When Life Hits Hard

Practical skills grounded in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) to help you bounce back when life knocks you down. Whether it’s the loss of a loved one or a job, the end of a relationship, a pandemic, or a natural disaster—nothing really prepares us for those moments when life hits hard and turns our world upside down. The good news is that you can move forward. There are tools you can use to find your way back from despair and live a fulfilling life. In this candid self-help guide, psychotherapist Russ Harris offers powerful and doable skills grounded in evidence-based ACT to help you recover from grief, loss, and crisis; transcend your pain and suffering; and build a rich and meaningful life—even in the face of adversity. You’ll also find tools to help you deal with painful memories, create your own healing “grief rituals,” and transform difficult emotions into unexpected allies. Finally, you’ll learn how mindfulness and self-compassion can help keep you grounded, even when it seems like your world is in free fall. If you’re ready to start building the resilience needed to heal from loss or thrive in the face adversity, this guide will show you how to get there, one step at a time.

Build more compassionate, accepting, and loving relationships with acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). Let’s face it: Picture-perfect storybook romances don’t exist in real life. Couples fight. Feelings of love wax and wane through the years. And the stress and tedium of everyday life and work can often drive a wedge between even the most devoted couples. So, how can you reignite passion and intimacy in your relationship, cultivate greater understanding and compassion between yourself and your partner, and bring the joy back to your love life? In this fully revised and updated edition of ACT with Love, therapist and world-renowned ACT expert Russ Harris shows how developing psychological flexibility—the ability to be in the present moment with openness, awareness, and focus, and to take effective action in line with one's values—can help you and your partner strengthen and deepen your relationship. Also included is new information on attachment theory, powerful mindfulness and self-compassion techniques, and assertiveness and boundary-setting skills. ACT with Love will show you how to: Let go of conflict, open up, and live fully in the present Use mindfulness to increase intimacy, connection, and understanding Resolve painful conflicts and reconcile long-standing differences Act on your values to build a rich and meaningful relationship If you’re looking to increase feelings of intimacy, love, and connection with your partner, this book has everything you need to get started—together.

The “reality slap” takes many different forms. Sometimes, it’s more like a punch: the death of a loved one, a serious illness, a divorce, the loss of a job, a freak accident, or a shocking betrayal. Sometimes it’s a little gentler. Envy, loneliness, resentment, failure, disappointment, and rejection can sting just as much. But whatever form your reality slap takes, one thing’s for sure—it hurts! And most of us don’t deal with the pain very well. The Reality Slap offers a four-part path for healing from crises based on acceptance and commitment therapy. In these pages, you will learn how to: • Find peace in the midst of your pain • Rediscover calm in the midst of chaos • Turn difficult emotions into wisdom and compassion • Find fulfillment, even when you can’t get what you want • Heal your wounds and emerge stronger than before Unlike some self-help books that claim you can have everything you ever wanted in life, if you only put your mind to it, this book claims that you can't have everything in life. The hard truth of this world is that we are all going to experience disappointment, frustration, failure, loss, rejection, illness, injury, aging, and death at some point. However, in spite of all this, you can still lead a rich and rewarding life. Let this book be your guide.

A guide to ACT: the revolutionary mindfulness-based program for reducing stress, overcoming fear, and finding fulfilment – now updated. International bestseller, 'The Happiness Trap', has been published in over thirty countries and twenty-two languages. NOW UPDATED. Popular ideas about happiness are misleading, inaccurate, and are directly contributing to our current epidemic of stress, anxiety and depression. And unfortunately, popular psychological approaches are making it even worse! In this easy-to-read, practical and empowering self-help book, Dr Russ Harries, reveals how millions of people are unwittingly caught in the 'The Happiness Trap', where the more they strive for happiness the more they suffer in the long term. He then provides an effective means to escape through the insights and techniques of ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy), a groundbreaking new approach based on mindfulness skills. By clarifying your values and developing mindfulness (a technique for living fully in the present moment), ACT helps you escape the happiness trap and find true satisfaction in life. Mindfulness skills are easy to learn and will rapidly and effectively help you to reduce stress, enhance performance, manage emotions, improve health, increase vitality, and generally change your life for the better. The book provides scientifically proven techniques to: reduce stress and worry; rise above fear, doubt and insecurity; handle painful thoughts and feelings far more effectively; break self-defeating habits; improve performance and find fulfilment in your work; build more satisfying relationships; and, create a rich, full and meaningful life.

Drawing on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and mindfulness practices, this guide offers breakthrough insights and simple techniques for developing deep-seated, long-lasting confidence Too many of us miss out on opportunities in life because we lack self-confidence. Whether it’s public speaking, taking on a leadership role, or asking someone for a date, there are situations in which we just don't feel equipped to handle the challenges we face. Russ Harris offers a surprising solution to low self-confidence, shyness, and insecurity: Rather than trying to “get over” our fears, he says, the secret is to form a new and wiser relationship with them. Paradoxically, it’s only when we stop struggling against our fearfulness that we begin to find lasting freedom from it. Drawing on the techniques of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), a cutting-edge form of cognitive-behavioral therapy, The Confidence Gap explains how to: • Free yourself from common misconceptions about what confidence is and how to build it • Transform your relationship with fear and anxiety • Clarify your core values and use them as your inspiration and motivation • Use mindfulness to effectively handle negative thoughts and feelings. “This book could save you years of psychological struggle, yank you out of negative emotional patterns, and help propel you to a much happier, more productive life.” —Martha Beck, author and Oprah Winfrey’s life coach

A tragicomic story of bad dates, bad news, bad performances, and one girl's determination to find the funny in high school from the author of Denton Little's Deathdate. Winnie Friedman has been waiting for the world to catch on to what she already knows: she's hilarious. It might be a long wait, though. After bombing a stand-up set at her own bat mitzvah, Winnie has kept her jokes to herself. Well, to herself and her dad, a former comedian and her inspiration. Then, on the second day of tenth grade, the funniest guy in school actually laughs at a comment she makes in the lunch line and asks her to join the improv troupe. Maybe he's even . . . flirting? Just when Winnie's ready to say yes to comedy again, her father reveals that he's been diagnosed with ALS. That is . . . not funny. Her dad's still making jokes, though, which feels like a good thing. And Winnie's prepared to be his straight man if that's what he wants. But is it what he needs? Caught up in a spiral of epically bad dates, bad news, and bad performances, Winnie's struggling to see the humor in it all. But finding a way to laugh is exactly what will see her through. **A Junior Library Guild Selection**

“Trauma-Focused ACT is going to go down as one of the great contributions to the field of trauma-informed care.” —Kirk Strosahl PhD, cofounder of ACT Trauma-Focused ACT (TFACT) provides a flexible, comprehensive model for treating the entire spectrum of trauma-related issues, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), addiction, depression, anxiety disorders, moral injury, chronic pain, shame, suicidality, insomnia, complicated grief, attachment issues, sexual problems, and more. Written by internationally acclaimed ACT trainer, Russ Harris, this textbook is for practitioners at all levels of experience, and offers exclusive access to free downloadable resources—including scripts, videos, MP3s, handouts, and worksheets. Discover cutting-edge strategies for healing the past, living in the present, and building a new future. With this compassion-based, exposure-centered approach, you’ll learn how to help your clients: Find safety and security in their bodies Overcome hyperarousal and hypoarousal Break free from dissociation Shift from self-hatred to self-compassion Rapidly ground themselves and reengage in life Unhook from difficult cognitions and emotions Develop an integrated sense of self Resolve traumatic memories through flexible exposure Connect with and live by their values Experience post-traumatic growth