The Happiness Trap Read Online Free PDF Page B

To Use Control In Situations Where It Can’t Work
    If you love somebody deeply and you lose that relationship—whether through death, rejection or separation—you will feel pain. That pain is called grief. Grief is a normal emotional reaction to any significant loss, whether a loved one, a job or a limb. There’s no way to avoid or get rid of it—it’s just there. And, once accepted, it will pass in its own time.
    Unfortunately, many of us refuse to accept grief. We will do anything rather than feel it. We may bury ourselves in work, drink heavily, throw ourselves into a new relationship ‘on the rebound’ or numb ourselves with prescribed medications. But no matter how hard we try to push grief away, deep down inside it’s still there. And eventually it will be back.
    It’s like holding a football underwater. As long as you keep holding it down, it stays beneath the surface. But eventually your arm gets tired and the moment you release your grip, the ball leaps straight up out of the water.
    Donna was 25 years of age when her husband and child died in a tragic car crash. Naturally, she felt an enormous sense of loss: an explosion of painful feelings, including sadness, anger, fear, loneliness and despair. But Donna could not accept those painful feelings and she turned to alcohol to push them away. Getting drunk would temporarily soothe her pain, but once she sobered up, her grief returned with a vengeance—and then she’d drink even more to push it away again. By the time Donna came to see me six months later, she was knocking back two bottles of wine a day, as well as some Valium and sleeping tablets. The single biggest factor in her recovery was her willingness to stop running away from her pain. Only when she opened herself to her feelings, and accepted them as a natural part of the grieving process, was she able to come to terms with her terrible loss. This enabled her to grieve effectively for her loved ones and channel her energy into building a new life. (Later in the book, we’ll look at how she accomplished that.)
When Using Control Stops Us From Doing What We Value
    What do you cherish most in life? Health? Work? Family? Friends? Religion? Sport? Nature? It’s no surprise that life is richer and more fulfilling when we actively invest our time and energy in the things that are most important or meaningful to us. Yet all too often our attempts to avoid unpleasant feelings get in the way of doing what we truly value.
    For example, suppose you are a professional actor and you love your work. Then one day, quite out of the blue, you develop an intense fear of failure just as you are due to appear onstage. So you refuse to go on (a malady commonly known as ‘stage fright’). Refusing to go onstage may well reduce your fear temporarily, but it also stops you from doing something you truly value.
    Or suppose you’ve just gone through a divorce. Sadness, fear and anger are all natural reactions, but you don’t want to have these unpleasant feelings. So you try to lift your mood by eating junk food, getting drunk or chain-smoking cigarettes. But what does this do to your health? I’ve never met anyone who didn’t value their health, and yet many people use control strategies that actively damage their physical bodies.
How Much Control Do We Actually Have?
    The degree of control we have over our thoughts and feelings depends largely on how intense they are—the less intense the feelings, the more we can control them. For instance, if we’re just dealing with the typical everyday stresses, a simple relaxation technique can make us feel calmer right away. However, the more troubling our thoughts and feelings are, the less effective our attempts at control will be. If you’re terrified, no relaxation technique known to humanity will calm you.
    We also have more control over our thoughts and feelings when the things that we’re avoiding aren’t too important. For example, if you’re avoiding cleaning