“Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult — once we truly understand and accept it – then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.”
M. Scott Peck
As Richard Bach, one of my favorite authors once said, “We teach best what we most need to learn.” As I prepare for my sixth class in a nine-week course based on Russ Harris’s book, The Happiness Trap, I’m thinking about those words. And I could add a quote from George Bernard Shaw: “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.”
Life is a struggle. Not just for my clients or students but for me and all therapists and teachers. Each of us must learn to deal with a few fundamental facts of being human. The Buddha taught that “Life is dukkha,” by which he meant life involves physical, mental or emotional suffering or pain; impermanence or change and what he called, “conditioned states.”
Everything that exists in the physical or material universe is “conditioned” or caused by something and is therefore impermanent or temporary. All physical forms are “Maya,” which means they seem to exist – they seem real – but are, in fact, in a constant state of change and are, therefore, not spiritually real.
The Buddha also taught that the cause of human suffering stems from our desires or cravings. Out of spiritual ignorance (we don’t “know” who we really are), we identify with a sense of self that is illusory, temporary and limited; we feel disconnected or separate from others and from material objects. This limited identification as a distinct, separate self leads us to feel fear and greed and pulls us to “want” things to make us feel less frightened, alone and separate, and more secure, connected and “whole.”
We crave that which we perceive we lack and this includes the elusive mental state we call “happiness.” We fall for the delusion that we can “get” happiness from sources outside of our “self.” We crave, obtain and cling to experiences, sensations, activities, people, animals, objects, food, sex, drugs, money, ideas and opinions that enable us to feel a short-term state of security, peace or belonging. Since all “happiness” in this world is a temporary state of mind, we are never satisfied for long and each of us can feel frustrated as our desires are unmet, our expectations are unfulfilled or our pleasures too transient and fleeting.
There is the world or life we want and there is the world or life we “get” or have. It is the gap between those two mental states that causes us our mental and emotional anguish (anger, depression, anxiety, etc.). The Buddha taught methods of reducing our attachment (craving and clinging) to the illusions of our experience (wanting but not getting or getting but not wanting) and one of these is conveyed in the term, “mindfulness.”
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a kind of scientific or secular form of this Buddhist notion of mindfulness, in my view. Not everyone will agree with this statement but for me, it fits. In his book, The Happiness Trap, Harris helps us understand that our anxious pursuit of happiness is the very reason we don’t get it. The more we chase it, the more it eludes our grasp. The Buddha taught that we can’t “get” what we already have. It is our identification with an illusory “lack” that is the problem; we fall for the illusion that this external thing will make us whole, happy or at peace.
ACT teaches that we develop “control agendas” by which we hope to capture and keep happiness like a beautiful animal in a cage. This works well in the physical world as evidenced by zoos but also by the other material “prizes” we accumulate, control and own.
We can sometimes change things “out here” to our liking because we have a body that moves, hands that can manipulate objects and a voice we use to influence or guide others. This is our expressed power in the world: the power of will, intent and action.
Inside the mind, however, these tools fall apart. The more we seek control, the more we lose it. The more rigidly we apply our change strategies within, the more we encounter resistance. Within the inner realm we find another truth: paradox reigns supreme. Want happiness and peace? Let it go. Let it be. Want to win? Then surrender. Want joy? Welcome and embrace sadness and suffering.
How do we do this?
Cognitive defusion sounds serious and intellectual but once we understand and apply the concept, we find a secret passage to inner peace. When we de-fuse or untie ourselves from our thinking mind; when we unbuckle and wriggle free, life becomes easier. The contents of our mind cannot hurt us unless we allow them to do so. When we are immersed in “it,” we cannot see “it” any more than we can see the back of our head. When we step back from and hold the thought in our hand, however, we can unplug it from its source and realize we gave it life. We were the one who made it dangerous.
Defusion is an acceptance strategy, not a control strategy. What does this mean? We “love” our enemies within. Or more accurately, we accept them. We allow our inner demons to take up the space they require. We give them room to breathe. We respect them. We acknowledge their reason and purpose with a non-resisting nod. When we embrace fear, fear subsides. When we accept our difficult thoughts and feelings, the struggle ends. When we give up control of what we can’t control, we can finally focus on what’s important.
As Peck writes, “Once we truly know that life is difficult — once we truly understand and accept it – then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.”
Doug Craig graduated from college in Ohio with a journalism degree and got married during the Carter administration. He graduated from graduate school with a doctorate in Psychology, got divorced, moved to Redding, re-married and started his private practice during the Reagan administration. He had his kids during the first Bush administration. Since then he has done nothing noteworthy besides write a little poetry, survive a motorcycle crash, buy and sell an electric car, raise his kids, manage to stay married and maintain his practice for almost 25 years. He believes in magic and is a Sacramento Kings fan.
