The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living

Product Information

Sooner or later we all will come face-to-face with a crisis, disappointment and failure. This means that in one form or another, we are all going to experience painful thoughts and feelings. The word ‘happiness’ has two very different meanings. Usually it refers to a feeling: a sense of pleasure, gladness or gratification. Letting the radio play on without giving it much attention is very different from actively trying to ignore it.” – p. 66 Urge surfing: urge arises, two choices: act upon it or don't. Thus, once aware of an urge, ask yourself, "If I act on this urge, will I be acting like the person I want to be? Will it help take my life in the direction I want to go?"

This is only to be expected. If we live a full life, we will feel the full range of human emotions. I've been thinking a lot about these things for both the big and little challenges that I face each day, and I have found them useful. This isn't a book that tells you how to be happy all the time, because that is not possible. But it does help you live a life of fulfillment, which I think is what matters most. I also believe that a fulfilling life is a joyful life--note that I do not say a "happy" or "ever-pleasant" life, as I think there is an important distinction. Thanking your mind with warmth and humor and with a genuine appreciation for the amazing storytelling ability of your mind I don’t think most people believe THESE myths. I think they believe truths that are very closely related to these that get twisted.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?

It must reveal something if I feel cagy about advertising that I've read a book subtitled "How to Stop Struggling and Start Living." Who doesn't imagine people are paying way more attention to your insecurities than they really are? "Gracious, I didn't know Josh was struggling! The poor dear. Let's make him some soup." Try telling a victim of rape or severe domestic violence, for instance, to “just make space” for their anger and shame and trauma. Or telling a grieving wife who lost her husband of 60 years and is now potentially homeless with no support that she should “accept” her fear and heartache and helplessness. I suppose that ACT might be appropriate after some time has passed and folks like this are experiencing more stability, but I also think that there are some things that need deeper exploration than ACT can offer.But the second half of the book, either Harris got less annoying or either I learnt to look past my annoyances, because Harris starts to make clear that control strategies that do not harm you are not bad and that you should try whatever works for you and let go of the parts that don’t help. And although I haven’t experienced some major change in my life (yet), there is a truth to most parts of ACT, especially that connecting to your values and taking action accordingly will help you create a more meaningful life. I also think it’s true that we shouldn’t always want to fight bad feelings and just let them be instead. But there are some areas in life where I don’t think ACT is enough. I still believe that if I have certain bad thoughts, I should argue with them; not because I want to control them or believe I can’t handle them otherwise, but because in some situations “acceptance” is not the solution. Moreover, I believe that this also lies within ACT — when you have an unhelpful thought or urge and think about whether it brings you closer to your values, isn’t this a form of “helpful” arguing with yourself? 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. Expansion: Making additional room for these thoughts, images, memories, and feelings while allowing them to come and go as they please, without fighting them If you’re living a goal-focused life, then no matter what you have, it’s never enough…find the values underlying your goals.” – p. 198

Harris did mention several times throughout the book to take what works and leave the rest. I just hope he meant that we could leave the whole thing if necessary and determined to be clinically appropriate. As a therapist, I can’t imagine he meant anything else so I’m just going to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one.When I got into self-help books, I had two problems I wanted to solve: how to become likable and how to solve an addiction I'd had since I was 13-years-old. The books were able to help with the first, but nothing I tried worked with the addiction. That was until I started seeing a psychologist trained in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). The end of the book is great. It teaches how to make real change that brings real happiness. Happiness comes from living according to your values. He urges us to spend REAL time discovering our values. Not our goals, or what society tells us to care about, but what we REALLY care about. Figure those values out, then set immediate, short medium, and long term goals that are congruent with your values. The author (Dr. Harris) seems to assume that all his readers have the same thought processes, make the same mistakes, and can be fixed the same way. A gem. Russ Harris provides the most approachable primer to what you will learn in a long course of ACT, one of my favourite modes of therapy. This book is geared slightly more toward the clients and patients than the therapists, but contains so many exercises that can be used in session. It looks at upping awareness of the pernicious cycles we get bogged down in, while nudging us in the direction of a value-driven life, as opposed to a goal-driven one. For me, it’s the perfect combination of cognitive-behavioral therapy, Eastern practices, mindfulness, emotion-focused therapy, and a big one, existential therapy.

Committed Action: Taking effective action in line with your values, no matter what the outcome and even if it is hard I take issue with two things in relation to this book. First, there were a few times as I was reading that the tone felt condescending. I felt very little empathy or understanding in relation to how difficult it can be to endure the kinds of things that go beyond the basic, universal aches and pains of life. I found this particularly weird given that the author is a therapist himself… I want to hate this book. It's so patronising and at times seriously flawed, logic-wise. It explains things with lots of exclamation marks! And drawn-out metaphors! And basically it's just the author going on, without drawing on any examples from the real world!Don't struggle with the urge, because then it's hard to focus on effective action. So rather than try to resist, control, or suppress it, the aim in ACT is to make room for it, to give it enough time and space to expend all its energy--i.e. to practice expansion.