Review Book "The Happiness Trap" Chapter 19-27

Review Book "The Happiness Trap" Chapter 19-27

Author: Russ Harris

Hello good readers!!! Very nice to meet you again in my new post 😁 I hope you will enjoy when you read my new review from chapter 19 up to 27 😀 

Chapter 19 A Confusing Word

In this chapter, writer want to give you information about a confusing word. The writer tell that word "mindfulness" is a confusing word. Why mindfulness be a confusing word? Because First we need to know definition of mindfulness.  It’s a slightly confusing word because it has nothing to do with having ‘a full mind’. Different books will give you different definitions of ‘mindfulness’, depending on their content. This definition tells us several things. Firstly, mindfulness is a conscious process; something we do deliberately. Secondly, it’s not a thinking process; it’s about awareness. Thirdly, it’s about bringing our awareness to the present moment; in other words, paying attention to what’s happening here and now. Fourthly, it’s about doing this with a particular attitude: one of openness, interest and receptiveness to our experience, rather than one of struggle, judgment and avoidance.

The purpose of this chapter is to point out the significant differences between ACT and other mindfulness-based approaches. First, ACT Is About Taking Action. Second, ACT Is Not A Religion Or A Spiritual Belief System. Third, ACT Is Not Meditation. Fourth, ACT Is Not A Pathway To Enlightenment. Fifth, ACT Is Not Based On Just One Person’s Life Experience.

Chapter 20 If You're Breathing, You're Alive

This chapter give you information about very important still breathing. When you're getting problems, you should take a deep breath and let it make you feel better. Because when you're still breathing, you can feel that your problems will go slowly. Breathing is wonderful. Not only does it keep you alive, it reminds you that you’re alive.The idea of Breathing to Connect is to increase self-awareness, accept what you’re thinking and feeling, and connect with where you are and what you’re doing. Once you’ve done this, you’re in the best psychological space to take effective—that is, life-enhancing—action, if that should seem like the thing to do right then.

Chapter 21 Tell It Like It Is

This chapter inform you that when you're in problems and don't know how to handle your urge and your emotions just let it and say everything you want to say. And this chapter also give information when you have getting tired, you should do some activities that make your emotions and your feelings will be less slowly. It can help you to get better on your feelings, emotions and especially on your body.

Chapter 22 The Big Story

This chapter tell you that the big story is a story of your life. The story that tell all of about who you are and what's problem you have. This chapter also tell about the story problem that everyone have. Most of problems that they have is about low self-esteem. Self-esteem is a bunch of thoughts about what sort of person you are. And here’s the key thing: self-esteem is not a fact; it’s just an opinion. That’s right, it’s not the truth; it’s just an opinion—nothing more than a highly subjective judgment, made by your thinking self.

Chapter 23 You Are Not Who You Think You Are

In this chapter you will know that you're not who you think you're. It means that you're not always be what you think who you are, but sometime you're being a observing self not just a thinking self. The point is you can't think that you are who you think you are only. You more than it. So stop to think it too much. If you always think like that, you will never know what you can get in your life.

Part 3 Creating A Life Worth Living

Chapter 24 Follow Your Heart

In this chapter, writer give information for reader to follow your heart when you're doing something. The writer also wrote that your values is very important in lead a life. Values is something that suitable with what there is in your heart. When you go through life guided by your values, not only do you gain a sense of vitality and joyfulness, but you also experience that life can be rich, full and meaningful, even when bad things happen. So, it's very important to do something based on your values and your heart.

Chapter 25 The Big Question

The questions in this chapter refer to many different sorts of relationships, such as:

• Your relationship with your own body

• Your relationship with your work

• Your relationship with nature.

Our lives revolve around relationships—with ourselves, others and everything we encounter in the world around us. The more you act in line with your values, the better will be the quality of those relationships and therefore the more enjoyable and rewarding your life will be.

Chapter 26 Troubleshooting Values

This chapter give you information about how we do the troubleshooting values. The reality is, there will be times that you have to prioritize your values; to focus more on some domains of life than others. This calls for soul-searching; for asking yourself, ‘What’s most important at this moment in my life, given all my conflicting concerns?’ Then choose to act on that value, rather than wasting your time uselessly worrying about what you might be giving up or missing out on. There are many other demons that will try to deter you—but you already know that they’re only a bunch of words. So let them be and focus your attention where it’s most useful: on plotting the course, steering the ship on wards and thoroughly appreciating the voyage.

Chapter 27 The Thousand-Mile Journey

This chapter give you information about steps to lead the thousand-mile journey in your life. 

Ancient Chinese proverb by the great philosopher Lao-Tzu said: ‘A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.’ And there are five steps to get meaningful life in your thousand-mile journey. Summarize Your Values, Set An Immediate Goal, Set Some Short-term Goals, Set Some Medium-range Goals, Set Some Long-term Goals.

When we move in a valued direction, every moment of our journey becomes meaningful. So engage fully in everything you do along the way. Practice your mindfulness skills: be open to and interested in your experience. That way, you’ll find it stimulating, satisfying and invigorating, even during those times when the going gets tough.

I think its enough, I hope you can get something that meaningful for you. Don't forget to leave your best comment and critic for me. ❤

Review Book "The Happiness Trap" Chapter 10-18

Review book the Happiness Trap

HELLO GOOD READERS!!! 😍 welcome again in my blog. For the first, I'de like to say thankyou becuase you've come in my blog. This book has a lot of chapter, so please enjoy reading this review 😀

Chapter 10 How Do You Feel
This chapter tell about how emotions can control our behaviour. Because sometimes people not realize that they're controlled by their emotions. Emotions like the weather. They're always present and constantly changing. As we know that the emotions always appear suddenly based on what we feel and think. And sometimes people can't control their emotions, but their emotions that control them.

Chapter 11 The Struggle Switch
This chapter tell about the struggle switch that everyone has. The struggle switch is like an emotional amplifier-switch it ON and we can have anger about our anxiety, anxiety about our anger, depression about our depression, or guilt about our guilt. we could even have guilt about our anger about our anxiety-and then depression about that!. in the struggle switch we can know how our feelings work in the different situation. its called the struggle switch.

Chapter 12 How The Struggle Switch Developed
            In this chapter you will know about how our mind can detect and judge some emotions become bad or negative and some emotions become good or positive. We can judge some emotions bad or negative based on what we have felt. If the emotions can come pleasant and happy for us, automatically we can think and say that it’s a good emotions. Moreover, when the emotions can come an unpleasant feelings and an uncomfortable feelings for us, we can judge it as a bad or negative emotions. In this chapter you’ll also know about how the mind adds to our emotional discomfort. Judging is one of the most common ways that our mind adds to our emotional discomfort, however, there are plenty of others. Judging is something that we can always do realize or not.  We don’t escape from that emotions because of what the mind said. We should say thank to mind and the emotions will be make us better than we never thank to our mind. So, we should say thank you to our mind for all that the mind did for us. 

Chapter 13 Staring Down Demons

            This chapter give us information about how bad or negative or sadness emotions can make us uncontrolled. Though this is a common fear, it isn’t based in fact. Remember, ACT has been proven effective with a wide range of psychological problems, from anxiety and depression to addiction and even schizophrenia. This emotions can make us being uncontrolled person in manage our emotions.

Chapter 14 Troubleshooting Expansion

         In this chapter, you will know about troubleshooting expansion. This chapter will give you information about what you should do when you have problems and how you accept your unpleasant feelings. This chapter will give you an expansion about how to manage your feelings and your emotions when you are in down position. You can remember these three steps with a simple acronym: A=Accept your internal experience. C=Choose a valued direction. T=Take action. 

Chapter 15 Urge Surfing

         Emotions prime your body to take action; that is, every emotion gives you the impulse to act in a certain way. We call that impulse an ‘urge’. And we experience all kinds of urges besides those mainly associated with emotions. The Observe Acronym, whenever you find yourself having troublesome urges, there’s a basic routine you can follow. You can remember it with the acronym OBSERVE: O=Observe, B=Breathe, S=Surf, E=Expand, R=Refocus, V=Values, E=Engage.

Chapter 16 More Demons

       In reading through your list, you have probably already noticed a variety of unhelpful thoughts and unpleasant feelings. The next step is to make some time to practice defusion and/or expansion with these demons. What valued activities can you do in the next few days that will give you a chance to meet these demons, see them for what they are and make peace with them? Set yourself a few goals: specify the time, the place and the activity you’ll do. Then engage yourself fully in that activity. And if you have trouble with any of this, don’t be discouraged. 

Chapter 17 The Time Machine

     This chapter give you information about what is the time machine. The thinking self is rather like a time machine: it continually pulls us into the future and the past. We spend a huge amount of time worrying about, planning for or dreaming of the future, and a huge amount of time rehashing the past. This makes perfect sense in terms of evolution.

Chapter 18 The Dirty Dog

     In this chapter you will know about relation between connection and unpleasant feelings. If it’s hard to connect fully with pleasant events, then it’s natural that we should so easily disconnect from the unpleasant ones. Whenever we encounter an unpleasant event, we naturally try our best to get rid of it or avoid it. This chapter also give you information about when you're washing your dirty dog it has connection with a useful chore, a task you've been avoiding, and build your muscle, build your lives. It give advantages for you. The important things that we can take from it is we can forget and negotiate unpleasant feelings. 

Thank you for reading 💕

Review book "The Happiness Trap" Chapter 1-9

Review book "The Happiness Trap"

About the book
Title : The Happiness Trap
Author : Russ Harris
Pages : 240 Pages

Hello everyone, so happy to meet you again in my blog  😄 Now , I want to share my review about book that entitled "The Hapinness Trap". You can see the cover book below! 

     The book is based on a growing body of scientific research that suggests we are all caught in a powerful psychological trap. And the book told that we lead our lives ruled by many unhelpful and inaccurate beliefs about happiness ideas widely accepted by society because ‘everyone knows they are true’. And it make a good sense for you,  that’s why you encounter them again and again in nearly every self-help book you ever read. But these erroneous beliefs are both the cause of and the fuel for a vicious cycle, in which the more we try to find happiness, the more we suffer. And this psychological trap is so well hidden, we don’t even have a clue that we’re caught and controlled by it. That's the bad news. 

The good news is there is hope. You can learn how to recognise the ‘happiness trap’ and, more importantly, you can learn how to climb out of it—and stay out. This book will give you all the skills and knowledge you need to do it. It’s based on a revolutionary new development in human psychology: a powerful model for change known as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). ACT (pronounced as the word ‘act’) was created in the United States of America by psychologist Steven Hayes, and was further developed by a number of his colleagues, including Kelly Wilson and Kirk Stroshal. The aim of ACT is to help you live a rich, full and meaningful life, while effectively handling the pain that inevitably comes your way. ACT achieves this through the use of six powerful principles, which are very different from the so-called commonsense strategies suggested in most self-help books. 

 Now, I'd like to review chapter 1 till chapter 9. 

Part 1 How You Set Your Happiness Trap

Chapter 1 Fairytales

     In this chapter, writer wanted to share a story for you that your life and your happiness not like a story in fairytales that always have happy ending in the end of the story. And writer also want to share one of four major myths that make up the basic blueprint for the happiness trap. Let’s take a look at these myths, one by one. The first myth is "Happiness Is The Natural State For All Human Beings". The second myth is "If You’re Not Happy, You’re Defective".  The third myth is "To Create A Better Life, We Must Get Rid Of Negative Feelings".  The fourth myth is "You Should Be Able To Control What You Think And Feel". These four powerful myths provide the basic blueprint for the happiness trap. They set us up for a struggle we can never win: the struggle against our own human nature. It is this struggle that builds the trap. In this book also there is The Illusion Of Control. The illusion of control explained how human minds has given us an enormous advantage as a species. It enables us to make plans, invent things, coordinate actions, analyse problems, share knowledge, learn from our experiences and imagine new futures. There is also about How We Learn About Control. 

Chapter 2 Vicious Cycles 

     In this chapter, you will know about what is vicious cycles. Vicious cycles is a form from dissatisfaction feelings that appears of human mind. There are nine sign of vicious cycles. Fisrt, What’s Your Problem?. Whatever the problem is, it undoubtedly gives rise to unpleasant thoughts and feelings—and you’ve probably spent a lot of time and effort trying to escape them or blot them out. But suppose those attempts to get rid of your bad thoughts and feelings are actually lowering the quality of your life? In ACT we have a saying for this: ‘The solution is the problem'. Next, How Does A Solution Become A Problem?, The Problem With Control, Using Control Excessively, Trying To Use Control In Situations Where It Can’t Work, When Using Control Stops Us From Doing What We Value, How Much Control Do We Actually Have?, What Has Control Got To Do With The Happiness Trap?, How Do I Escape The Happiness Trap?.

Part 2 Transforming Your Inner World

Chapter 3 The Six Core Principles Of ACT

     In this chapter, writer told about six core principles of ACT. First principle is Defusion. Defusion means relating to your thoughts in a new way, so they have much less impact and influence over you.second principle is Expansion. Expansion means making room for unpleasant feelings, sensations and urges, instead of trying to suppress them or push them away. The third principle is Connection. 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 fourth principle is The Observing Self. The Observing Self is a powerful aspect of human consciousness, which has been largly ignored by western psychology until now. The fifth principle is Values. Values is an essential step for making life meaningful. The last is Commited action. Committed action: action that you take again, and again, and again, no ĺmatter how many times you fail, or go off track. So ‘committed action’is shorthand for ‘committed, effective, valued action’.

Chapter 4 The Great Storyteller

     The great storyteller is Mind. Why? Because 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.

Chapter 5 True Blues

     In ACT, whether a thought is true is not that important. Far more important is whether it’s helpful. Truthful or not, thoughts are nothing more than words. In the part of The Stories Never Stop, we can know that our mind never stop telling stories—not even when we’re asleep.In the part of Not Taking A Thought Seriously, we can know that we ought to bring our thought to mind a thought that normally upset you. And in part of Thanking Your Mind, you should to thank to your mind. This is a simple and effective defusion technique. When your mind starts coming up with those same old stories, simply thank it. You could say to yourself things like, ‘Thank you, Mind! How very informative!’ or ‘Thanks for sharing!’ or ‘Is that right? How fascinating!’ or simply, ‘Thanks, Mind!’. And another technique that will help you take your thoughts less seriously. Read through the instructions first and then give it a go. This is Thesilly voices Technique. This technique is particularly good with recurrent negative self-judgements. Find a thought that upsets or bothers you. Focus on the thought for ten seconds, believing it as much as possible. Notice how it affects you. 

Chapter 6 Troubleshooting Defusion 

     Many of us, when we first encounter defusion, fall into the same trap as John; we start trying to use defusion as a control strategy. Remember: • A controlstrategy is any attempt to change, avoid or get rid of unwanted thoughts and feelings. • Controlstrategies are problematic when they are used excessively or in situations where they can’t work, or when using them reduces our quality of life in the long term. Defusion is the very opposite of a control strategy; it’s an acceptance strategy. In ACT, rather than attempting to change, avoid or get rid of unpleasant thoughts and feelings, our aim is to accept them. Acceptance doesn’t mean you have to like your uncomfortable thoughts and feelings; it just means you stop struggling with them. When you stop wasting your energy on trying to change, avoid or get rid of them, you can put that energy into something more useful instead. In part of how to use defusion, we can know how to use the defusion correctly. Defusion is not some clever way to control your feelings. It’s simply an acceptance technique. The point is, once you allow them to be there without a struggle, you can put your energy and attention into activities you value. But if you expect that defusing your thoughts will make them go away, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment; you’re falling back into the agenda of control—the happiness trap. The aimis to accept your thoughts, not to get rid of them. 

Chapter 7 Look Who's Talking

    

     ACT recognise two different parts of yourself: the ‘thinking self’ and the ‘observing self’. The thinking self is the part of you that thinks, plans, judges, compares, creates, imagines, visualises, analyses, remembers, day dreams and fantasises. The observing self is fundamentally different from the thinking self. The observing self doesn’t think; it is the part of you that is responsible for focus, attention and awareness. While it can observe or pay attention to your thoughts, it can’t produce them. Whereas the thinking self thinks about your experience, the observing self registers your experience directly. Defusion skills are essential for escaping the happiness trap. If you can see your thoughts for what they are—just words—and let them come and go without focusing on them, then you can put your time and energy into more important things, such as taking action to create the life you want. Your mind will never stop telling you unpleasant stories (at least, not for long)—that’s just what minds do. So let’s be realistic. The fact is, you will get hooked up and reeled in by these stories again and again. That’s the bad news. The good news is, you can make dramatic improvements. You can learn to get hooked much less often. You can learn to recognise much faster when you have been hooked, and you can learn to get much better at unhooking yourself! All these abilities will help to keep you out of the happiness trap.

Chapter 8 Scary Pictures 

     The defusion techniques we use with images are very similar to the ones we use with thoughts. Initially, we need to focus on these images in order to practise defusing them. But the ultimate aim is to be able to let these images come and go without giving them much attention at all. (It’s like having the television on in the background, without really watching it.) Defusion techniques help us to see these images for what they are: nothing more than colourful pictures. Once we recognise this, we can let them be there without fighting them, without judging them and without trying to avoid them. In other words, we can accept them. Acceptance means we no longer have to fear them. Acceptance means we no longer waste our precious energy on struggling with them. And ultimately, acceptance means we can focus on something more constructive. Defusing Unpleasant Images should do by you if you want to avoid from it.

Chapter 9 Demons On The Boat 

     On this chapter you will know about how demons affect you in every situations. There two news from it, bad and good news. The bad news is when we start focusing on your values and on taking action to change your life for the better, these demons are going to challenge you. And what I guarantee you is this: whatever meaningful changes you start to make in your life, those demons will rear their ugly heads and try to discourage you. And the good news is if you keep steering your ship toward shore (no matter how much the demons threaten you), many of them will realize they’re having no effect and will give up and leave you alone.  And more importantly, you’ll find that you can let them hang around without being bothered by them. Furthermore, if you keep sailing towards that shore, you won’t just have demons for company; you’ll soon encounter angels and mermaids and dolphins.

I think its enough from now. I'm really sorry for all of mistakes that I've did. 

Synopsis The Happiness Trap

Synopsis The Happiness Trap

About the book
Title : The Happiness Trap
Author : Russ Harris
Pages : 240 Pages

Hello everyone, nice to meet you my blog again 😄 Now , I want to share synopsis about book that title The Happiness Trap. You can see the cover book below!

This book tells that happiness is something that very needed. The word ‘happiness’ has two very different meanings. Usually it refers to a feeling: a sense of pleasure, gladness or gratification. And the other meaning of happiness is ‘a rich, full and meaningful life’. Based on the second meaning of happiness, we know that people think happiness is when we are being rich. Rich be a standard to know that you're happy person. Full and meaningful life, beside rich be a standard for happiness, meaningful life also be a standard. Why meaningful life be a standard of happiness? Because people never be happy person when their life are not give advantages for other people.

Part 1 How You Set The Happiness Trap

In this chapter Russ Harris described that how you set the happiness trap there were two point, Fairy tales and Vicious Cycle. In Fairy tales there were myth of the happiness. Such as, the first myth is happiness is the natural state for all human beings, the second myth is If you’re not happy, you’re defective, the third myth is to create a better life, we must get rid of negative feelings, and the last myth is you should be able to control what you think and feel. And in Vicious Cycle there are questions about your problem. In this part, Harris tells about how you will learn to create and get stuck in the happiness trap. This part is  a really important and essential part so kindly do not skip it, you can not escape from the trap unless and until you do not know how It works.

Part 2 Transforming Your Inner World

In this part, you will learn instead of avoiding such painful thoughts and feeling. Because this part you will learn to handle it properly and learn how to fundamentally transform your relationship with them, also this part you will learn how to experience painful thoughts and feelings in a new way that will reduce their impact, take away its power and also decrease its influence over you and your life. Its also very important things to set your happiness trap.

Part 3 Creating A Life Worth Living

In this part, you will learn about how to serve your life with follow your heart. You can use your values when you do something and you can realize that values are very important things to make life worth living.  But, Demons will disturb you with many ways. They have plans to make you feel afraid in walking on your life. But, you can avoid it with many ways. Such as you can setting your meaningful goals, you don't set a dead person's goal, Imagine yourself taking effective actions,you have action plans, and don't make it futile because of Demon's word. You should to focus on creating rich and meaningful life, this feeling will give rise to a sense of vitality and fulfillment and this feeling is satisfying as well as long-lasting.

There are synopsis about the book "The Happiness Trap". I think its enough, I'm really sorry from the bottom of my heart about all of mistakes that I've wrote in this blog. See you. 😀

Source : 

https://www.seeken.org/happiness-trap-summary-russ-harris/