The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living: A Guide to ACT

by Russ Harris

If you’re giving to charity to get rid of thoughts that you’re selfish, or you’re throwing yourself into work to avoid feelings of inadequacy, or you’re looking after 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.

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.

The fact is, we don’t choose most of the thoughts in our head. We do choose a small number of them, when we’re actively planning or mentally rehearsing or being creative, but most of the thoughts in our head just “show up” of their own accord. We have many thousands of useless or unhelpful thoughts every day. And no matter how harsh, cruel, silly, vindictive, critical, frightening, or downright weird they may be, we can’t prevent them from popping up. But just because they appear doesn’t mean we have to take them seriously.