The Happiness Trap

    I was little sceptical about book title “The happiness trap”, but I got hooked to this book from the foreword. This self-help book about how to lead meaningful life is based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) founded by Steven C. Hayes. Author of the book, Russ Harris is a world-renowned trainer of Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT) and the co-director of PsyFlex: focused on workplace health and wellbeing.

    The book starts with explanation about how people tend to set happiness trap to themselves. Throughout the next chapters, the book is dealing with 6 core principles of ACT: defusion, expansion, connection, the observing self, values, and committed action. Every core principle is explained in simple language, and there are a lot of exercises for improving those skills. In the first chapter there is Control of Thoughts and Feelings Questionnaire, which is good to do at the start of reading and come back to it after a while. In other chapters there are exercises for every of ACT core principles, focusing on avoidance and suffering, defusion, expansion, mindfulness.

    The book highly values clarifying own values in different life aspects such are: work/education, relationships, personal growth and health. Author explains what are values, how they are different from goals, and importance of clarifying them accompanied with exercises to help in that. Also, book will help you to set your goal according to your values and how to achieve it. Step by step, and reader will arrive at point where author explain how to make willingness and action plan, and how to incorporate everything you learn about yourself in changing your life.

    At the end of the book there is section about what to do in a crisis, which I found as really helpful reminder how to quickly calm myself. Throughout the book author uses acronyms like S.T.O.P and F.E.A.R. which when it comes to memorising some action steps helps a lot.  Just prepare notebook and pen, you will need it! The book teaches you how to be focused on present allowing and giving space not only to positive things but to negative ones as well. There is also website where you can download worksheets that accompany exercises in the book.