PNTV: The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris (#320)

Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to Philosopher's Notes tv. Today we've got another great book, the Happiness Trap by Russ Harris. The Happiness Trap Subtitle how to Stop Struggling and Start Living A Guide to act, the mindfulness based program for reducing stress, overcoming fear and creating a rich and meaningful life. Russ Harris is one of the world's leading thinkers and teachers of what's known as acceptance and commitment therapy. A C T pronounced act. It's a really cool mindfulness based therapy approach. We talked about it in another episode on another one of Russ great books called the Confidence Gap. I'm a huge fan of it. In our episode on John Gottman's the Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, I said if I ever needed to recommend a marriage therapist, it would be one of Gottman's trained therapists. Well, if I ever needed to recommend a therapist for an individual, it would be this act. It's extraordinarily powerful stuff. I love it. Philosopher's note, Bunch of my favorite big ideas and let's look at five of them now. We'll start with what is the Happiness Trap? Well, the Happiness Trap, chapter number one in the book is what he calls fairy tales. How does every single fairy tale end, right? You tell the story and they lived happily ever after. Everything needs to be super happy all the time. At the end of the day, that's just what it kind of the myth that our culture is shrouded in, right? This idea that it's natural and normal to be happy and if you're not, something's wrong with you and you should be able to control your thoughts and feelings and make them positive basically all the time. And if you haven't succeeded in that, then you need to work harder or you're just inherently flawed. That is the essence of what he calls the Happiness Trap. And he says unequivocally, look, our minds evolved over the last hundred thousand years in our species Homo sapiens, and millions of years before that to to be what he calls a don't get killed device, right? Back in the day, our minds needed to be attuned to all the dangers, all the threats that could show up in the world that would threaten our very existence. And we descended from the most vigilant of our ancestors, right? So our minds are naturally inclined to see the negative, essentially. And even the best Zen masters alive today can't turn off all negative thoughts. They can't perfectly control their minds every single moment of the day. And they've spent a lifetime shaping it. So we need to look at the myths and see that we're getting in trouble if we think things need to be positive all the time. And what we need to do instead is rather than fighting against and trying to control our minds, we need to accept that negativity is a part of life and then commit to living a values driven life. That's the basic idea of the happiness trap. Let's look at acts six core principles. Acceptance and commitment therapy. There are six core principles that Russ walks us through throughout the book. Let's take a quick look at them. 1. The first idea is we need to diffuse. Talk to you about what that means in a second. First, let's go through our second. The second thing we need to do is we need to expand. The third is we need to connect. The fourth is to observe. The fifth is to align with our values. And the sixth is to take committed action. Just as a side note, one of the reasons why I know that I just read this book yesterday, but one of the reasons why I know that now is, is that I was practicing making it stick. So we talked about the science of effective learning. When I was on a walk, I would sit there and as I was walking I would say, what are the six things? And I'd have to struggle. In the beginning. Oh, okay. Well, it was diffuse. It was expand. Then what was it? And that act of trying to retrieve was the best way for me to learn the material. So remember, you want to make it stick. Say it in your own words. It's the way to get it. Anyway, I digress. Diffuse. So the first step in acceptance and commitment therapy is to defuse. The first four aspects here are really mindfulness and they're based on accepting. Then we get into commitment and committed action. So to diffuse, this is what we do with our thoughts. We talked about this in the confidence gap in some more detail. So check that out for more. But the basic idea is we all have negative thoughts in our minds. All of us at different times have negative thoughts. Again, that's how our brains are wired and how we evolve to function. The question is not whether to get rid of those thoughts, because we can't. That's not the issue. Having negative thoughts is not the problem. The problem is fusing with those thoughts. We can't see that we're having negative thoughts. If you have a recurring thought in your head along the lines of I'm an idiot or I'm going to look like an idiot, or I did look like an idiot, which happened to be some of my favorite lines in My head that used to dominate my life, and I wasn't aware that they were going on in the background. We need to be able to notice that and then defuse from those thoughts. You can defuse by doing things like. And he gives a ton of examples in the book. Things like, I notice that I'm thinking that I might look like an idiot. Or I notice that I'm thinking that I think I looked like an idiot. That's diffusing, that's taking a step back and you're not being driven by that dominant thought. It's a really powerful thing. Or you can say, oh, there's the I'm an idiot story going on again. Way to diffuse. My favorite is just to simply say, thanks, mind. I appreciate that insight. Right. Super funny. So you want to diffuse. And he makes the point that it doesn't matter whether something is true or not or optimistic or pessimistic or whatever. What matters is, are the thoughts you're allowing to dominate your mind helpful or not? If they're not helpful, you want to separate from them and not be fused. The second thing we want to do is to expand. So if we use diffusion to deal with our thoughts, our negative thoughts, we want to use expansion to deal with our negative emotions. Again, we're never going to get rid of all of our negative emotions. Not going to happen. But what we can do is accept them with more grace and create space for the full range of human emotions. And he uses the example of giving a public speech. He says, look, I've given a lot of public speeches, but I get anxious before every single one of them. He says, look, nearly everyone who does it is going to experience the same thing, but I've created the space to allow for that anxiety to be present. We're going to talk about not struggling in a moment. So you want to allow the full spectrum of emotions, not try to get rid of them and allow that spaciousness by expanding. He talks about how to do that. We talk about it a little bit more in the note. The third idea, once you've diffused your thoughts, expanded to allow for your feelings, you want to connect with the present moment. You, you only have power in this moment, so you want to give your attention to it. The fourth idea here is the observing self. The observing self. He Sundays, we have three different aspects of ourselves, right? We have the thinking self, which is what is going on in your mind all the time when you're judging things and analyzing things, and positively, when you're planning and thinking forward. That's your thinking self. Then you have your physical self, which is obviously your body and physical self. And then there's the observing self. The observing self is the part of you that's always there that can observe what's going on, can observe your thinking mind and just see it. Well, guess what? The observing self is what drives this. If you don't have a strong observing self, you can't step back and diffuse from your thoughts. You can't step back and allow the spaciousness for your emotions. You. You can't step back and then consciously choose to connect to whatever you're doing in the moment. Cultivating the observing self is a very, very important thing, which is not talked about that often. But this is the aspect of meditation that we come back to. He obviously gives us exercises on how to cultivate that. So that's the mindfulness side of accepting. And then we want to commit, right? We do so by first identifying and getting really clear on and committing to our values. We're going to talk about that more in a moment. And then what do we do? Well, then we take committed action in line with our values. And in the last episode on the Confidence Gap, I talked about the fact that you can be an instant success. You don't need to wait until you achieve whatever goal you want. When you know your values and you live in integrity with them. Right now, boom, instant success. So some of my values include being purpose driven, helping people optimize, and I'm living that value right now. I am a success. My goal is to help one person with one idea. In this episode, boom, success. Now I have big goals that I want to achieve as well that are longer term. But I don't need to wait for them to experience the success of living in integrity with my values. Right now. Another value is I'm hard working and I'm gritty, right? Well, I get to experience that joy every single day when I show up consistently. So we want to live our values, know our values, and, and then live them with committed action. That's a long but yet very quick look at the six core principles. Diffuse, expand, connect, observe values and action. I like this stuff. Third big idea here is the struggle switch. The struggle switch. So imagine this. Imagine that you've got negative thoughts coming in. Maybe you're feeling anxious or angry or depressed or whatever. Negative thoughts or feelings. And then he says, you have a choice. You can struggle with that, which is the happiness trap. Thinking that you need to be totally free of those things, try to control those things, and then you Turn the struggle switch on. When you turn the struggle switch on and you try to fix all of those things and control them, paradoxically, you amplify the intensity of the negativity. He says it's like quicksand, those old Westerns, right where there was quicksand. Well, the bad guy would fall into the quicksand, and if he didn't know any better, he would struggle. And the more he struggled, the faster he sank. He says it's the exact same thing with us. We need to flip the struggle switch off. If that guy in the quicksand was calm, he could actually just kind of lay there and he wouldn't sink. Right. He could wait for help to come. We want to do the same thing. We want to diffuse from our negative thoughts. We want to. We want to expand to allow the negative feelings to be present. And by doing so, we actually reduce the amount of suffering. If you just allow the suffering to be the pain to be present, you reduce the suffering. In the note, I talk about Kristin Neff in Self Compassion, and she shares the fact that one of her mentors had a great formula. He said that suffering equals pain times resistance. And the idea here is that pain is a constant part of our lives. Different people will experience different levels of pain depending on what they're doing right? But pain, that is negative things in life are going to be present, but suffering is a function of how much we resist that pain. If you resist it, if you flip this struggle switch on, you will suffer more. If you can let go of the resistance, simply observe and accept whatever's going on in your life, you. You will reduce the amount of suffering that you experience. That's a really cool idea. Fourth big idea is values. So again, we go through this little list. Then we need to get clear on our values. He has some great exercises in the book. But basically, what's important to you? Who do you aspire to be? What do you want your relationships to look like? He says, if you didn't have. If you weren't driven by your emotions and your fears, who would you be? What would you do with your life? If you weren't driven by your negative emotions and your fears and you were capable of accepting those and committing to something bigger than yourself, what would you do? These are your values. This is your compass for your life. And he challenges us throughout the book. He gives a ton of exercises, and every single time he says, look, stop. Do these exercises. Don't just go through it. Don't fuse with the thought that you're Too busy or you'll come back to it later. You know you're not going to come back to it later. And then he challenges us to write it down. He says, the research is unequivocal. People who write down their goals, people who write down their values are much more likely to live in integrity with them. So slow down right now and ask yourself the question, what would you do? Who would you be? And what would you do if you weren't driven by your fears, if you weren't running away from your fears, if you actually accepted them and then committed to something that really mattered to you? What would you do? Press pause right now and write that down. Seriously, come back after you've written that down. Even if it's only 20 seconds worth of writing, take the time to reflect on your values so you can take action consistent with it and know that writing it down actually increases the likelihood you will engage in that behavior. Fifth, big idea is to visualize. He talks about the fact that visualization by elite performers, athletic performers, whatever domain, right, Broadway, music, etc. Visualize their performance. He says, that's an important thing to do. But he says unequivocally, he says, I strongly advise against you visualizing yourself as calm and confident while you do whatever it is you aspire to do. When you are in a high pressure situation, right? Which is what you want to visualize. You're not going to visualize walking to the grocery store, right? You're going to visualize something that's really important to you, that you want to perform at your best on. He says, don't imagine yourself as calm and confident because you don't have control over that emotional state, how you're feeling physiologically. And the odds are, if you're doing something that you really care about and it's a high pressure situation, you are not going to feel calm and you may not feel confident, but the exciting thing is that doesn't matter because you know how to diffuse, you know how to expand, you know how to connect and to do your best consistent with your values. So he says, don't imagine. I strongly advise you not to imagine and visualize being calm and confident. You can't control those things. Instead, focus on visualize doing your best, doing your absolute best, saying the things you think will really be effective, doing the things that you think will be effective. And then if you need to visualize something, visualize how you will deal with any potential nerves that come up and fear that comes up, and how you will hold the space for it. It's a really powerful distinction, which is very much like Gabriel Oettingen's Rethinking Positive Thinking, the Whole Whoop process, or Kelly McGonigal's don't try to make yourself calm. Take that energy and make it positive, right? Move from negative to neutral to positive of I'm excited, right? So imagine that energy. Imagine yourself doing your best rather than trying to imagine yourself being calm and confident. It's a very cool, simple, but powerful distinction. Write down your values so you can take committed action and integrity with them. Flip the struggle switch off. Don't sink in the quicksand. Suffering equals pain times resistance. Quit resisting. He has a funny line in there. He says, look, you get angry about your anxiety and then you get depressed about your anxiety. It's awesome. So quit struggling. Quit resisting the pain. Just expand, allow it to be present and then let it play in the background while you do what needs to get done. Accept and commit. We talked about our six elements and then we talked about the myths that lead to a trap. Your brain's evolved to detect the negative. You are not going to shut off the negative. Don't try to control your thoughts and feelings. You're never going to be able to do so perfectly. But what you can do is to create the space for these thoughts and feelings to float in and then to pass by while you continue to do what needs to get done, whether you feel like it or not. That's a quick look at the Happiness Trap. Really recommend it. This is, as I said in the Intro act is one of my favorite approaches these days. Russ, I appreciate you and your wisdom and look forward to an interview in the not too distant future. What was your favorite big idea? Think about it. If you haven't done the Values Written journal exercise, get on that. Have another awesome day. See you. Hi, this is Brian. I hope you enjoyed that PNTV episode. A lot of people don't know all the stuff I do beyond these free videos I share on YouTube, so I thought I'd do a quick video to give you an overview of our membership program that you can get access to and get a ton of other stuff. So here's a quick look. Ten bucks a month. Join the Optimal Living Membership program. You get Instant Access to 250 Philosopher's Notes on some of the best Optimal Living books out there. Old school classics, Positive psychology, Modern stuff, Mindfulness, Peak Performance, purpose, neuroscience, wealth, etc. What you may not know is that in addition to the PNTV episodes, I create PDFs on all these great books. So six page PDFs. 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