the most common ones.

Myth no. 1: Happiness is our natural state

Many people believe happiness is ‘our natural state’. But the statistics above show very clearly, this is not the case. What is natural for human beings is to experience an everchanging flow of emotions — both pleasant and painful — varying throughout the day depending on where we are, what we’re doing and what is happening. Our emotions, feelings and sensations are like the weather: continually changing from moment to moment. We don’t expect it to be warm and sunny all day long, all year round. Nor should we expect to be happy and joyful all day long. If we live a full human life, we will feel the full range of human emotions: the pleasant ones, like love and joy and curiosity; and the painful ones, like sadness, anger and fear. All these feelings are a normal, natural part of being human.

Myth no. 2: If you’re not happy, you’re defective

Following logically from myth 1, Western society assumes that psychological suffering is abnormal. It is seen as a weakness or illness, a product of a mind that is somehow faulty or defective. This means that when we do inevitably experience painful thoughts and feelings, we are often ashamed or embarrassed about it, or we criticise ourselves for being weak, silly or immature.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is based on a radically different assumption: if you’re not happy, you’re normal. Let’s face it: life is tough and full of challenges; it would be weird if we felt happy all the time. The things that make life meaningful come with a whole range of feelings — both pleasant and painful. For example, consider a close relationship. When it’s going well, we will experience wonderful feelings such as love and joy. But sooner or later, in even the best relationships, we will experience conflict, disappointment and frustration. (There is no such thing as the perfect relationship.)

The same holds true for every meaningful project we embark on — from building a career or raising a family, to looking after our physical health and fitness. Although meaningful projects often bring feelings of excitement and enthusiasm, they also inevitably bring stress and anxiety. So if you believe myth 2 you’re in big trouble, because it’s virtually impossible to create a better life if you’re not prepared to have some uncomfortable feelings. (The good news is, you will soon learn how to handle such feelings differently, to respond to them in a radically different way, so they have much less impact and influence over you.)

What exactly is ‘happiness’?

Happiness. We want it. We crave it. We strive for it. But what exactly is it?

If you ask most people this question, they’re likely to describe happiness as a ‘good feeling’: a pleasurable feeling of joy, gladness or contentment. The ancient Greeks had a special word for a life based on the pursuit of happy feelings: ‘hedemonia’, from which we get the word ‘hedonism’ (seeking pleasure). We all enjoy pleasurable feelings, so it’s hardly surprising that we chase them. However, like all human emotions, feelings of happiness are fleeting; they come and they go. No matter how hard we try to hold on to them, they never hang around for long. And as we shall see, a life spent in pursuit of ‘feeling good’ is, in the long term, deeply unsatisfying. Indeed, research shows that the harder we chase after pleasurable feelings, and try to avoid the uncomfortable ones, the more likely we are to suffer from depression and anxiety.

But there’s another meaning of happiness that’s radically different: the experience of living a rich and meaningful life. When we clarify what we stand for in life and start acting accordingly — behaving like the sort of person we really want to be, doing the things that matter deep in our hearts, moving in life directions we consider worthy — then our lives become infused with meaning and purpose, and we experience a profound sense of vitality. This is not some fleeting feeling — it is a powerful sense of a life well lived. The ancient Greek word for this type of happiness is ‘eudemonia’, these days often translated as ‘flourishing’. When we live our lives in this way, we will, for sure, have many pleasurable feelings; and we’ll also have many difficult ones, like sorrow, anxiety and guilt. (As I said before, if we live a full human life, we will feel the full range of human emotions.)

This book, as you’ve no doubt guessed, focuses on this second meaning of happiness, rather than the first. Of course, we all like to feel good, and it makes sense to appreciate and enjoy pleasant feelings when they appear. But if we try to have them all the time, we’re doomed to failure.

The reality is: life is difficult. There’s no escaping this fact. Sooner or later we will all grow infirm, get sick and die. Sooner or later we will all lose important relationships through rejection, separation or death. Sooner or later we will all come face to face with crisis, disappointment and failure. This means that, in one form or another, we are all going to experience plenty of painful thoughts and feelings.

But the good news is that, although we can’t avoid such pain, we can learn to handle it much better — to ‘unhook’ from it, rise above it and create a life worth living. This book will teach you some simple but effective skills to rapidly take the impact out of painful thoughts, feelings, emotions, sensations and memories. You’ll learn how to drain away their power, so they no longer hold you back or bring you down; how to let them come and go, without getting swept away by them. And you’ll also learn how to build yourself a rich and meaningful life — no matter what you’ve been through in the past, or what you’re facing right now — which will give rise to a deep sense of vitality and fulfilment.

Now pause for a moment and notice how your mind is reacting to this.

Is it positive, enthusiastic, excited, hopeful, optimistic? If so, enjoy that while it lasts — but please don’t cling to it; because, as we’ll see later, trying to hold on tightly to pleasant thoughts and feelings creates all sorts of problems. On the other hand, perhaps your mind is doubtful or pessimistic, saying things like, ‘This won’t work for me’ or ‘I don’t believe this; it’s bullshit’. If so, recognise such thoughts are completely natural; this is your mind doing its job, trying to save you from something that might be unpleasant or painful. How so? Well, suppose you invest lots of time, effort and energy in reading this book and applying it in your life; suppose you do all that and it doesn’t work! That would be pretty painful, right? So your mind is trying to save you from that painful possibility. And throughout this book, you can expect your mind to do this in many ways. So each time that happens, I hope you’ll remember two things:

a)This is completely normal; all minds do this.

b)Your mind isn’t trying to make your life harder; it’s just trying to keep you safe, protect you from pain.

The journey ahead

This book is like a trip through a foreign country: much will seem strange and new. Other things will seem familiar yet somehow subtly different. At times you may feel challenged or confronted, at other times excited or amused. Take your time on this journey. Instead of rushing ahead, savour it fully. Pause when you find something stimulating, curious or unusual. Explore it in depth and learn as much as you can. To create a life worth living is a major undertaking, so please take the time to appreciate it.

2

THE CHOICE POINT

Have you ever wondered why we’re called ‘human beings’? I think a better name would be ‘human doings’, because whether it’s eating, drinking, cooking, cleaning, talking, walking, playing or reading, we’re always doing something (even if it’s just sleeping).

At times, we do things we that help us move towards the sort of life we want; let’s call these behaviours ‘towards moves’. And at other times, we do things that take us away from the sort of life we want; let’s call these behaviours ‘away moves’.

The diagram below illustrates this.

Towards moves

When we’re behaving like the sort of person we want to be, responding effectively to our challenges and doing things that make life better in the long term, we’re doing ‘towards moves’. For many people, ‘towards moves’ include spending quality time with loved ones, keeping fit and looking after their physical health, being caring and kind towards others, pursuing hobbies or interests, having fun, playing sport, relaxing, being creative, getting out into nature, contributing actively to their group or community, or doing personal growth activities (such as reading this book).

There is no list of ‘right’, ‘correct’ or ‘best’ towards moves; we each decide for ourselves which of our behaviours come under this umbrella. Basically, towards moves are things you say and do — no matter how small they may be — that enhance your life; that make it richer, fuller and more meaningful. And one of the main aims of this book is to help you do a whole lot more of them.

Away moves

When we’re behaving unlike the sort of person we want to be, doing things that keep us stuck or make life worse in the long term, we’re doing ‘away moves’. For example, for many people, ‘away moves’ include withdrawing from or fighting with loved ones, avoiding physical exercise, putting unhealthy substances into your body, losing your temper, being aggressive or unkind, procrastinating on really important tasks, and so on. Away moves can also include things we do ‘inside our heads’ (technically known as ‘cognitive processes’) such as worrying, ruminating, obsessing and overanalysing. (‘Ruminating’ means dwelling on, brooding on or stewing over things.)

In other words, away moves are things we say and do that make our lives worse, keep us stuck, exacerbate our problems, inhibit our growth, negatively impact our relationships, or impair our health and wellbeing in the long term. They are things we ideally want to reduce or stop doing — and another big aim of this book is to help you do a whole lot less of them.

As with towards moves, there’s no ‘official list’ of away moves; we all decide for ourselves which of our behaviours fit this category. For example, if someone has strong religious beliefs that prohibit alcohol, then that individual might see drinking alcohol as an away move. But if someone is a professional wine-taster, then that individual might see drinking alcohol as a towards move. For myself, drinking wine in moderation (two or three glasses a week) is a towards move, but drinking an entire bottle in one night is an away move; however, for you, those amounts might be very different.

A very important point

The point I am about to make is so important, I am considering getting it tattooed on my forehead (in bold red capitals). Here it is:

Any activity can be a towards move or an away move, depending on the situation.

Let’s unpack that. Suppose I stay in bed and keep hitting the snooze button primarily to avoid dealing with some really important tasks — for me, that would be an away move. (It might not be an away move for someone else; but it would be for me.) However, on holiday, when I hit the snooze to enjoy the well-earned pleasure of a long sleep-in — for me, that’s a towards move. Yet for someone else, that might not be a towards move. Some people like to get up at the crack of dawn on holiday and go for a run or do a yoga workout, and they see sleeping in as wasting the day. (I’m not entirely sure which planet these people come from. They claim to be from Earth, but I find that hard to believe.)

Likewise, if I’m mentally rehearsing a talk while sitting in my office during work hours, as part of my preparation for a workshop or webinar — I consider that a towards move. But suppose I’m mentally rehearsing that talk when I’m at home, while someone I love is trying to tell me something very important — and as a result, I’m disengaged, and not really paying attention to them, and they’re getting upset about it. In this situation, I’d consider mental rehearsal to be an away move. (Confession: the above example is not purely hypothetical; I have been guilty of doing this on, well, let’s say, ‘more than one’ occasion. And trust me: it’s always an away move!)

For one last example, imagine cancelling a social event at the last minute. Suppose you were doing this in order to cope with a medical emergency (e.g. taking a sick friend to hospital); in that situation, I’m guessing you’d consider it a towards move. Now suppose you’re very lonely and socially isolated, and you’ve gotten into the habit of cancelling whenever you feel anxious; and each time you do that, it increases your sense of loneliness. In that particular situation, if you cancel yet again because you’re feeling anxious, I’m guessing you’d call it an away move.

It’s essential to understand this principal because it underpins everything in this book; the technical name for it is ‘workability’. If what you’re doing in a particular situation is helping you move closer towards the life you want to build, we say it’s ‘workable’ (a towards move); but if it’s having the opposite effect, we say it’s ‘unworkable’ (an away move). And only you can ever decide whether something is workable for you.

What triggers away moves?

When life isn’t too difficult, when things are going reasonably well and we’re feeling pretty good … it’s often quite easy to choose towards moves. But how often is your life like that? The reality, for most of us, is that life is frequently hard. And all too often, we don’t get what we want. We continually run up against unexpected problems and challenging situations. We repeatedly experience painful emotions, such as anxiety, sadness, anger, loneliness or guilt. We have countless unhelpful thoughts: ‘I’m not good enough’, ‘I can’t cope’, ‘It’s not fair’, ‘I’m a loser’, ‘It’s all too hard’, ‘Life sucks!’ (and zillions of variants on these themes). And on top of all that, we often have to contend with strong urges or cravings, painful memories, and a myriad of unpleasant physical sensations. Throughout this book I will use the phrase ‘difficult thoughts and feelings’ as an umbrella term for all these unpleasant inner experiences.

When these difficult situations, thoughts and feelings show up in our life, we may respond to them either with towards moves, or away moves, as illustrated below.

Now unfortunately, when difficult thoughts and feelings arise, we easily get ‘hooked’ by them — much like a fish on the end of a line. We get hooked in two main ways, that usually overlap with each other. Let’s call these ‘OBEY mode’ and ‘STRUGGLE mode’.

OBEY mode

In OBEY mode, our thoughts and feelings dominate us; they command our full attention or dictate our actions. When we OBEY our thoughts and feelings, we either give them so much attention that we can’t usefully focus on anything else, or we allow them to tell us what to do. The thought ‘It’s hopeless’ hooks us and we OBEY: we give up, we stop trying. A painful memory shows up and we OBEY: we give it so much of our attention we get dragged back into the past and lose touch with what’s happening here and now. A feeling of anger hooks us and we OBEY: we shout, or say mean things, or become aggressive. An urge or craving hooks us, and we OBEY: we indulge whatever the habit or addiction may be.1

STRUGGLE mode

In STRUGGLE mode, we actively try to stop our thoughts and feelings from dominating us. We STRUGGLE against them; we do whatever we can to avoid them, escape from them, suppress them, or get rid of them. In STRUGGLE mode we may turn to drugs, or alcohol, or junk food, or procrastination, or withdrawing from the world, or basically anything that gives us momentary relief from those painful thoughts and feelings — even when doing so has negative impacts on our health, wellbeing and happiness.2

When our thoughts and feelings ‘hook’ us, they reel us in, jerk us around and pull us into away moves. Indeed, almost every recognised psychological disorder — depression, anxiety disorders, addiction, chronic pain, trauma, OCD, you name it — is due to this basic process: difficult thoughts and feelings ‘hook us’ and pull us into away moves.

Said slightly differently, when we respond to our thoughts and feelings in OBEY mode or STRUGGLE mode (or often both), we behave in self-defeating ways. And this very same pattern also underpins ‘bad habits’, unhealthy routines, relationship problems, poor performance, unhealthy perfectionism, excessive ‘people-pleasing’, procrastination and all the other self-defeating or life-draining things we do when under pressure. The diagram below illustrates this.

Unhook, and move towards the life you want

Fortunately, there are times when we manage to unhook ourselves from difficult thoughts and feelings — and do towards moves instead. And the greater our ability to do this, the better life gets: our suffering reduces, and our wellbeing increases. In a nutshell, that’s what this book is all about.

A big part of the work in this book is getting in touch with your ‘values’: your heart’s deepest desires for how you want to behave as a human being; how you want to treat yourself and others, and the world around you. For example, think of someone you love very much. When you’re being who you really want to be in this relationship, how do you treat your loved one? I’d guess (and I could be wrong, of course) that you want to be loving, kind, supportive, honest, reliable, caring and considerate. If I guessed right, if those are qualities of behaviour you desire, then we’d call them ‘values’.

To make this clearer, pick an important role you play regularly, that involves interacting with other people (e.g. friend, partner, parent, neighbour, employee, student or team member). Now, imagine I interview one of the people you interact with when you’re in that role. And imagine I start asking this person about you. I begin by asking about how you generally tend to treat them, and what you say and do when they’re distressed or struggling or going through a tough patch. Next I ask them how you generally tend to treat other people. And finally I ask them what your three greatest qualities are, in terms of how you interact with others.

Now if magic could happen, if dreams could come true, what would you love this person to answer (and genuinely mean)? Please take at least two minutes to think about this …

Now, repeat the exercise for another role you play. Again, take two minutes …

So how did you go? If you did the exercise, you probably identified some values: some ways you want to behave when you’re in those roles. (If you’re confused or found the exercise too difficult, no need for concern; we’ll go into all this in depth, later in the book. This is just a preliminary ‘taster’.)

The simple fact that you are reading this book suggests you are living by your values right now. You are reading it because you care about reducing your suffering and improving your life. You may also be reading it because you want to be a better friend, partner, parent, relative or neighbour. This points to a value of ‘being caring’: being caring towards yourself or others, or both.

It’s important for us to clarify our values because once we know what they are, we can make good use of them. We can utilise them as an ‘inner compass’ to guide us through life and help us make wise choices, and also as a source of energy and motivation to help us do more towards moves.

Another big part of this approach is to learn ‘unhooking skills’ so that when difficult thoughts, feelings, memories or urges show up, we can rapidly unhook from them before they can pull us into away moves. The better we get at unhooking and choosing towards moves the better our quality of life and the greater our health, wellbeing and happiness. This is illustrated below.

Choice points

The diagram above is officially called the ‘choice point’, because in any moment when life is difficult and painful thoughts and feelings show up, we potentially have a choice. We can respond to what is happening with effective, life-enhancing behaviours (towards moves) or with ineffective, life-diminishing behaviours (away moves). But note the word ‘potentially’. We only have this choice if we have developed good unhooking skills. Without them, we have little choice; without them, our ‘default setting’ is to get hooked and pulled into away moves (and often, we won’t even realise that’s happened until it’s too late). Basically, the less our ability to unhook, the less choice we have; instead, our thoughts and feelings tend to dominate us, run our lives, dictate what we can and can’t do.

I originally co-created the choice point with two colleagues, Joe Ciarrochi and Ann Bailey, in order to simplify the ACT model, and we’ll be using this concept throughout the book. Indeed, shortly I’ll ask you to fill in a blank choice point diagram, based on your life as it is today, so you can use it as a road map for the journey ahead. But first, let’s quickly consider three strategies for success as you work through this book:

1. Treat everything as an experiment

Throughout these pages I will ask you to play around with many different tools, techniques and strategies that I expect to be helpful. However, nothing works for everyone. Everything you do will be an experiment; you never know for sure what’s going to happen. So, please bring an attitude of openness and curiosity to each experiment in the book, and really notice your experience. If it turns out to be helpful, as intended, that’s all well and good. But if it’s not helpful, please either modify it to suit your purposes, or drop it and move on to the next part of the book.

In other words, don’t take anything on board just because I say it’s helpful; trust your own experience. Take as little or as much from this book as you like, and leave anything that’s not right for you.

2. Expect your mind to interfere

Whenever I ask you to do something that pulls you out of your comfort zone, your mind is likely to protest. It’s as if we have a ‘reason-giving machine’ inside our head, and as soon as we’re faced with doing something uncomfortable it starts cranking out all the reasons why we can’t do it, shouldn’t do it, or shouldn’t even have to do it: ‘That won’t work for me’, ‘That’s silly’, ‘I can’t do it’, ‘I don’t have the time’, ‘I don’t have the energy’, ‘I’m not in the mood’, ‘I’ll do it later’, ‘I’m too anxious’, ‘I’m too depressed’, ‘I can’t be bothered’ … and so on.

Sometimes the reasons our mind comes up with are based on harsh judgments: ‘I’m too stupid/weak/lazy to do it’, ‘I’ll only screw it up’, ‘I don’t deserve a better life’. At other times, they are based on anxiety: ‘What if it goes wrong?’, ‘What if other people get upset?’, ‘What if I make a fool of myself?’ At yet other times, they are based on past experience: ‘I’ve tried that before and failed.’ And sometimes they’re based on our feelings: ‘I’m not in the mood’, ‘I can’t be bothered’, ‘I don’t feel like it’.

Whatever your reason-giving machine comes up with, please remember what I said last chapter: this is basically your mind trying to protect you from uncomfortable thoughts and feelings. So when those reasons to skip an experiment arise, there’s a ‘choice point’ for you.

Option one: allow your mind to dominate you, to talk you out of doing the exercise in question.

Option two: allow your mind to say whatever it wants, but don’t buy into it; let it chatter away like a radio playing in the background, while you get on with the experiment.

(If you’ve read a lot of self-help, you may be surprised that I didn’t suggest a third option: get into a debate with your mind: start challenging those ‘negative thoughts’; push them away and replace them with more ‘positive thoughts’. We don’t do that in ACT because, as we’ll explore in later chapters, a lot of the time it simply doesn’t work.)

3. Practice is essential

A new client walked into my room clutching the first edition of this book. She sat on the couch, threw the book on the coffee table and snapped, ‘I’ve read your book! It didn’t work.’

‘I see,’ I said, a bit taken aback. ‘And while you were reading it, did you practise all the exercises?’

She looked at me, sheepishly. ‘No.’

‘Well then,’ I said, ‘I’m not really surprised it didn’t work.’

If we want to become competent at any new skill — playing a guitar, driving a car, cooking Japanese food — we need to practise. We can’t learn new skills simply by reading books about them. For sure, reading books can give us ideas about new skills, help us to understand what’s involved, and provide us with insights into how we can develop them; but it won’t actually give us the skills. Even if we read ten thousand books about playing guitar, driving or cooking, we won’t develop the skills to do those things. We need to actually pick up that guitar and strum away; or get behind the wheel and hit the road; or get in that kitchen and rattle those pots and pans. And the same is true for psychological skills, like the ones we cover in this book. Simply reading about how to unhook will not give you unhooking skills; you need to actually do the experiments and practise the exercises repeatedly.

Time to complete a ‘choice point’

Okay, so now it’s time to complete a choice point diagram. I strongly encourage you to either: a) draw one on a sheet of paper (it’s easy: just draw two straight arrows diverging from one central point); or b) print one from my free eBook, The Happiness Trap: Extra Bits. As the name suggests, this eBook contains additional materials to support the main book, including audio recordings and printable worksheets. You can download a copy from the ‘Free resources’ page on my website, www.thehappinesstrap.com.

Once you’ve drawn or printed it, please fill in the choice point diagram, guided by my prompts below. (If you’re not currently able to write, then at least spend a few minutes imagining what you would write if you could.) There’s an example of a completed version near the end of the chapter, so if you get stuck at any point, skip ahead and use it for guidance.

Part A: What are your ‘hooks’?

1. At the bottom of your ‘choice point’ write down four or five of the most difficult situations you are dealing with in your life today (e.g. work problems, medical problems, relationship issues, bullying or rejection, prejudice or discrimination, financial problems, lack of friends, bereavement).

2. Underneath that, write down difficult emotions that tend to recur (e.g. sadness, anxiety, guilt, loneliness, anger) and/or difficult sensations (e.g. a tight chest, knots in the stomach, racing heart, feelings of numbness or emptiness).

3. Next, write down any urges you struggle with (e.g. urges to smoke, drink, gamble or yell).

4. Finally, write down unhelpful thoughts that tend to frequently occur, especially self-judgments (e.g. ‘I’m stupid’, ‘I can’t cope’, ‘I keep screwing up’, ‘I’m a loser’), beliefs (e.g. ‘I have to do things perfectly’, ‘I must always please other people’, ‘My life will never get better’) and negative predictions (‘I’ll fail’, ‘I’ll get sick’, ‘They’ll reject me’). If relevant, also include recurrent painful memories.

As you work through this book, you’ll learn a wide range of unhooking skills to take the impact out of those difficult thoughts and feelings, so they can’t jerk you around, hold you back or bring you down; how to let them flow through you, without sweeping you away. You’ll also learn how to take effective action, guided by your values, to improve those difficult situations (or leave them, if that’s a better option).

Part B: What are your away moves?

Alongside the left arrow, write down common away moves you make, when you go into OBEY or STRUGGLE mode (in response to the thoughts and feelings you’ve written at the bottom). Away moves are mostly things you do physically (e.g. eating too much junk food, shouting at your loved ones, watching too much TV, hiding away in your bedroom, drinking excessively). However, they might include things you do inside your head, such as worrying, obsessing and ruminating. (Technically these are known as ‘cognitive processes’).

So, an individual thought, like ‘I’m going to fail’, would go at the bottom of the choice point; it just ‘pops’ up and there’s nothing you can do about that. But if, in response to that thought, you start worrying, ruminating or obsessing, then those cognitive processes would go on the away arrow.

Remember away moves are behaviours that you personally consider to be unworkable: taking you away from the life you want to build; away from the person you want to be. This is your own personal viewpoint you’re mapping out, nobody else’s.

Also remember, away moves are things you do, not things you feel. So, emotions, feelings, sensations and urges are not away moves; they always go at the bottom of the choice point, never on the away arrow. Away moves are unworkable things you do in response to all that stuff at the bottom.

Part C: What are your towards moves?

No matter how difficult your life is, no matter how badly you’ve been hooked by your thoughts and feelings, no matter how extensive your away moves … one thing’s for sure: at times, you do some towards moves (such as reading this book). So, alongside the right arrow, begin by writing towards moves you’re already doing (e.g. ‘reading The Happiness Trap’).

After that, write down towards moves you’d like to start doing (make sure to include ‘learning unhooking skills’). This could include goals you want to pursue, actions you want to take, and values you want to live by. Note: towards moves are about what you do, not how you feel. So you wouldn’t write ‘feeling relaxed’ or ‘feeling happy’ on the towards arrow; you’d write down what you’d do differently if you felt that way.

If you have trouble with this:

▪ Look at an away move and ask yourself: ‘What would I like to do instead of this?’

▪ Think back to the two roles you picked in the exercise above. What did your answers suggest you’d like to start or keep doing in those roles?

▪ Think about those three fundamentals of health and wellbeing I mentioned last chapter: exercising, healthy eating and building strong relationships. What would you like to start or keep doing in these arenas?

If you find it easy to fill in the towards arrow, all well and good. But if you find it hard or impossible, rest assured that’s completely normal. Most people initially find it quite challenging, and sometimes even anxiety-provoking. So, if your towards arrow is empty or sparse, that’s not a problem; simply acknowledge that right now, at this point in time, you don’t have much idea of what you can do to make life meaningful. This will soon change! In later chapters, I’ll take you through some exercises which will help you to fill in all the blanks.

Example of a completed choice point diagram

Where to from here?

So, now you have a sense of what this book is about, take a moment to notice what your mind is saying. Is it enthusiastic (‘Let’s get cracking!’) or sceptical (‘This guy’s full of it’) or anxious (‘This sounds like hard work!’) or doubtful (‘I don’t think this will work for me’)? Or is it just staying quiet?

Whatever your mind is saying, simply acknowledge it.

If it’s saying something that makes you want to persist, that’s great news; at times our minds are helpful and encouraging, so let’s appreciate that when it happens.

On the other hand, if it’s saying something that makes you want to give up, there’s a choice point for you: do you give up because your mind says something negative? Or do you let your mind say whatever it wants, acknowledge that it’s trying to protect you from discomfort, and carry on reading?

I hope you choose the latter, because in the next chapter we’re going to explore a topic of vital importance …

1In ACT, the technical term for OBEY mode is ‘fusion’.

2In ACT, the technical term for STRUGGLE mode is ‘experiential avoidance’.

3

THE BLACK HOLE OF CONTROL

Michelle has tears streaming down her eyes. ‘What’s wrong with me?’ she asks. ‘I have a great husband, great kids, great job, a lovely home. I’m fit, healthy, well off. So why aren’t I happy?’

It’s a good question. Michelle seems to have everything she wants in life, so what’s going wrong? This is actually a common scenario in the Western world, and later in this chapter we’ll explore why. But first, let’s take a look at another popular happiness myth.

Myth no. 3: It’s easy to control what you think and feel

Many self-help books and programs subscribe wholeheartedly to this myth. One of the most popular claims you’ll encounter is this: if you repeatedly challenge your negative thoughts and, instead, fill your head with positive ones, you will be happy, confident and successful. If only life were that simple!

The fact is, we have much less control over our thoughts and feelings than we would like. I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you this. I’m willing to bet you’ve already tried countless times to think more positively about things — but those negative thoughts keep coming back, don’t they? As we saw in Chapter 1, our minds have evolved over 300,000 years to think the way they do, so it’s unlikely a few positive thoughts will make much difference! (It’s not that positive thinking has no effect at all; such techniques do often make us feel better — at least, temporarily. But they don’t get rid of negative thoughts in the long term.)

The same holds true for uncomfortable emotions such as anger, fear, sadness, guilt and shame. There are multitudes of psychological strategies to ‘get rid of’ such feelings. But you’ve undoubtedly discovered that even if you can make them go away temporarily, after a while they’re back. And then they go away again. And then they come back again. And so on and so on.

I’m guessing you’ve already spent a lot of time and effort trying to have ‘good’ feelings and ‘positive’ thoughts instead of those ‘bad’ or ‘negative’ ones (I know I have!) and you’ve probably found that as long as you’re not too stressed, or your situation isn’t too challenging, you can often pull it off. However, I’m sure you’ve discovered that the more stressed you are, the more difficult the situation you’re in, the less ability you have to control your thoughts and feelings. In really difficult situations, when life hits you hard, when you’re tackling major challenges or stepping out of your comfort zone to face your fears — you simply can’t expect to feel happy!

Sadly, this myth is so deeply entrenched in our culture, that we tend to feel stupid, weak or inadequate when our attempts to control our thoughts and feelings fail. This raises the question: given it so obviously contradicts our direct experience, how did this myth get established in the first place?

The illusion of control

The human mind is a wonderful thing. It enables us to make plans, invent new things, coordinate actions, analyse problems, share knowledge, learn from our experiences and imagine new futures. The clothes on your body, the chair beneath you, the roof over your head, the book in your hands — none of these things would exist but for the ingenuity of the human mind. The mind enables us to shape the world around us and conform it to our wishes, to provide ourselves with warmth, shelter, food, water, protection, sanitation and medicine. Not surprisingly, this amazing ability to control our external environment gives us high expectations of control in other arenas as well.

Now, in the material world, control strategies generally work well. If we don’t like something, we figure out how to avoid it or get rid of it, and then we do so. A wolf outside your door? Get rid of it! Throw rocks at it, or spears, or shoot it. Snow, rain or hail? Well you can’t get rid of those things, but you can avoid them by hiding in a cave or building a shelter. Dry, arid soil? You can get rid of it by irrigation and fertilisation, or you can avoid it by moving to fertile ground.

But how much control do we have over our inner world: over our thoughts, memories, emotions, urges and sensations? Can we simply avoid or get rid of the ones we don’t like? Well, let’s see …

Here’s a little experiment. As you keep reading this paragraph, try not to think about ice-cream. Don’t think about the colour or the texture. Don’t think about how it tastes on a hot summer’s day. Don’t think about how good it feels as it melts inside your mouth.

Stare at the floor and try not to think about ice-cream for one minute.

How’d you do?

Exactly! You couldn’t stop thinking about ice-cream.3

Now here’s another little experiment. Remember the last meal you ate

— whatever it was, breakfast, lunch or dinner. Remember it as vividly as you can; what you ate, how it was cooked, how it tasted. Done that? Good. Now delete it. Totally obliterate that memory so it can never come back to you, ever again.

How did you fare? (If you think you succeeded, check again; see if you can still remember it.)

Next, tune in to your left leg, and notice how it feels. Feeling it? Good. Now make it go completely numb — so numb, that we could cut it off with a hacksaw and you wouldn’t feel a thing.

Did you succeed?

Okay, now here’s a little thought experiment. Suppose I’m a mad scientist (if you know me, that’s not a huge stretch) and I’ve kidnapped you for an evil experiment. I’ve wired you up to the world’s most sensitive ‘lie detector’ (technically known as a polygraph). This machine measures your heart rate, breath rate, blood pressure, brain waves and adrenaline levels. And if it detects even the tiniest hint of fear or anxiety, a red light will flash and a loud alarm will ring.

So you’re strapped in a chair, wired to this thing, and I place my hand on a big red lever attached to a massive electrical generator. And with a mad cackle, I inform you, ‘In this experiment I’m about to do on you, you must not feel any anxiety whatsoever — because if you do, I will pull this lever, which will electrocute you with 1 million volts!’

What would happen?

You’d be fried, right? Even though your life depends on it, you could not stop yourself feeling anxious. Indeed, even the tiniest hint of anxiety that shows up in that situation would itself be a trigger for massive anxiety.

Now, one last experiment. Stare at the star below then see if you can stop yourself from thinking for two whole minutes. That’s all you have to do. For two minutes, prevent any thoughts whatsoever from coming into your mind — especially any thoughts about the star or the task I’ve just asked you to do! Hopefully by now you’re getting the point that thoughts, feelings, sensations and memories are just not that easy to control. As I said before, we do have some control over these things, but it’s so much less than we want. I mean, let’s face it: if these things were that easy to control, wouldn’t we all just live in perpetual bliss?

How we learn about emotional control

From a young age, we are taught that we should be able to control how we feel. When you were growing up, you probably heard a number of expressions like, ‘Don’t cry or I’ll give you something to cry about’, ‘Don’t be so gloomy; look on the bright side’, ‘Big boys don’t cry’, ‘Stop feeling sorry for yourself’, ‘There’s no need to be frightened’, ‘Think positive’, ‘Don’t be scared’, ‘Cheer up; it may never happen’, ‘No use crying over spilt milk’, ‘Plenty more fish in the sea’ and so on.

With words such as these, the adults around us sent out the message, again and again, that we ought to be able to control our feelings. And certainly it appeared to us as if they controlled theirs. But what was going on behind closed doors? In all likelihood, many of those adults weren’t coping too well with their own painful feelings. They may have been drinking too much, taking tranquillisers, crying themselves to sleep every night, having affairs, throwing themselves into their work or suffering in silence while slowly developing stomach ulcers. However they were coping, they probably didn’t share those experiences with you.