The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living

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The Observing Self: Bringing a pure awareness in which you observe your challenging, unpleasant thoughts and feelings without being hurt by them or subsumed by them I agree with the central theory. Humans naturally and inevitably experience a whole range of emotion, including distressing emotion, and it’s much healthier to remain in a non-judgmental, accepting place as opposed to getting all wrapped up in futile attempts to push unpleasant emotion away (bottling) or simply letting it consume and paralyze you (dwelling).

Values: Clarifying what is most important to you in your life, what sort of person you want to be, and not just focusing on external goals – focusing more on the expression of those values (e.g., “I want to practice connection with people” instead of “I want to be married to a romantic partner”) An excellent book I would recommend to anyone interested in mental health, either their own or those around them, or the concept at large. In The Happiness Trap, Russ Harris crafts a persuasive, intelligent argument for why we should stop aiming for happiness and instead aim for a mindful, values-driven life. His ideas in this book come from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), a newer, third-wave cognitive behavioral therapy that has shown promising effectiveness in research studies. He starts the book by dispelling “happiness myths,” such as how happiness is the natural state for all humans, or how to live a better life we have to get rid of negative feelings. After this first section, he goes on to provide several strategies for increasing psychological flexibility, core principles that help us cultivate a rich and meaningful life. I will provide a super brief synopsis of each one: If you are willing to read just one self-help book - this is the one. Especially if you prefer advice on how to find out what you like and why you are better off behaving in a certain way, to 'just so' statements about beliefs you must adopt and the way you should think-feel-behave to achieve a specific goal / way of life some guru says is best.Today’s middle class lives better than did the Royalty of not so long ago, and yet humans today don’t seem very happy.” – p. 2 Essentially, ACT suggests that there is no way to eliminate pain in life, so learning to accept it and channel your energy into activities that have value to you leaves you more prepared to live effectively and without a lot of wasted time fighting reality. Connection: Staying fully aware of the present moment and letting yourself experience the present moment with openness, interest, and receptiveness Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain – p. 216

Additionally, the way that Harris describes the underlying theory of ACT sure sounds a lot like Buddhist philosophy, even though it hasn’t been labeled as such. Life is pain; non-attachment is the solution; the importance of mindfulness; the benefit of breath work… This all starts to feel a lot like cultural appropriation and philosophical plagiarism. I don’t think most people believe THESE myths. I think they believe truths that are very closely related to these that get twisted.Aprender los principios de la ACT y aplicarlos no es tarea fácil. En ese sentido, para seguir el libro completamente se requiere tiempo y dedicación. Pero más allá de la presentación de una destreza, pienso que el libro trata de transmitir una filosofía de vida, basada no en el disfrute sino en la aceptación, que puede hacer de la vida una experiencia más completa. El aprendizaje más destacado que haría de este libro es: si aceptamos los pensamientos o sentimientos negativos, dejamos que estén ahí y vayan y vengan a su antojo, a lo mejor no vamos a ser más felices, pero podremos conectar mejor con el presente. En ese sentido, el rótulo que la editorial ha añadido "Deja de sufrir, comienza a vivir", me parece totalmente inadecuado y poco representativo de los contenidos de este libro. 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.