Harris The Happiness Trap

Stop Struggling, Start Living
1. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-1-991001-13-9
Verlag: PublishDrive
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 320 Seiten

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, 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.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Harris, Russ

Leseproben

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 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 like 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 might see drinking alcohol as an away move. But if someone is a professional wine-taster, then might see drinking alcohol as a towards move. , 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, , 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:

Let’s unpack that. Suppose I stay in bed and keep hitting the snooze button primarily to avoid dealing with some really important tasks — 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 — that’s a towards move. Yet for someone else, that might 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 can ever decide whether something is workable for .

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 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

‘Getting hooked’ and ‘away moves’ = psychological suffering

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...