The Happiness Trap (4 page)

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 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 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. And this false sense of control is only compounded by the myths we encountered in the last chapter.

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:

These unwanted outcomes lead to more unpleasant feelings, and thus even more attempts to control them. It’s a vicious 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 what you read. So with this in mind, take a moment to complete the following sentence: The thoughts/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, criticising or chastising yourself, going into denial, blaming others, using visualisation or self-hypnosis, reading 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/socialising/hobbies/exercise, or telling yourself ‘It will pass.’

Once you’ve done that, go through your list and for each item, ask yourself:

You probably discovered four things while doing this exercise:

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 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 ACT 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 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 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 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.

Increasing your self-awareness is the first step. Notice all the little things you do each day to dodge, change or blot out unpleasant 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 recognise 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 2 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 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.

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 2 of this book is mainly concerned with the first of these goals: transforming your inner psychological world. Part 3 of the book is mainly concerned with the second goal: creating a life worth living. As we progress through the book, we will work through these six core principles, one by one, but first let’s take a very brief look at all of them.

Defusion means relating to your thoughts in a new way, so they have much less impact and influence over you. As you learn to defuse painful and unpleasant thoughts, they will lose their ability to frighten, disturb or depress you. And as you learn to defuse unhelpful thoughts, such as self-limiting beliefs and harsh self-criticisms, they will have much less influence over your behaviour.

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 much less, and they ‘move on’ much more rapidly, instead of ‘hanging a round’ 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.)

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.)

The Observing Self is a powerful aspect of human consciousness, which has been largly 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.

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.

A rich and meaningful life is created through taking action. But not just any action. It happens through
effective
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 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...

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 colour. 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 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?

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 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,
chien
refers to the same animal, as does
cane
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 symbolised 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 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’; words 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 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’. 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, too, 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 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
=words inside our heads

Images
=pictures inside our heads

Sensations
=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. For now, we’re going to look at thoughts.

Humans rely a lot on their thoughts. Thoughts tell us about our life and how to live it. They tell us how we are and how we should be, what to do and what to avoid. And yet, they are nothing more than words—which is why, in ACT, we often refer to thoughts as stories. Sometimes they are true stories (called ‘facts’) and sometimes they are false. But most of our thoughts are neither true nor false. Most of them are either stories about how we see life (called ‘opinions’, ‘attitudes’, ‘judgements’, ‘ideals’, ‘beliefs’, ‘theories’ and ‘morals’) or about what we want to do with it (called ‘plans’, ‘strategies’, ‘goals’, ‘wishes’ and ‘values’). In ACT, our main interest in a thought is not whether it’s true or false, but whether it’s helpful; that is, does it help us create the life we want?

Imagine that a police officer catches an armed bank robber in a dramatic shoot-out. The next day we read about it in the newspapers. One particular newspaper may give a totally accurate account of what happened. It may have all the facts correct: the name of the police officer, the location of the bank, maybe even the precise number of shots fired. Another newspaper may give a less accurate account of what happened. It may exaggerate some of the details for the sake of drama or just get the facts wrong. But whether the story is totally accurate or false and misleading, it’s still just a story. And when we read that story, we aren’t actually present at the event. There is no shooting actually taking place before our eyes; all we have in front of us are words. The only people who can truly experience this event are those who are present when it happens: the ‘eyewitnesses’. Only an eyewitness actually hears the sound of the shots or sees the officer tackle the robber. No matter how much detail there is in the description, the story is not the event (and vice versa).

Of course, we know that newspaper stories are biased. They don’t give us
the absolute truth;
they give us an
angle
on what happened, which reflects the editorial viewpoint and attitude of the newspaper. (And let’s face it, some newspapers are far more sensationalistic than others.) We also know that at any point we wish, we can stop reading. If we’re not getting anything useful out of the story, we can put down the newspaper and walk outside.

Now, this may be obvious when it comes to stories in newspapers, but it’s not nearly so obvious when it comes to the stories in our minds. All too often we react to our thoughts as if they are the absolute truth, or as if we must give them all our attention. The psychological jargon for this reaction is ‘cognitive fusion’.

‘Cognition’ is the technical term for a product of the mind, such as a thought, image or memory. ‘Fusion’ means a blending or melding together. ‘Cognitive fusion’ means that the thought and the thing it refers to—the story and the event—become blended. Thus, we react to words about a lemon as if a lemon is actually present; we react to words in a crime novel as if someone really is about to be murdered; we react to words like ‘I’m useless’ as if we actually are useless; and we react to words like ‘I’m going to fail’ as if failure is a foregone conclusion. In a state of cognitive fusion, it seems as if:

Remember Michelle, who is plagued by thoughts such as, ‘I’m hopeless’, ‘I’m a lousy mother’ and ‘Nobody likes me’? In her state of cognitive fusion, those thoughts seemed to be the gospel truth. As a result, she felt terrible. ‘That’s not surprising’, you might think. ‘With thoughts like that, anyone would feel upset.’ Certainly that’s what Michelle believed—
at first.
But she soon discovered that she could instantly reduce the impact of such unpleasant thoughts by applying the simple technique described below. Read through the instructions first, then give it a go.

To begin this exercise, first bring to mind an upsetting thought that takes the form ‘I am X’, for example, ‘I am dumb’, ‘I am such a loser’ or ‘I’m so incompetent.’ Preferably pick a thought that often recurs and that usually bothers or upsets you when it does. Now hold that thought in your mind and believe it as much as you can. Focus on it for several seconds. Notice how it affects you.

Now take that thought and, in front of it, insert this phrase: ‘I’m having the thought that...’ Now run that thought again, this time with the phrase attached. Think to yourself, ‘I’m having the thought that I am X.’ Notice what happens.

Did you do it? Remember, you can’t learn to ride a bike just by reading about it—you actually have to get on the bike and pedal. And you won’t get much out of this book if you just read the exercises. To change the way you handle your painful thoughts, you actually have to
practise
some new skills. So if you haven’t done the exercise,
please
go back and do it now.

So what happened? You probably found that inserting the phrase, ‘I’m having the thought that...’ instantly gave you some distance from the actual thought itself; it helped you step back and observe it. (If you didn’t notice any difference, try it again with another thought.)

You can use this technique with any unpleasant thought. For instance, if your mind says, ‘Life sucks!’ then simply acknowledge, ‘I’m having the thought that life sucks!’ If your mind says, ‘I’ll never get over this!’ then simply acknowledge, ‘I’m having the thought that I’ll never get over this!’ If your mind says, ‘My bum looks huge in this!’ then simply acknowledge, ‘I’m having the thought that my bum looks huge in this!’

Using this phrase makes you aware of the process of thinking. This means you’re less likely to take your thoughts literally. Instead, you can step back and see those thoughts for what they are: words passing through your head and nothing more. We call this process ‘cognitive defusion’, or simply ‘defusion’. Cognitive
fusion
tells us that thoughts are
the truth
and
very important.
Cognitive
defusion
reminds us that thoughts are just words. In a state of defusion, we recognise:

In ACT we have many different techniques to facilitate defusion. Some of them may seem a bit gimmicky at first, but think of them like training wheels on a bicycle: once you can ride the bike, you don’t need them anymore. So try out each technique as we come to it and see which works best for you. Remember as you use the techniques, the aim of defusion is not to get rid of a thought, nor to make you like it or want it. The aim is simply to see the thought for what it really is—a string of words—and to let it be there without fighting it.

The technique that follows will call on your musical abilities. But don’t worry, no one will be listening but you.

Bring to mind a negative self-judgement that commonly bothers you when it comes up, for example, ‘I’m such an idiot.’ Now hold that thought in your mind and really believe it as much as you can for about ten seconds. Notice how it affects you.

Now imagine taking that same thought and singing it to yourself to the tune of ‘Happy Birthday’. Sing it silently inside your head. Notice what happens.

Now go back to the thought in its original form. Once again, hold it in your mind and believe it as much as you can, for about ten seconds. Notice how it affects you.

Now imagine taking that thought and singing it to the tune of ‘Jingle Bells’. Sing it silently inside your head. Notice what happens.

After doing this exercise, you probably found that by now you’re just not taking that thought quite so seriously; you’re just not buying into it as much. Notice that you haven’t challenged the thought at all. You haven’t tried to get rid of it, debated whether it’s true or false, or tried to replace it with a positive thought. So what has happened? Basically, you have ‘defused’ it. By taking the thought and putting it to music, you have realised that it is just made up of words, like the lyrics of a song.

The mind loves telling stories; in fact, it never stops. All day, every day, it tells you stories about who you are, what you’re like, what you should be doing with your life, what other people think of you, what’s wrong with the world, what will happen in the future, what went wrong in the past, and so on. It’s like a radio that never stops broadcasting.

Unfortunately, a lot of these stories are really negative—stories such as, ‘I’m not good enough’, ‘I’m stupid’, ‘I’m so fat’, ‘I hate my thighs’, ‘My life is terrible’, ‘There’s no hope for the future’, ‘Nobody likes me’, ‘This relationship is doomed’, ‘I can’t cope’, ‘I will never be happy’, and so on.