The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris Read Free Book Online Page A

you know what ‘axillary hyperhidrosis’ refers to, you understand the words.
    We use words in two different settings: in public, when we’re talking, listening or writing; and in private, when we’re thinking. Words on a page, we call ‘text’; words spoken out loud, we call ‘speech’; and words inside our head, we call ‘thoughts’.
    It’s important not to confuse thoughts with the mental pictures or physical feelings that often accompany them. To clarify the difference, here’s a little experiment. Take a few moments to think about what you’re going to fix for breakfast tomorrow morning. Then, as you’re thinking about it, close your eyes and observe your thoughts as they happen. Notice what form they take. Close your eyes and do this for about half a minute.
    Okay, what did you notice? You may have noticed ‘pictures’ in your mind; you ‘saw’ yourself cooking or eating, as on a television screen. We’ll call these mental pictures ‘images’. Images are not thoughts, although they often occur together. You may also have noticed feelings or sensations in your body, almost as if you were actually preparing or eating breakfast. These, too, are not thoughts; they are sensations. You also probably noticed some words passing through your head, almost like a talking voice. Those words may have described what you intend to eat: ‘I’ll have toast with peanut butter.’ Or they may have said something like, ‘I don’t know what I’ll have.’ These words in our heads are what we call ‘thoughts’. Therefore:
    Thoughts =words inside our heads
    Images =pictures inside our heads
    Sensations =feelings inside our bodies.
    It’s important to remember this distinction, because we deal with these internal experiences in different ways. We’ll be focusing on images and sensations later in the book. For now, we’re going to look at thoughts.
    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. Sometimes they are true stories (called ‘facts’) and sometimes they are false. But most of our thoughts are neither true nor false. Most of them are either stories about how we see life (called ‘opinions’, ‘attitudes’, ‘judgements’, ‘ideals’, ‘beliefs’, ‘theories’ and ‘morals’) or about what we want to do with it (called ‘plans’, ‘strategies’, ‘goals’, ‘wishes’ and ‘values’). In ACT, our main interest in a thought is not whether it’s true or false, but whether it’s helpful; that is, does it help us create the life we want?
The Story Is Not The Event
    Imagine that a police officer catches an armed bank robber in a dramatic shoot-out. The next day we read about it in the newspapers. One particular newspaper may give a totally accurate account of what happened. It may have all the facts correct: the name of the police officer, the location of the bank, maybe even the precise number of shots fired. Another newspaper may give a less accurate account of what happened. It may exaggerate some of the details for the sake of drama or just get the facts wrong. But whether the story is totally accurate or false and misleading, it’s still just a story. And when we read that story, we aren’t actually present at the event. There is no shooting actually taking place before our eyes; all we have in front of us are words. The only people who can truly experience this event are those who are present when it happens: the ‘eyewitnesses’. Only an eyewitness actually hears the sound of the shots or sees the officer tackle the robber. No matter how much detail there is in the description, the story is not the event (and vice versa).
    Of course, we know that newspaper stories are biased. They don’t give us the absolute truth; they give us an angle on what happened,