Escape the Happiness Trap

The Art of Manliness

Society & Culture, Education, Philosophy

4.7 • 14.5K Ratings

🗓️ 1 February 2023

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Happiness is the subject of thousands of articles, podcasts, and scientific studies. Yet all this focus on happiness doesn't seem to be making people any happier. In fact, the more they try to be happy, especially by fighting to get rid of bad feelings and cling to good ones, the more unhappy people often become. My guest would say that the first step in escaping this negative cycle is redefining what happiness even means — thinking of it not as a state of feeling good but of doing good. His name is Russ Harris and he's a therapist and the author of The Happiness Trap. Today on the show, Russ explains how struggling against difficult feelings and thoughts just makes them stronger — amplifying instead of diminishing stress, anxiety, depression, and self-consciousness — and how simply obeying your emotions doesn't work out any better. He then unpacks the alternative approach to happiness espoused by Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. With ACT, you allow both hard and pleasant feelings to coexist, and unhook from the latter so that they no longer jerk you around. This allows you to focus on taking action on your values to create a meaningful, flourishing life, or in other words, real happiness.

Transcript

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0:00.0	We're at McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness Podcast.
0:11.8	Happiness is the subject of thousands of articles, podcasts, and scientific studies.
0:15.8	Yet all this focus on happiness doesn't seem to be making people any happier.
0:19.4	In fact, the more they try to be happy, especially by fighting to get rid of bad feelings and
0:23.8	cleaning to good ones, the more unhappy people often become.
0:27.3	My guess would say that the first step in escaping this negative cycle is redefining what happiness
0:31.7	even means.
0:32.7	Thinking of it not as a state of feeling good, but doing good.
0:36.5	His name is Russ Harris, and he's a therapist and the author of the Happiness Travel.
0:40.2	Today in the show, Russ explains how struggling against difficult feelings and thoughts just
0:43.9	makes them stronger, amplifying instead of diminishing stress, anxiety, depression, and
0:48.4	self-consciousness, and how simply obeying your emotions doesn't work out any better.
0:52.7	He then impacts the alternative approach to happiness espoused by acceptance and commitment
0:56.2	therapy.
0:57.2	In ACT, you'll allow both pleasant and hard feelings to coexist, and in hook from the
1:01.3	latter, so they no longer jerk you around.
1:03.6	This allows you to focus on taking action on your values to create a meaningful, flourishing
1:07.1	life, or in other words, real happiness.
1:10.3	Russ Harris, welcome to the show.
1:34.4	So you have a background in medicine, but then you made a shift in your career where you
1:38.1	became a therapist and you became a trainer in a form of talk therapy called acceptance
1:42.7	and commitment therapy.
	...

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