AUDIOBOOK: THE HAPPINESS TRAP by Dr.RUSS HARRIS

0:00 the happiness Trap by Russ Harris and Stephen Hayes read by Joanne Clark published in 2008. this book could save you years of psychological struggle yank you out of negative emotional patterns and help Propel you to much happier more productive life this recording is the production of Voice versus society for the purpose of research study and discussion the views and opinions expressed in this book belong to the author and may not always reflect those of Voice versus society or its Affiliates dedication to my mother and father for four Decades of Love support inspiration and encouragement and to my wife Carmel whose love wisdom and generosity has enriched my life and opened my heart in ways I would never

0:45 have dreamed possible forward there is a tremendous irony in happiness it comes from a root word meaning by chance or An Occurrence which in a positive sense connotes a sense of newness wonder and appreciation of chance occurrences the irony is that people not only seek it they try to hold on to it especially to avoid any sense of unhappiness unfortunately these very control efforts can become heavy planned closed rigid and fixed happiness is not just a matter of feeling good if it were drug abusers would be the happiest people on the planet indeed feeling good can be a very unhappy Pursuit it is not by accident that drug users call their methods of doing so a fix because they are chemically trying to hold something in

1:31 place like a butterfly pinned to a table however happiness dies unless it is held lightly drug abusers are not the only ones in the name of producing an emotional result we call happiness most of us tend to engage in behavior that is the exact opposite and then feel awful and inadequate with the inevitable result until we wise up we are all generally trying to get a fix on happiness this book is based on acceptance and commitment therapy act which is an empirically supported approach that takes a new and unexpected tack in dealing with the issue of happiness and life satisfaction instead of teaching new techniques to pursue happiness act teaches ways to undermine struggle avoidance and loss of the moment

2:17 Russ Harris has very carefully and creatively presented this approach in an accessible way in 33 bite-sized chapters he systematically explores how we get into the happiness trap and how mindfulness acceptance cognitive diffusion and values can release us from it the joyful message in these pages is that there is no reason to continue to wait for life to start that waiting game can end now like a lion placed in a paper cage human beings are generally most trapped by the illusions of their own mind but despite the appearance the cage is not really a barrier that can contain the human Spirit there is another way forward and with this book Dr Harris shines a powerful and loving Beacon forward into the night lighting that path

3:02 enjoy the journey you are in excellent hands I just want to be happy just suppose for a moment that almost everything you believed about finding happiness turned out to be inaccurate misleading or false and suppose that those very beliefs were making you miserable what if your very efforts to find happiness were actually preventing you from achieving it and what if almost everyone you knew turned out to be in the same boat including all those psychologists psychiatrists and self-help gurus who claim to have all the answers I'm not posing these questions just to grab your attention this book is based on a growing body of scientific research that suggests we are all caught in a powerful psychological trap we lead Our Lives ruled by many unhelpful and inaccurate beliefs about happiness ideas widely accepted by

3:50 Society because everyone knows they are true on the surface these beliefs seem to make good sense that's why you encounter them again and again in nearly every self-help book you ever read but these erroneous beliefs are both the cause of and the fuel for a vicious cycle in which the more we try to find happiness the more we suffer and this psychological trap is so well hidden we don't even have a clue that we're caught and controlled by it that's the bad news the good news is there's hope you can learn how to recognize the happiness trap and more importantly you can learn how to climb out of it and stay out this book will give you all the skills and knowledge you need to do it it's based on a revolutionary new development in human psychology a powerful model for

4:37 change known as acceptance and commitment therapy act act pronounced as the word Act was created in the United States of America by psychologist Stephen Hayes and was further developed by a number of his colleagues including Kelly Wilson and Kirk stroshel acti has been astoundingly effective in helping patients with a wide range of problems from depression and anxiety to chronic pain and even drug addiction for example in one remarkable study psychologists Patty Bach and Stephen Hayes used act with patients suffering from chronic schizophrenia and found that only four hours of therapy were sufficient to reduce Hospital readmission rates by half act has also proved highly effective for the less dramatic problems that millions

5:23 of us encounter such as quitting smoking and reducing stress in the workplace unlike the vast majority of other therapies act has a firm basis in scientific research and because of this it is rapidly growing in popularity among psychologists all around the world the aim of Act is to help you live a rich full and meaningful life while effectively handling the pain that inevitably comes your way act achieves this through the use of six powerful principles which are very different from the so-called Common Sense strategy suggested in most self-help books is happiness normal in the Western World we now have a higher standard of living than humans have ever known before we have better medical treatment more and better food better housing conditions better sanitation more money

6:10 more welfare services and more access to education Justice travel entertainment and career opportunities indeed today's middle class lives better than did the royalty of not so long ago and yet human misery is everywhere the psychology and personal development sections of bookstores are growing at a rate never seen before and the bookshelves are groaning under the strain the titles cover depression anxiety anorexia nervosa overeating anger management divorce relationship problems sexual problems drug addictions alcoholism low self-esteem loneliness grief gambling if you can name it there's a book on it meanwhile on the

6:55 television and radio and in magazines and newspapers the experts bombard us daily with advice on how to improve our lives this is why the numbers of psychologists psychiatrists marriage and family counselors social workers and life coaches are increasing with every year and yet now think about this with all this help and advice and worldly wisdom human misery is not diminishing but growing by Leaps and Bounds isn't there something wrong with this picture the statistics are staggering in any given year almost 30 percent of the adult population will suffer from a recognized psychiatric disorder the World Health Organization estimates that depression is currently the fourth biggest costliest and most debilitating disease in the world and by the year

7:41 2020 it will be the second biggest in any given week one-tenth of the adult population is suffering from clinical depression and one in five people will suffer from it at some point in their lifetime furthermore one in four adults at some stage in their life will suffer from drug or alcohol addiction which is why there are now over 20 million alcoholics in the United States of America alone but more startling and more sobering than all those statistics is that almost one in two people will go through a stage in life when they seriously consider suicide and will struggle with it for a period of two weeks or more scarier still 1 in 10 people will at some point actually attempt to kill themselves think about those numbers for a moment think of the people in your life your

8:28 friends family and co-workers consider what those figures imply that of all the people you know almost half of them will at some point be so overwhelmed by misery that they seriously contemplate suicide and one in ten will attempt it in the past two centuries we have doubled the span of the average human life but have we doubled the richness the enjoyment the Fulfillment of that life these statistics give us the answer loud and clear happiness is not normal why is it so difficult to be happy to answer this question we need to take a journey back in time the modern human mind with its amazing ability to analyze plan create and communicate has largely evolved over the last hundred thousand years since our

9:15 species Homo sapiens first appeared on the planet but our minds did not evolve to make us feel good so we could tell great jokes write sonnets and say I love you our minds evolved to help us survive in a world fraught with danger imagine that you're an early human hunter-gatherer what are your essential needs in order to survive and reproduce there are four of them food Water Shelter and sex but none of these things mean much if you're dead so the number one priority of the primitive human mind was to look out for anything that might harm you and avoid it in essence the Primitive mind was a don't get killed device and it proved enormously useful the better our ancestors became at anticipating and

10:00 avoiding danger the longer they lived and the more children they had with each generation the human mind became increasingly skilled at predicting and avoiding Danger and now after a hundred thousand years of evolution the modern mind is still constantly on the lookout for trouble it assesses and judges almost everything we encounter is this good or bad safe or dangerous harmful or helpful these days though it's not saber-toothed cats or 200 kilogram wolves that our mind warns us about instead it's losing our job being rejected getting a speeding ticket not being able to pay the bills embarrassing ourselves in public upsetting our loved ones getting cancer or any of a million and one other common

10:46 worries as a result we spend a lot of time worrying about things that more often than not never happen another essential for the survival of any early human is to belong to a group if your clan 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 of the clan 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 modern day 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

11:32 to improve ourselves or putting ourselves down because we don't measure up a hundred thousand years ago we had only the few members of our immediate Clan to compare ourselves with but these days we can open any newspaper or magazine switch on any television tune in to any radio and instantly find a whole host of people who are smarter richer taller Slimmer sexier stronger more powerful more famous more successful or more admired than we are what's the fastest way to make a teenage girl depressed show her a fashion magazine when she compares herself to all those airbrushed collagen enhanced digitally altered supermodels she is guaranteed to feel inferior or downright unattractive

12:18 and the rest of us are not that different thanks to Evolution our minds are now so sophisticated they can even dream up a fantasy of the person we'd like to be and then compare our real self to that impossible standard what chance have we got we will always end up feeling not good enough now for any stone age person with ambition the general rule for success is the more the better the more sophisticated your weapons and the more of them you have the more food you can kill the more plentiful your food stores the better your chances are for living through times of scarcity the more substantial your shelter the safer you are from weather and wild animals the more children you have the better the chance that some of them will survive into adulthood no surprise then that our modern mind

13:04 continually looks for more more money more status more love more job satisfaction a newer car a younger looking body a younger looking partner a bigger house and if we succeed if we actually get more money or a newer car or a better job then we're satisfied for a while but sooner or later and usually sooner we end up wanting more thus Evolution has shaped our minds so that we are almost inevitably destined to suffer psychologically to compare evaluate and criticize ourselves to focus on what we're lacking to be 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

13:50 what exactly is happiness we all want it we all crave it we all strive for it even the Dalai Lama has said the very purpose of life is to seek happiness but what exactly is this elusive thing we are looking for the word happiness has two very different meanings usually it refers to a feeling a sense of pleasure gladness or gratification we all enjoy Happy Feelings so it's no surprise that we chase them however like all our other feelings feelings of Happiness don't last no matter how hard we try to hold on to them they slip away every time and as we shall see a life spent in pursuit of those feelings is in the main unsatisfying in fact the harder we pursue pleasurable feelings the more we are likely to

14:35 suffer from anxiety and depression the other meaning of Happiness is a rich full and meaningful life when we take action on the things that truly matter deep in our hearts when we move in directions that we consider valuable and worthy when we clarify what we stand for in life and act accordingly then our lives become rich and full and meaningful and we experience a powerful sense of Vitality 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 this is only to be expected if we live a full life we will feel the full range of human emotions

15:21 in this book as you've probably guessed by now we are far more interested in the second meaning of happiness than in the first of course happy feelings are quite Pleasant and we should certainly make the most of them when they present themselves but if we try to have them all the time we are doomed to failure the reality is life involves pain there's no getting away from it as human beings we are all faced with the fact that sooner or later we will grow in firm get sick and die sooner or later we all will lose valued relationships through rejection separation or death 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

16:06 the good news is that although we can't avoid such pain we can learn to handle it much better to make room for it rise above it and create a life worth living this book will show you how to do so there are three parts to this process in part one you will learn how you create and get stuck in the happiness trap this is an essential First Step so please don't skip it you can't escape the Trap if you don't know how it works in part two rather than trying to avoid or eliminate painful thoughts and feelings you will learn how to fundamentally transform your relationship with them you will learn how to experience painful thoughts and feelings in a new way that will lessen their impact drain away their power and dramatically decrease their influence over your life finally in part three instead of chasing

16:54 happy thoughts and feelings you will focus on creating a rich and meaningful life this will give rise to a sense of Vitality and fulfillment that is both deeply satisfying and long lasting 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 savior it fully stop when you find something stimulating 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 part one how you set the

17:40 happiness trap chapter one fairy tales what's the last line of every fairy tale you got it and they lived happily ever after and it's not just fairy tales that have Happy Endings how about Hollywood movies don't they nearly always have some sort of feel-good ending where good triumphs over evil love conquers all and the hero defeats the bad guy and doesn't the same hold true for most popular novels and television programs we love happy endings because Society tells us that's how life should be all joy and fun all peace and contentment living happily ever after but does that sound realistic does it fit in with your experience of life this is one of four major myths that make up the basic blueprint for the happiness trap let's take a look at

18:25 these myths one by one myth number one happiness is the natural state for all human beings our culture insists that humans are naturally happy but the statistics quoted in the introduction clearly disprove this remember one in ten adults will attempt suicide and one in five will suffer from depression what's more the statistical probability that you will suffer from a psychiatric disorder at some stage in your life is almost 30 percent not exactly great odds are they and when you add in all the misery caused by problems that are not classified as psychiatric disorders loneliness divorce sexual difficulties work stress midlife crisis relationship issues domestic violence social isolation bullying Prejudice low

19:14 self-esteem chronic anger and lack of meaning or purpose in life you start to get some idea of just how rare true happiness really is unfortunately many people walk around with the belief that everyone else is Happy except for them and you guessed it this belief creates even more unhappiness myth number two if you're not happy you're defective following logically from myth one Western Society assumes that mental 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 often criticize ourselves for being weak or stupid health professionals contribute to this process by readily slapping on labels

20:00 such as you're depressed and these labels merely confirm how defective we are acceptance and commitment therapy is based on a dramatically different assumption act proposes that the normal thinking processes of a healthy human mind will naturally lead to psychological suffering you're not defective your mind's just doing its job the thing it evolved to do fortunately eight tea can teach you how to adapt to this in such a way that your life will be powerfully transformed myth number three to create a better life we must get rid of negative feelings we live in a feel-good society a culture thoroughly obsessed with finding happiness and what does that Society tell us to do to eliminate negative feelings and accumulate positive ones in their place

20:46 it's a nice Theory and on the surface it seems to make sense after all who wants to have unpleasant feelings but here's the catch the things we generally value most in life bring with them a whole range of feelings both Pleasant and unpleasant for example in an intimate long-term relationship although you will experience wonderful feelings such as love and joy you will also inevitably experience disappointment and frustration there is no such thing as the perfect partner and sooner or later conflicts of interest will happen the same holds true for just about every meaningful project we embark on although they often bring feelings of excitement and enthusiasm they also generally bring stress fear and anxiety so if you believe myth 3 you're in big

21:32 trouble because it's pretty well impossible to create a better life if you're not prepared to have some uncomfortable feelings however in part two of this book you will learn how to handle such feelings altogether differently to experience them in such a way that they bother you a whole lot less myth number four you should be able to control what you think and feel the fact is we have much less control over our thoughts and feelings than we would like it's not that we have no control it's just that we have much less than the experts would have us believe however we do have a huge amount of control over our actions and it's through taking action that we create a rich full and meaningful life that's why we say act as the word act rather than as the initials Act the overwhelming majority of self-help

22:19 programs subscribe to myth 4. for example many approaches teach you to identify negative thoughts and replace them with more positive ones other approaches encourage the repetition of positive affirmations such as everything that happens is for my highest good and greatest joy or I am strong able and capable at all times still other approaches encourage you to visualize what you want to vividly imagine yourself the way you want to be living the life you dream of the basic theme of all these approaches is this if you challenge your negative thoughts or images and instead repeatedly fill your head with positive thoughts and images you will find happiness If Only Life were that simple I'm willing to bet that you've already tried countless times to think more

23:05 positively about things and yet those negative thoughts keep coming back again and again as we saw in the last chapter our minds have evolved over a hundred thousand years to think the way they do so it's not likely that a few positive thoughts or affirmations will change them all that much it's not that these techniques have no effect they can often make you feel better temporarily but they will not get rid of negative thoughts over the long term the same holds true for negative feelings such as anger fear sadness insecurity and guilt there are multitudes of psychological strategies to get rid of such feelings but you've undoubtedly discovered that even if they go away after a while they're back and then they go away again and then they come back again and so on and so on

23:50 the likelihood is if you're like most other humans on the planet you've already spent a lot of time and effort trying to have good feelings instead of bad ones and you've probably found that as long as you're not too distressed you can to some degree pull it off but you've probably also discovered that as your level of distress increases your ability to control your feelings progressively lessons sadly myth 4 is so widely believed that we tend to feel inadequate when our attempts to control our thoughts and feelings fail these four powerful myths provide the basic blueprint for the happiness trap they set us up for a struggle we can never win the struggle against our own Human Nature it is this struggle that builds the trap in the next chapter we will look at this struggle in detail

24:36 but first let's consider why these myths are so entrenched in our culture the illusion of control the human mind has given us an enormous Advantage as a species it enables us to make plans invent things coordinate actions analyze problems share knowledge learn from our experiences and imagine new futures the clothes on your body the shoes on your feet the watch on your wrist 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

25:21 not surprisingly this amazing ability to control our 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 ground you can get rid of it by irrigation and fertilization or you can avoid it by moving to a better location but what about our internal world I'm talking here about thoughts memories emotions urges mental images and physical

26:07 Sensations can we simply avoid or get rid of the ones we don't like in the outer world we can do so fairly easily so shouldn't it be the same with our inner world here's a little experiment as you keep reading this paragraph try not to think about ice cream don't think about the color or the texture or the taste of it 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 don't think about how you have to keep licking around the edges to stop it from dripping on your fingers how'd you do exactly you couldn't stop thinking about ice cream here's another little experiment recall something that happened in the past week any memory will do whether it's a conversation you had a movie you watched or a meal you ate got one

26:55 good now try to get rid of it totally obliterate it from your memory so it can never come back to you ever again how did you go if you think you succeeded just check again and see if you can still remember it now tune into your mouth notice how your tongue feels run it over your teeth your gums your cheeks and the roof of your mouth now try to get rid of those Sensations try to turn your mouth totally numb as if you just had a shot of Novocaine from the dentist were you able to forget the sensations now consider this hypothetical scenario for a moment suppose someone put a loaded gun to your head and told you that you must not feel afraid that if you should feel even the slightest trace of anxiety they will shoot you

27:41 could you stop yourself feeling anxious in this situation even though your life depended on it sure you could try to act calm but could you truly feel it okay one last experiment stare at the star below then see if you can stop yourself from thinking for 60 seconds that's all you have to do for 60 seconds prevent any thoughts whatsoever from coming into your mind especially any thoughts about the star hopefully by now you're getting the point that thoughts feelings physical Sensations and memories are just not that easy to control it's not that you have no control over these things it's just that you have much less control than you thought let's face it if these things were that easy to control wouldn't we all just live in Perpetual Bliss

28:27 of course there are a few self-help gurus who claim to live in such a state all the time such people often get really rich their books sell by the million and they attract huge followings of people desperate for the answer my guess is that many readers of this book will have already gone down that path and been sadly disappointed how we learn about control from a young age we are taught that we should be able to control our feelings 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 take that frown off your face you're a big boy now Big Boys Don't Cry stop feeling sorry for yourself don't worry there's no need to be frightened

29:12 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 tranquilizers 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 and on those rare occasions when you did get to witness their loss of control they probably never said anything like okay these tears are because I'm feeling something called sadness it's a normal

29:59 feeling and you can learn how to handle it effectively but then that's not too surprising they couldn't show you how to handle your emotions because they didn't know how to handle theirs the idea that you should be able to control your feelings was undoubtedly reinforced in your school years for example kids who cried at school were probably teased for being cry babies or sissies especially if they were boys then as you Grew Older you probably heard phrases or even use them yourself such as get over it happens move on chill out don't let it bother you don't be such a chicken snap out of it and so on the implication of all these phrases is that you should be able to turn your feelings on and off at will like flicking a switch

30:45 and why is this myth so compelling because the people around us seem on the surface to be happy they seem to be in control of their thoughts and feelings but seem is the key word here the fact is that most people are not open or honest about the struggle they go through with their own thoughts and feelings they put on a brave face and keep a stiff upper lip they are like the proverbial clown crying on the inside the bright face paint and chirpy Antics are all we see it's common in therapy to hear clients say things like if my friend slash family slash colleagues could hear me now they'd never believe it everyone thinks I'm so strong confident happy slash independent penny a 30 year old receptionist came to see me six months after the birth of her

31:32 first child she was feeling tired and anxious and full of self-doubt about her mothering skills at times she felt incompetent or inadequate and just wanted to run away from all the responsibility at other times she felt exhausted and miserable and wondered if having a child had been a huge mistake on top of that she felt guilty for even having such thoughts although Penny attended regular mother's group meetings she kept her problems a secret the other mothers all seemed so confident she feared that if she told them how she was feeling they would look down on her when Penny eventually plucked up the courage to share her experiences with the other women her admission broke a conspiracy of Silence the other mothers had all been feeling the same way to one degree or another but they'd all been putting on the same

32:18 Act of bravado hiding their true feelings for fear of disapproval or rejection there was a huge sense of relief and bonding as these women opened up and got honest with one another to make a gross generalization men are much worse than women at admitting their deepest concerns because men are taught to be stoic to bottle up their feelings and hide them after all Big Boys Don't Cry in contrast women learn to share and discuss their feelings from a young age nonetheless many women are reluctant to tell even their closest friends that they are feeling depressed or anxious or not coping in some way for fear of being judged weak or silly our Silence about what we are really feeling and the false front we put on for the people around us simply add to

33:04 the powerful illusion of control so the question is how much have you been influenced by all these control myths the questionnaire on the following pages will help you find out chapter 2. Vicious Cycles Michelle has tears streaming down her eyes what's wrong with me she asks I have a great husband great kids a great job I'm fit I'm healthy we have a lovely house we're well off we live in a beautiful area 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 we'll come back to Michelle later in this chapter but for now let's take a look at what's happening in your life what's your problem presumably if you're reading this book there's room for your life to work

33:50 better than it does maybe your relationship is in trouble or you're lonely or heartbroken maybe you hate your job or maybe you've lost it maybe your health is deteriorating maybe someone you love has died or rejected you or moved far away maybe you're having a midlife crisis maybe you have low self-esteem or no self-confidence or feelings of inadequacy maybe you have drug or alcohol problems or other addictions it could be Financial or legal difficulties or that you just feel stuck and don't know what you want maybe you're suffering from depression or anxiety or you could just be bored with life or feel that it lacks any meaning whatever the problem is it undoubtedly gives rise to unpleasant thoughts and feelings and you've probably spent a lot

34:36 of time and effort trying to escape them or blot them out but suppose those attempts to get rid of your bad thoughts and feelings are actually lowering the quality of your life in acti we have a saying for this the solution is the problem how does a solution become a problem what do you do when you have an itch you scratch it right and usually this works so well you don't even think about it scratch the itch and it goes away problem solved but suppose one day you develop a patch of eczema a common skin condition the skin is very itchy so naturally you scratch it however the skin cells in this region are already inflamed and therefore highly sensitive and when you scratch them they release chemicals called histamines which are highly irritating and these histamines inflame

35:22 the skin even further so after a little while the itch returns with a greater intensity than before and of course if you scratch it again it gets even worse the more you scratch the worse the eczema and the bigger the itch scratching is a good solution for a fleeting itch in normal healthy skin but for a persistent itch in abnormal skin scratching is harmful the solution becomes part of the problem this is commonly known as a vicious cycle and in the world of human emotions Vicious Cycles are common here are a few examples Joseph fears rejection so he feels overly anxious in social situations he doesn't want those feelings of anxiety so he avoids socializing whenever possible he doesn't accept invitations to parties he doesn't pursue friendships

36:09 he lives alone and stays home every night this means that on the rare occasion when he does socialize he's more anxious than ever because he's so out of practice furthermore living alone with no friends or social life just serves to make him feel completely rejected which is the very thing he fears Yvonne also feels anxious in social situations she copes with this by drinking heavily in the short term alcohol reduces her anxiety but the next day she feels hungover and tired and she often regrets the money she spent on alcohol or worries about the embarrassing things she did while under the influence sure she escapes anxiety for a little while but the price she pays is a lot of other unpleasant feelings over the long term and if she ever finds herself in a social situation where she can't drink

36:56 her anxiety is greater than ever because she doesn't have alcohol to rely on Danielle is overweight and hates it so she eats some chocolate to cheer herself up for the moment she feels better but then she thinks about all the calories she's just consumed and how that will add to her weight and ends up feeling more miserable than ever Ahmed is out of shape he wants to get fit again he starts working out but because he's unfit it's hard work and it feels uncomfortable he doesn't like the discomfort so he stops working out then his Fitness level slides even lower there's a lot of built up tension between Andrew and his wife sylvana Silvana is angry at Andrew because he works long hours and doesn't spend enough time with her

37:41 Andrew doesn't like those feelings of tension in the house so in order to avoid them he starts working longer hours but the more hours he works the more dissatisfied sylvana gets and the tension in their relationship steadily increases you can see that these are all examples of trying to get rid of a void or escape from unpleasant feelings we call these control strategies because they are attempts to directly control how you feel the table on the following page shows some of the most common control strategies I've organized them into two main categories fight strategies and flight strategies fight strategies involve fighting with or trying to dominate your unwanted thoughts and feelings flight strategies involve running away or hiding from those unwelcome thoughts

38:27 and feelings the problem with control what's the problem with using methods like these to try to control your thoughts and feelings the answer is nothing if you use them only in moderation you use them only in situations where they can work using them doesn't stop you from doing the things you value if you're not too distressed or upset if you're just dealing with run-of-the-mill everyday stress then deliberate attempts to control your thoughts and feelings aren't likely to be a problem in some situations distraction can be a good way of dealing with unpleasant emotions if you've just had a row with your partner and you're feeling hurt and angry it could be helpful to distract yourself by going for a walk or burying your head in a book until you calm down and sometimes zoning out can be beneficial

39:14 for example if you're stressed and drained after a grueling day's work falling asleep on the couch may be just the ticket to help you rejuvenate however control methods become problematic when you use them excessively you use them in situations where they can't work using them stops you from doing the things you truly value using control excessively to varying degrees every one of us uses control strategies I mean who wouldn't prefer to do without some of the less enjoyable thoughts and feelings that crop up from time to time and as we've seen used in moderation such attempts at control are no big deal for instance when I'm feeling particularly anxious I sometimes eat a bar of chocolate or some biscuits this is basically a form of distraction an attempt to avoid some

40:00 unpleasant Feeling by focusing on something else but because I don't do it excessively it doesn't create a major problem in my life I maintain a healthy weight and I don't give myself diabetes now when I was in my early 20s it was a different story back then I ate a truckload of cakes and chocolates to try to avoid my anxiety on a bad day I could go through five whole packets of tim tams and as a result I became seriously overweight and developed high blood pressure it was exactly the same control strategy but when I used it excessively it clearly had serious consequences if you're worried about upcoming exams you may try to distract yourself from the anxiety by watching television now that's fine if you're only doing it every now and then but if you do it too

40:45 much you'll spend all your evenings watching television and you won't get any studying done this in turn will create more anxiety as your studies lag further and further behind therefore as a method for anxiety control distractions simply can't work in the long run and then there's the obvious dealing with your anxiety in this way prevents you from doing the one thing that would be genuinely helpful studying the same goes for zoning out with alcohol or drugs moderate drinking or taking the occasional tranquilizer isn't likely to have serious long-term consequences but if such control methods become a crutch it can easily lead to addiction which then creates all sorts of complications giving rise to even more painful feelings

41:30 notice that there is considerable overlap between these control strategies watching television instead of studying can be not only a distraction but also a hiding escaping strategy hiding or escaping from your studies and television can also be used for zoning out some people may sit in front of the tally for hours on end watching without any genuine interest trying to use control in situations where it can't work if you love somebody deeply and you lose that relationship whether through death rejection or separation you will feel pain that pain is called grief grief is a normal emotional reaction to any significant loss whether a loved one a job or a limb there's no way to avoid or get rid of it it's just there

42:16 and once accepted it will pass in its own time unfortunately many of us refuse to accept grief we will do anything rather than feel it we may bury ourselves in work drink heavily throw ourselves into a new relationship on the rebound or numb ourselves with prescribed medications but no matter how hard we try to push grief away deep down inside it's still there and eventually it will be back it's like holding a football underwater as long as you keep holding it down it stays beneath the surface but eventually your arm gets tired and the moment you release your grip the ball leaps straight up out of the water Donna was 25 years of age when her husband and child died in a tragic car crash naturally she felt an enormous sense of

43:02 loss an explosion of painful feelings including sadness anger fear loneliness and despair but Donna could not accept those painful feelings and she turned to alcohol to push them away getting drunk would temporarily soothe her pain but once she's sobered up her grief returned with a Vengeance and then she'd drink even more to push it away again by the time Donna came to see me six months later she was knocking back two bottles of wine a day as well as some Valium and sleeping tablets the single biggest factor in her recovery was her willingness to stop running away from her pain only when she opened herself to her feelings and accepted them as a natural part of the grieving process was she able to come to terms with her terrible loss this enabled her to grieve

43:48 effectively for her loved ones and channel her energy into building a new life later in the book we'll look at how she accomplished that when using control stops us from doing what we value what do you cherish most in Life Health work family friends religion sport nature it's no surprise that Life is Richer and more fulfilling when we actively invest our time and energy in the things that are most important or meaningful to us yet all too often are attempts to avoid unpleasant feelings get in the way of doing what we truly value for example suppose you are a professional actor and you love your work then one day quite out of the blue you develop an intense fear of failure just as you are due to appear on stage so you refuse to go on a malady commonly

44:34 known as stage fright refusing to go on stage May well reduce your fear temporarily but it also stops you from doing something you truly value or suppose you've just gone through a divorce sadness fear and anger are all natural reactions but you don't want to have these unpleasant feelings so you try to lift your mood by eating junk food getting drunk or chain smoking cigarettes but what does this do to your health I've never met anyone who didn't value their health and yet many people use control strategies that actively damage their physical bodies how much control do we actually have the degree of control we have over our thoughts and feelings depends largely on how intense they are the less intense the feelings the more we can control them for instance if we're just dealing with

45:20 the typical everyday stresses a simple relaxation technique can make us feel calmer right away however the more troubling our thoughts and feelings are the less effective our attempts at control will be if you're terrified no relaxation technique known to humanity will calm you we also have more control over our thoughts and feelings when the things that we're avoiding aren't too important for example if you're avoiding cleaning your messy garage or your car then it's probably fairly easy to take your mind off it why because in the larger scheme of things it's simply not that important if you don't do it the sun will still rise tomorrow and you will continue to draw breath all that will happen is that your garage or car will remain messy but suppose you suddenly developed a

46:06 large suspicious looking black mole on your arm and you avoid going to the doctor would it be easy to take your mind off it sure you could go to a movie watch television or surf the Internet and maybe for a little while you could stop thinking about it but in the long term you will inevitably start thinking about that mole because the consequences of not taking action are potentially serious so because many of the things we avoid are not that important and because many of our negative thoughts and feelings are not that intense we find that our control strategies can often make us feel better at least for a little while unfortunately though they can give us a false sense of confidence that is we start to believe that we have much more control than we actually do

46:52 and this false sense of control is only compounded by the myths we encountered in the last chapter what has control got to do with the happiness trap the happiness trap is built through ineffective control strategies in order to feel happy we try hard to control what we're feeling but these control strategies have three significant costs one they take up a lot of time and energy and are usually ineffective in the long run two we feel silly defective or weak-minded because the thoughts feelings we're trying to get rid of keep coming back three many strategies that decrease unpleasant feelings in the short term actually lower our quality of life over the long term these unwanted outcomes lead to more unpleasant feelings and thus even more attempts to control them it's a vicious

47:39 cycle psychologists have a technical term for this inappropriate or excessive use of control strategies experiential avoidance experiential avoidance means the tendency to keep trying to avoid change or get rid of your unwanted thoughts and feelings even when doing so is harmful costly useless or destructive experiential avoidance is a major cause of depression anxiety drug and alcohol addiction eating disorders and a vast number of other psychological problems so here is the happiness trap in a nutshell to find happiness we try to avoid or get rid of bad feelings but the harder we try the more bad feelings we create it's important to get a sense of this for yourself to trust your own experience rather than simply believing

48:25 what you read so with this in mind take a moment to complete the following sentence the thoughts slash feelings I'd most like to get rid of are once you've got your answer take a few minutes to write a list of every single thing you've tried in order to avoid change or get rid of these unpleasant thoughts or feelings try to remember every single strategy you have ever used whether deliberately or by default don't try to edit or troubleshoot your answers the goal is to come up with as many examples as possible such as avoiding situations where the feeling occurs using drugs or alcohol taking prescription medications criticizing or chastising yourself going into denial blaming others using visualization or self-hypnosis reading

49:12 self-help books seeing a therapist using positive affirmations procrastination praying talking it through with friends writing in your diary smoking cigarettes eating more eating less sleeping more sleeping less putting off important changes or decisions throwing yourself into work socializing slash hobby exercise or telling yourself it will pass once you've done that go through your list and for each item ask yourself one did it get rid of my painful thoughts and feelings in the long term two what did it cost me in time energy money and health and vitality three did it bring me closer to a rich full and meaningful

49:58 life you probably discovered four things while doing this exercise one you've put a lot of time and effort into trying to change get rid of or escape from unpleasant thoughts and feelings two most of the control strategies you've tried have not lessened your painful thoughts and feelings in the long term three many of these control strategies have taken a toll four many of these control strategies have actually taken you further away from the life you would ideally like to have feeling a bit dazed confused or disturbed if so good this is a major shift in your reality one that challenges many deeply entrenched beliefs strong reactions are quite normal of course if your control strategies

50:43 have not had significant costs or if they have brought you closer to the life you want then they are not problematic and we don't need to focus on them in ICT we are only concerned about the control strategies that put a drag on your quality of life in the long run wait a moment I hear you say why haven't you talked about things like giving to charity or working diligently or caring for your friends isn't giving to others supposed to make people happy good point bear in mind that it's not just the things you do that matter it's also your motivation for doing them if you're giving to charity to push away thoughts that you're selfish or you're throwing yourself into work to avoid feelings of inadequacy or you're caring for your friends to counteract fears of rejection then chances are you won't get

51:29 much satisfaction out of those activities why not because when your primary motivation is the avoidance of unpleasant thoughts and feelings this drains the joy and vitality from what you are doing for example recall the last time you ate something rich and tasty to try to stop feeling stressed or bored or unhappy chances are it wasn't all that satisfying however did you ever eat that very same food not to get rid of bad feelings but purely and simply to enjoy it and appreciate its taste I bet you found that much more fulfilling great advice about how to improve your life comes at you from all directions find a meaningful job do this great workout connect with friends and family get out in nature take up a hobby join a

52:15 club contribute to a charity learn new skills get involved in your community and so on and all these activities can be deeply satisfying if you do them because they are genuinely important and meaningful to you but if these activities are used mainly to dodge unpleasant thoughts and feelings chances are they won't be very rewarding it's hard to appreciate life when you're running away from something threatening remember Michelle who seems to have everything She Wants in life and yet she's not happy Michelle's life is driven by avoiding feelings of unworthiness she is plagued by thoughts like I'm a lousy wife why am I so inadequate and nobody likes me along with all the accompanying feelings of guilt anxiety frustration and

53:01 disappointment Michelle works hard to make those thoughts and feelings go away she pushes herself to excel at her job frequently working late to accommodate others she dotes on her husband and kids and caters to their every whim she tries to please everyone in her life always putting their needs in front of her own the toll this takes on her is enormous and does it get rid of those upsetting thoughts and feelings you guessed it by continually putting herself last and working so hard to win others approval she merely reinforces her sense of unworthiness she is well and truly stuck in the happiness trap how do I escape the happiness trap increasing your self-awareness is the first step notice all the little things you do each day to dodge change or blot out unpleasant

53:46 thoughts and feelings and when you find yourself using these control strategies notice the consequences keep a journal or spend a few minutes each day reflecting on this the faster you can recognize when you're stuck in the Trap the faster you can lift yourself out of it does this mean you just have to put up with bad feelings and resign yourself to a life of pain and misery not at all in part two of this book you will learn a radically different way of handling unwelcome thoughts and feelings you'll discover how to take away their power so they can't hurt you how to rise above them instead of getting crushed by them you'll learn how to let them go rather than struggle with them and you will learn how to see them in a new light so they cease to be the frightening Phantoms of old but don't

54:32 rush before reading on take a few days notice your attempts at control and how they are working for you learn to see the trap for what it is and look forward to the changes soon to come part two transforming your inner World chapter 3. the six core principles of act acceptance and commitment therapy is based upon six core principles which work together to help you achieve two main goals a to effectively handle painful thoughts and feelings and B to create a rich full and meaningful life part two of this book is mainly concerned with the first of these goals transforming your inner psychological world part three of the book is mainly concerned with the second goal creating a life worth living as we progress through the book we will

55:19 work through these six core principles one by one but first let's take a very brief look at all of them principle one diffusion diffusion means relating to your thoughts in a new way so they have much less impact and influence over you as you learn to diffuse painful and unpleasant thoughts they will lose their ability to frighten disturb or depress you and as you learn to diffuse unhelpful thoughts such as self-limiting beliefs and harsh self-criticisms they will have much less influence over your behavior principle 2. expansion expansion means making room for unpleasant feelings Sensations and urges instead of trying to suppress them or push them away as you open up and make space for these feelings you will find they bother you

56:06 much less and they move on much more rapidly instead of hanging around and disturbing you the official act term for this principle is acceptance I have changed it because the word acceptance has so many different meanings and can easily be misunderstood principle 3 Connection means living in the present focusing on and engaging fully in whatever you're doing instead of dwelling on the past or worrying about the future you are deeply connected with what is happening right here right now the official act term for this principle is contact with the present moment I have changed the term in this book purely for ease of communication principle 4 the observing self the observing self is a powerful aspect

56:52 of human consciousness which has been largely ignored by Western psychology until now as you learn how to access this part of yourself it will enable you to further transform your relationship with unwanted thoughts and feelings principle five values clarifying and connecting with your values is an essential step for making life meaningful your values are reflections of what is most important in your heart what sort of person you want to be what is significant and meaningful to you and what you want to stand for in this life your values provide direction for your life and motivate you to make important changes principle 6 committed action a rich and meaningful life is created through taking action but not just any action it happens through effective

57:39 action Guided by and motivated by your values and in particular it happens through committed action action that you take again and again and again no matter how many times you fail or go off track so committed action is shorthand for committed effective valued action it's important to remember that while these six basic principles can transform your life in many positive ways they aren't the Ten Commandments you don't have to follow them you can apply them if and when you choose to so play around with them experiment test them out in your life and see how they work for you and don't believe they're effective just because I say so give them a go and trust your own experience I should also warn you that as you work through this book there is one key point

58:26 I'll be repeating again and again you won't change your life simply by reading this book to do that you will have to take action it's like reading a travel guide about India by the end of it you have a lot of ideas about where you'd like to visit but you still haven't been there to truly experience India you have to make the effort to get up and go there similarly if all you do is read this book and think about the contents then by the end you will have a lot of ideas about how to create a rich full and meaningful life but you won't actually be living one in order to actually live a better life you will need to follow through on the exercises and suggestions Within These pages so are you eager to begin then read on then chapter 4. the great

59:13 storyteller this morning I held a fresh lemon in my hands I ran my fingers over the bright yellow skin noting all the little dimples I lifted it to my nose and inhaled the delicious aroma then I placed it on a cutting board and sliced it in half picking up one of the pieces I opened my mouth and squeezed a drop of fresh lemon juice onto the tip of my tongue what happened as you read about that lemon perhaps you saw its shape and color or maybe you felt the texture of the skin you may have smelled the fresh lemony scent you may even have found your mouth watering however there was no lemon in front of you only words about a lemon yet once those words entered your head you reacted to them almost as you would to a real lemon the same thing happens when you read a

59:58 great Thriller all you have in front of you are words but once those words enter your mind interesting things start to happen you may see or hear the characters and experience powerful emotions when those words describe a character in a dangerous situation you react as if someone really were in danger your muscles tense your heartbeat speeds up your adrenaline Rises that's why they're called thrillers and yet all you are dealing with in reality are little black marks on a page fascinating things words but what exactly are they words and thoughts humans rely heavily on Words other animals use physical gestures and facial expressions and a variety of sounds to communicate and so do we but we are the

1:00:44 only animal that uses words words are basically a complex system of symbols and a symbol means something that stands for or refers to something else so for example the word dog in English refers to a certain type of animal in French chian refers to the same animal as does Cain in Italian three different symbols all referring to the same thing anything that we can sense feel think about observe imagine or interact with can be symbolized by words time space Life Death Heaven hell people who died thousands of years ago places that never existed current events and so on and if you know what a word refers to then you know its meaning and you can

1:01:29 understand it but if you don't know what a word refers to then you don't understand it for example axillary hyperhidrosis is a medical term that most of us don't understand it means sweaty armpits and now that you know what axillary hyperhidrosis refers to you understand the words we use words in two different settings in public when we're talking listening or writing and in private when we're thinking words on a page we call text word spoken out loud we call speech and words inside our head we call thoughts it's important not to confuse Thoughts with the mental pictures or physical feelings that often accompany them to clarify the difference here's a little experiment take a few moments to think about what

1:02:16 you're going to fix for breakfast tomorrow morning then as you're thinking about it close your eyes and observe your thoughts as they happen notice what form they take close your eyes and do this for about half a minute okay what did you notice you may have noticed pictures in your mind you saw yourself cooking or eating as on a television screen we'll call these mental pictures images are not thoughts although they often occur together you may also have noticed feelings or Sensations in your body almost as if you were actually preparing or eating breakfast these two are not thoughts they are Sensations you also probably noticed some words passing through your head almost like a talking voice those words may have described what you intend to eat I'll

1:03:02 have toast with peanut butter or they may have said something like I don't know what I'll have these words in our heads are what we call thoughts therefore thoughts equal to words inside our heads images equal to pictures inside our heads Sensations equal to feelings inside our bodies it's important to remember this distinction because we deal with these internal experiences in different ways we'll be focusing on images and Sensations later in the book

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