The Illustrated Happiness Trap – Book Notes

Reading Time: 4 minutes
The Illustrated Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start LivingThe Illustrated Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living by Russ Harris
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Good intro to ACT. Read the book in a single setting. Useful format.

View all my reviews

Develop the courage to solve those problems that can be solved, the serenity to accept those problems that can’t be solved, and the wisdom to know the difference.

The ACT Serenity Chalenge

Book Notes

  • Dispelling Myths
    1. Happiness is the natural state for human beings.
    2. If you’re not happy, you’re defective.
      • ACT Principle: The normal thinking processes of a healthy mind naturally create psychological suffering.
    3. To create a better life, we must get rid of negative feelings.
      • Connect to Daylio.
    4. You should be able able to control what you think and feel.
  • Mechanisms to Cope with painful thoughts and feelings:
    1. Fight:
      • Suppression
      • Arguing with yourself
      • Taking charge (top-down regulation)
      • Self-bullying
    2. Flight:
      • Avoidance/hiding/escaping
      • Distraction
      • Zoning out/numbing
      • Substance abuse
  • Challenging traditional advice:
    • Check the facts and correct mental errors
    • Make the story more positive
    • Tell yourself a better story
    • Distract yourself
    • Push the story away
    • Debate the truth of the story
    • According to ACt, the strategies above rarely work in the long run (goes against CBT). “Negative stories aren’t the problem! The problem is getting caught up in them and letting them dictate your actions.”
Fusion:Connection:
DistractedEngaged
JudgementalDefused from judgments
Easily bored, knows it allCurious
Past or futurePresent
Closed offOpen
Thinking self struggles against realityObserving self notices and opens to reality
The differences between fusion and connection

If I let this thought guide what I do, will it help me create the life I want?

  • Is being one with your thoughts ever helpful? (i.e. is fusion ever helpful?)
    • “It can be. Planning your future, mentally rehearsing your actions, getting lost in a book, can all be helpful types of fusion.”
  • Our mind is a bit like a Radio Doom & Gloom.
    • If it’s broadcasting a helpful story, tune in, and let it guide your actions.
    • If it’s broadcasting something unhelpful, then just let chatter away in the background.
    • It doesn’t make sense to argue with the radio.
  • “But though you may not have direct control over your feelings, you can directly control your actions. The idea that emotions control actions is a powerful illusion.
  • The three phases of emotion creation:
    1. A significant event occurs either internally (a thought) or externally.
      • Your brain registers the event as important (connected to salience, dopamine, and prediction error).
    2. Your brain evaluates the situation and prepares you for appropriate action.
      • Good or bad? Interoception and valence. Vipassana’s concept of craving and aversion.
      • Stay or go? Fight or flight response.
    3. The mind tells a story about the experience which others may or may not agree with.
      • Closely related to How Emotions Are Made. Lisa would argue that the brain doesn’t react to an event but rather makes predictions. I think she would agree that emotions are similar to a story.
      • Emotions arise from physical changes in the body.
  • NOTE: Mindful breathing is NOT a relaxation technique or a way to avoid feelings. It’s an anchor to hold steady in the midst of an emotional storm.
    • Even one slow deep breath can help to anchor you until the storm passes.

To create a rich and full life we need to act on our values.

The two essentials for making life rich, full, and meaningful:

  1. Engage mindfully in whatever you’re doing.
  2. Make sure what you’re doing is meaningful.
Values:Goals:
A direction you want to keep moving inSomething you want to get, have, own, or achieve.
An ongoing process with no endCan be “ticked off the list”
Goals versus Values
  • What do you really want in life?
    • To be happy, to be rich, to be successful, a great job, someone to love me, to marry and have kids.
    • These are not values. They are goals.
Health
physical, psychological, and spiritual
Leisure
fun, games, relaxation, sports, hobbies, creativity
Work/Education
includes unpaid wok, apprenticeships, and self-education (reading books)
Relationships
friends, family, coworkers, neighbors, etc.
The Four Domains of Life

Five steps to set up meaningful goals:

  1. Summarize your top values in a specific domain
  2. Set an immediate goal:
    • Easy, simple, specific enough to be able to get done today.
  3. Set some short-term goals – week
  4. Medium-term goals – months ish
  5. Long-term goals – years
  • The downside of goals:
    • We have a choice:
      1. to find meaning, where and now, by living by your values.
        • OR
      2. To be miserable by focusing on a goal you haven’t achieved yet.

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