Want to know how to be happier? Dr. Russ Harris has the answers

Russ Harris is a doctor, therapist, father, trainer of health professionals, and author of The Happiness Trap (plus eight other books).

He started his career as a doctor back in 1989, and soon discovered that most of his patients were expressing a significant degree of dissatisfaction in life; most of what was wrong was psychologically based. He strongly related to their struggles, because he was experiencing something similar himself.

"Despite the fact that I had a successful career with a dream job, good income and high status, he was depressed, anxious, and overweight. He felt his life lacked a sense of meaning and purpose, and at times was even suicidal."

He just couldn’t understand why he felt this way. He had achieved all the goals that society says tells us will make us feel happy. But it wasn’t working. And he wanted to know why. One thing was for sure, simplistic stories that it was all due to an unhappy childhood or too much negative thinking or a chemical imbalance in my brain were definitely not the answer.

So he set off on a journey to find out a) what makes people unhappy, and b) far more importantly, what creates genuine and lasting happiness. He looked first to psychiatry - a natural stepping stone from medicine and then psychology but not wanting to study for another 5 years he continued to explore off his own back. And in his own words that journey took him down a lot of blind alleys and dead ends. But eventually, it led him to ACT – Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.

The moment he discovered this therapy, he fell deeply in love with it. It had a huge and profound impact on his life. Almost instantly, he began to develop a deep sense of purpose and meaning.

He found how to enrich and enhance his life, and transform the way he dealt with painful thoughts and feelings. He built a stronger connection with himself and others, which led him to feel that sense of warmth, closeness, belonging he’d been searching for all those years.

To make use of ACT (in a non clinical / everyday manner) and find a partner to work through your own journey with go to the Oka Platform at Oka.Life

Links to the books referred to:

The Happiness Trap: Stop Struggling, Start Living by Russ Harris

The Reality Slap 2nd Edition: How to survive and thrive when life hits hard by Russ Harris 

Defining You How to Profile Yourself and Unlock Your Full Potential by Fiona Murden https://amzn.to/2QbFlbh

Man’s Search for Meaning Man's Search For Meaning: The classic tribute to hope from the Holocaust by Vicktor E Frankl

Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness meditation for everyday life by Jon Kabat-Zinn

Mirror Thinking - How Role Models Make Us Human by Fiona Murden 

https://bit.ly/mirrorthink