Blog your way to happiness and improve your coping

I’m currently as I am always working on ways to be happier and help others become more fulfilled people.  I’m currently working with two books, Sonja Lyubomirsky’s The How of Happiness and The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris.  The suggestions based on practice and research I will summarize here, with an emphasis on my own situation but hopefully also useful for others.  I therefore will not include everything that may be helpful, but rather the things that I find most helpful.

Step 1:  Incorporate happiness interventions into your life.  

 These interventions are proven to raise mood and happiness scores.  I have created a chart of the interventions I find helpful and how to implement them into one’s personal blog writing.  One reason I do it this way is because I have two personal blogs, one called DysautoBot Diary dysautobotdiary.blogspot.com and the other in the works.  It will be a work of fiction based on a conception of my best possible self, which is one of the interventions listed in my chart.  Take a look at the chart and see if it may be useful for you to make your own chart.  The idea is simple:  to take happiness interventions and use them in your blog.  The hope is that people who are sick, or bed bound, and can’t do a lot in the world can become happier through writing.  So I combine elements of writing therapy, happiness research, and narrative therapy.  But it’s all for fun so do enjoy.

If you write in your blog everyday and need to find a subject matter, take one of the interventions and do your writing based on it.  If you don’t understand the chart or need more information, page numbers to the explanations in the two books mentioned are provided.

I am also going to use ACT therapy, Acceptance and Commitment therapy as one of the interventions.  I am not an advocate of ACT therapy, I don’t know how appropriate it is, but I’m giving it a try because it combines a lot of things which I believe to be helpful.

Here’s the chart.  Try your own chart.  Copy paste mine then delete my interventions and put your own, or use mine.  You might also want to get the books if you would like to take a similar journey as I.

How to Incorporate Happiness Interventions into your Personal Blog

Based on Sonja Lyubomirsky’s The How of Happiness and The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris

Happiness Activities	Intervention	Refer to
1.  Expressing Gratitude	Gratitude Journal within personal blog	p.96 HH
2.  Cultivating Optimism	Best possible self diary in blog	p.108 HH
3.  Practice acts of kindness	Motivational writing or to provide comfort	p. 132 HH
4.  Nurture relationships	Write letters, poems, to loved ones	p. 147 HH
5.  Develop coping	ACT therapy	THT
6.  Increasing flow	Add motivational speaking videos to blog	p. 186
7.  Savor life’s joys	Add pictures of pleasing events	p.200 HH
8.  Committing to goals	Post goals and progress	p. 215 HH
9.  Meditation/Spirituality	Research, post on techniques	p. 240 HH
10.  Exercise	Record goals and progress	p. 244 HH

Step 2.  Know your values and pursue your goals.

From The Happiness Trap  p. 183  I’ve filled out my own personal chart but left this one blank so you can put your own goals into it.  Copy paste it into word and fill it out for yourself.

Goal Type	Long term	Intermediate	Short term	To Do
1.  Family
2.  Romance
3.  Friendships
4.  Employment
5.  Education
6.  Leisure
7.  Spirituality
8.  Community
9.  Environment
10.  Health
11.  Material

Step Three:  Have a coping strategy

How To do ACT Therapy

A.  Know the happiness MYTHS – NOT TRUE ASSUMPTIONS

1.  Happiness is the natural state of human beings (THT p.9) – Vigilance and variable mood associated with survival is the natural state.
2. If you’re not happy, you’re defective (THT p. 10) – Natural thinking processes will lead to psychological suffering.
3. To create a better life,  we must get rid of negative feelings (THT p.10) – It is natural to have negative feelings.
4. You should be able to control what you feel and think (THT p. 11) – In reality, you have much less control over your thinking than you would think, much of it is automatic.

B.  Six Core Principles

1.  Defusion.  Realize thoughts are just often automatic depressive stories from a mind built to survive a dangerous environment.  Defuse from them by saying “I am having the thought that, or I am having the feeling that I will feel sad if the dog remains ill (for example).  Realize the brain will do what it does but it doesn’t have to affect you.  Put the thoughts in the voice of a cartoon character so that you can hear that they are just thoughts, not reality.

Try thanking your mind as it comes up with threatening stories, simply say, Thank you.

Imagine troublesome images have a musical soundtrack in the background to see that they are only images.

2. Acceptance.  Make room for and breathe into the bodily sensations that represent pain and see that they are just physical sensations.  Accept and embrace reality.
3. Connection.  Practice mindfulness in daily life.
4. The Observing Self.  Learn to observe life without judging.  Practice mindfulness meditation
5. Values.  Know your values and work toward them regardless of your feelings.
6. Committed Action.  Take actions toward your values to create a rich and meaningful life.

In general in this therapy, you will practice mindfulness in everyday life, learn that negative thoughts and feelings are not reality by defusing them but allowing them to be, not fighting against them.  You will learn to accept all of life including the negative thoughts and feelings.  Breathe or meditate into negative bodily sensations to expose them as sensations that cannot harm you.  Finally, identify your values and work towards them to create a rich and meaningful life rather than being controlled by your feelings, let them be yet take effective action.

I find this therapy to be acceptable.  You can do it yourself.  I recommend you get the book to help.  This therapy, I will use to help with coping.  It is not a gospel, and it is not necessarily the best therapy ever made, but it is sufficient and a good fit for me personally.  It was recommended by someone in a Facebook group associated with EDS or POTS, conditions that I have.

This focus on coping is not a replacement for those with pain and depression for medication.  I am well medicated and at this time, successfully treated for both pain and depression.  I believe the correct medication is crucial for those with pain and depressive conditions.  This has been a very technical post I know.  It is some organizing that I needed to do for myself, but I hope others will also find it useful.

Have fun, be safe, and get better sooner!

DF Seldon, Dysautobot

BpainFree