The Happiness Trap (11 page)

How would you feel if the two people you loved most in the world suddenly died? Hard to imagine, isn’t it? Even to
think
about such things feels pretty uncomfortable.

Earlier I mentioned Donna, whose husband and only child both died in a car crash. Most of us can’t even begin to imagine her pain, but we can certainly understand her desire to avoid feeling it. When Donna came to see me six months after the accident, she was trying to avoid her pain by any means possible. This included drinking two bottles of wine each day, as well as taking a lot of Valium. Yet her pain was only increasing. Her ‘clean discomfort’ (the natural pain of loss and grief) was compounded by a lot of ‘dirty discomfort’ (all the additional suffering caused by her alcohol and drug problems). Learning the skill of ‘expansion’ was an essential part of her recovery from this trauma.

So why the term ‘expansion’? Well consider some of the words we commonly use to describe feeling bad; words such as ‘tension’, ‘stress’ and ‘strain’. If you look up these terms in a dictionary, you’ll find they are all interlinked:

All these words imply that our feelings are too big: they are pulling us apart and stretching us beyond our limits. Contrast these terms with ‘expand’: to increase in extent, size, volume, scope; to spread, unfold or develop.

Basically, expansion means making room for our feelings. If we give unpleasant feelings enough space, they no longer stretch us or strain us. Typically, when unpleasant emotions arise, we ‘tense up’; that is, our muscles tighten and contract. It’s as if we were trying to squeeze these feelings out, to push them out of our body by sheer brute force.

With expansion, we’re intending the very opposite. Instead of squeezing down, we’re opening up. Instead of increasing tension, we’re releasing it. Instead of contracting, we’re expanding.

We also commonly talk about being ‘under pressure’. And then we talk of needing ‘room’ or ‘breathing space’. It’s exactly the same when it comes to our own feelings: if we feel ‘pressure’ building, we need to give them space. Fighting or avoiding our feelings does not create room for them—expansion does.

When you hear the term ‘expanse of water’ or ‘expanse of sky’, what comes to mind? Most people imagine a vast, open space. This is what we are aiming for in expansion: to open up to our feelings and make plenty of room for them. This will ease the pressure, lighten the tension and free those feelings to move. Sometimes they will move very rapidly; sometimes they will move more slowly. But as long as we make room for them, they will move. And more importantly, expansion frees us to invest our energy in creating a better life, rather than wasting it in useless struggles.

‘Hang on a minute,’ you may say, ‘if I make room for these emotions, they’ll ride roughshod over me—I’ll lose control!’

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. So if your thinking self is telling you scary stories ... simply thank it.

The process of expansion primarily involves the observing self, not the thinking self, so let’s just take a moment to recap their differences.

The thinking self is responsible for thinking, in the broadest sense of the word; it produces all our thoughts, judgements, images, fantasies and memories; and is commonly called ‘the mind’.

The observing self is responsible for awareness, attention and focus; it can observe thoughts, images, memories etc., but cannot produce them; and it has no commonly used word to describe it. (The closest term in the English language is ‘awareness’.)

The following exercise will help distinguish these two distinct parts of you and will also give you a sense of something called ‘body awareness’ (a key factor in expansion).

As you keep reading, simply notice the following:

Hopefully, during that exercise you experienced that
awareness
of the body is very different from
thinking
about it. The thoughts you had while you did the exercise came from your thinking self. But the
awareness
of your body—the noticing of the different sensations, urges, movements and positions—came from your observing self.

If you didn’t experience this distinction, do the above exercise again. And notice that while the thinking self is talking away, the observing self is simply paying attention to your body. Notice, too, that there are brief moments (which may last less than a second) when the thinking self shuts up and the observing self can observe without any distraction.

Once you have experienced that distinction, it’s time to move on to...

In practising expansion, we need to sidestep the thinking self—to put aside its unhelpful comments—and connect with our emotions through the observing self. This enables us to experience our emotions directly, to see them as they actually are, rather than as the thinking self says they are. According to the thinking self, ‘negative’ emotions are giant, dangerous demons, but the observing self reveals them for what they are: relatively small and harmless.

So in practising expansion, the aim is to
observe
your emotions, not to think about them. There’s just one problem: the thinking self never shuts up! (At least, not for more than a few seconds at a time.) This means that while you practise expansion, your thinking self will continually try to distract you. It may pass judgements on your feelings or try to analyse them, or tell you scary stories about them or claim that you can’t handle them, or insist that it’s all too hard. Or it may say, ‘Don’t bother with these exercises; reading about them is enough.’ It may even suggest that you ‘do them later’, knowing full well that you probably won’t.

But none of this needs to be a problem. Just allow those thoughts to be there and let them come and go as they please. Acknowledge their presence, but don’t focus on them. Treat them as if they were cars driving past your house—you know they’re there, but you don’t have to peer out the window each time one goes by. And if a thought does hook you (in the same way that screeching tyres might distract you), then the moment you realise it, gently refocus your attention on what you are doing.

This is essentially the same defusion skill as you learned in the Ten Deep Breaths technique in Chapter 7. If you haven’t been regularly practising that exercise, then
please,
start right now! Read through the instructions and give it a go. Then practise that exercise at least ten times a day for five days
before
you read on any further. Remember, there’s no great rush to ‘get through’ this book. Think of it like a holiday—you get more out of it if you take your time, rather than trying to see all the sights in one day.

So, when practising expansion, let your thoughts come and go in the background, and keep your attention focused on your emotions. And remember:

Expansion starts with noticing what we’re feeling in our body (body awareness) and observing precisely where those sensations are located; it then progresses to studying those sensations in more detail. This is the first of three basic steps, outlined below.

The three basic steps of expansion are: observe your feelings, breathe into them, and allow them to come and go. Sounds simple doesn’t it? That’s because it is. It’s also effortless. However, that does not mean it’s easy! Remember the quicksand scenario? Lying back and floating on quicksand is simple and effortless, yet it’s far from easy. Why? Because every instinct in your body tells you to
struggle.
But don’t worry. If you fell into quicksand several times a week, you’d soon be a pro at lying back and floating. And the same is true for expansion: the more you practise, the easier it gets.

So let’s take a look at these steps in a bit more detail, and then it’s practice time. Whenever you’re struggling with an unpleasant emotion of any sort, follow these three steps:

‘Observe’ means bring your awareness to the sensations in your body. Take a few seconds to scan yourself from head to toe. Notice what you’re feeling, and where. As you do this, you will probably notice several uncomfortable sensations. Look for the one that bothers you the most. For example, it may be a lump in your throat, a knot in your stomach, tightness in your chest or a teary feeling in your eyes. (If your entire body feels uncomfortable, then just pick the area that bothers you the most.) Focus your attention on that sensation. Observe it with curiosity, like a scientist who has discovered some interesting new phenomenon. Observe it carefully. Notice where it starts and where it ends. If you had to draw a line around this sensation, what would it look like? Is it on the surface of the body or inside you or both? How far inside you does it go? Where is it the most intense? Where is it the weakest? How is it different in the centre from around the edges? Is there any pulsing or vibration within it? Is it light or heavy? Still or in motion? Warm or cool?

‘Breathe’ means you breathe into and around the sensation, as if making extra space for it. Begin with a few deep breaths—the slower the better—and make sure you fully empty your lungs before breathing in. Slow, deep breathing is important because it lowers the level of tension in your body. It won’t get rid of your feelings, but it will provide a centre of calm within you. It’s like an anchor in the midst of an emotional storm; the anchor won’t get rid of the storm, but it will hold you steady until it passes. So breathe slowly and deeply, and imagine that you are breathing directly into the sensation. Feel your breath flowing into and around it, as if you are somehow creating extra space within your body. Loosen up around this sensation. Give it some ‘room to move’.

‘Allow’ means you allow the sensation to be there, even though you don’t like it or want it. In other words, you ‘let it be’. When your mind starts commenting on what’s happening, just say, ‘Thanks, Mind!’ and come back to observing. Of course, you may find this difficult. You may feel a strong urge to fight with it or push it away. If so, just acknowledge this urge without giving in to it. (Acknowledging is like nodding your head in recognition, as if to say, ‘There you are; I see you.’) Once you’ve acknowledged that urge, bring your attention back to the sensation itself. Don’t try to get rid of the sensation or alter it. If it changes by itself, that’s okay. If it doesn’t change, that’s okay too. Changing or getting rid of it is not the goal. The goal is to make peace with it; to let it to be there, even if you don’t like it or want it.

You may need to focus on this sensation for anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes, until you completely give up the struggle with it. Be patient; take as long as you need. You’re learning a valuable skill. Once you’ve done this, scan your body again and see if there’s another sensation that’s bothering you. If so, repeat the procedure with this one, too. You can do this with as many different sensations as necessary. Keep going until you have a sense of no longer struggling with your feelings. As you practise this technique one of two things will happen: either your feelings will change or they won’t. It doesn’t matter either way, because this technique is not about changing your feelings—it’s about accepting them.

To give you a better idea of how expansion works, I’ve included a transcript of a session I did with Donna. This transcript is from our fourth session, by which time Donna was already well-practised at defusion skills. As this session begins, Donna is sitting opposite me with tears welling up in her eyes.