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Coping With Covid

by Nathan Chua

It is hard to imagine how all of us have suffered through this pandemic for so long.  None of us, except for a few elite scientists, could have known that this would happen in our lifetime.  This situation has probably sent you through a whole gamut of difficult thoughts and feelings.  From struggles with anxiety, fear, frustration, anger, relationships, boredom, and more; they are all understandable in these times.  

Some of us may be saying, look what Covid has done to me?  I’ve become more irritable, less tolerant, depressed, anxious, angry, and many more.  You are not alone.  You share these thoughts and feelings with anyone who has had a brush with all that this pandemic has been inflicting on us for over a year now.

The key here is to know what is within or outside our control.  With difficult situations come difficult thoughts and emotions, and sometimes it could be difficult relationships as well.  Unfortunately, it is often that we find ourselves judging all of these as unwanted, unnecessary, and even harmful to us.  We can’t be blamed for having these judgmental thoughts.  In today’s “success equals feel good and happy” society, there is really nothing much that can explain why we feel miserable, except that there’s probably something wrong with us.  We are defective in some ways compared to others.  They all seem well put together and coping well in spite of everything.  

You and I have minds that are quick to judge ourselves especially when times are rough.  This is the hardware that we come with.  The depression comes when we buy into the idea that we have something to do with the quality of our thoughts.  We measure our sanity against the seemingly pristine and peaceful minds we see in TV ads, social media, and the gigantic, right on top of us, billboards.  Eventually we discover how futile our attempts to suppress unwanted thoughts are, and begin to have a sense of powerlessness and of being ineffectual.  We fight with the constant murmurs of our minds and get caught up in this struggle.  Here’s the secret sauce, “Give it up!”  It doesn’t matter how many pills or distracting activities we do, let’s come to an acceptance that our minds are simply wired that way.  Next thing we do?    

Commit to doing things that tally well with what we want to do with our limited time on this planet, and more so, with our short, precious moments with those who matter to us.  Take these thoughts and feelings and bring them for the ride of our choosing.  Come back to what truly matters to us with all the unwanted chatter!  Be present with our kids even if our minds continue to remind us of that upcoming mortgage payment.  Be kind and loving even as we feel frustrated with how people around the house are acting.  Act calmly even if we aren’t feeling calm.  We can do it if we are willing to do the hard work, because in the end, it only matters what we have done, not what thoughts and feelings we struggled with in our heads.   

ACT for Trauma Certificate of Completion

Having been trained in psychodynamic therapy, helping trauma clients from a behavioral lens was unimaginable for me as a graduate student. With the use of the inner child, memory and exposure work, it turns out that the two approaches share much in common. From an ACT or behavioral, and scientific perspective however, I have learned the rationale behind such practices, and how our nervous system works to produce the kind of ineffective responses people have towards traumatic experiences. It was difficult having done this together with the ACT for Adolescents course, but it was well worth the effort. I consider it a privilege to be around in an era where people like Dr. Russ Harris, a best-selling author and renowned ACT therapist, are able to share their knowledge and expertise from thousands of miles away! I eagerly look forward to more courses in ACT, Relational Frame Theory, and Functional Contextualism.

ACT for Adolescents Certificate of Completion

We always strive to find the best training and approaches available to provide you with the best results possible. Nathaniel Chua recently accomplished a six-week training course with Dr. Russ Harris, a best-selling author and renowned ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) therapist. Nathan has been working with teens since 2009. This workshop has opened his eyes to the many ways ACT can be highly effective in helping teens, as well as their parents, find more effective ways of relating to one another.

An Empowering Kind of Forgiveness

by Nathan Chua

As we live in a predominantly Christian country, forgiveness can take on a lot of meanings.  You and I have heard numerous recommendations from well-meaning friends, relatives, clergy, and even mental health practitioners about the necessity of forgiveness in order for us to live richer, more purposeful lives.  The edict to forgive at all times however, has the unintended consequence of pouring guilt on the victim for not being ready to forgive.  Not only is it hard to forgive people who have caused us great harm through abuse, neglect, or abandonment, people around us make quick judgments on our choices.

Having received my education from Roman Catholic and protestant institutions, I have had my share of confusion and guilt over such matters.  Does it mean I have to forgive everyone at all times?  Am I going against my own values for not wanting to forgive?  Is it inimical to my own peace of mind if I refuse to offer forgiveness?  Is forgiveness about forgetting also?  I know, cliche!  However, they linger and perhaps for some, even haunting!

It was a long search, but I believe I have finally found something that corresponds to my personal experience with forgiveness.  The ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) take on forgiveness stems from the etymology of the word, “forgive.”  To forgive means to give ourselves what came before.  Using this perspective, it is easy to see how we can liberate ourselves from our own resentments about past hurts.  Playing the blame game for how our lives are, can be distressing and disempowering.  Forgiveness is a gift we give to ourselves.  We can be who we were before the harm was done even as we hold our offenders accountable.  

There is more good news!  I know many of you reading this have some interest in the subject because you have yet to forgive at least one person in your life.  As yet, there is no science that indicates forgiving our offenders is beneficial to our psychological well-being.  Forgiving someone who has deeply wronged us is not a precursor to living a meaningful and values-based life.    

I hope this helps especially those who have suffered terribly in the hands of an abuser.  It is liberating and it protects us from the victim-blaming culture that pervades.  You are not alone. 

Did you like you in your moments?

by Nathan Chua

Most people come to therapy with goals that have to do with being in control of their emotions and also hoping to get some assurance from an old and wise person that they are doing the “right” thing.  Some of these goals are like, “I want to feel more confident.”  “I want to get rid of this depression so I can do things that I have been wanting to do but can’t.”  “I want to know if I am making the right decisions with regard to my relationships.”  Unfortunately, all of these are not within our control and the more we try to do so, the more ineffectual and undesirable we feel about ourselves.

You are not alone.  I had long thought that psychotherapy and counseling were about achieving the goals mentioned above.  After all, who wouldn’t want to make all the right decisions all the time?  Who wants to feel anxious and have the people around them see their trembling hands?  Who wouldn’t want to feel happy once they figured all of these out?  I am the problem that should be fixed!  Who wouldn’t want to be the smiling faces you see in the billboard ads?

Unfortunately, that is a difficult if not impossible task.  No one alive can control emotions, thoughts, and outcomes.  Only the dead can shut out feelings and thoughts and inevitably get the same results…nothing.  Moreover, unless you suffer a major head injury, your mind is going to work up those thoughts and feelings multiple times every day.  No matter how hard we try we can’t control our thoughts and emotions; and we most certainly cannot control the results of our efforts.  

Here’s a paraphrase of Darin Cairns’ words, a therapist from Australia working with a client who has resorted to avoiding difficult thoughts and feelings by not engaging with others.  He said this as he made his client realize the futility of his control agenda.

“I am not gonna promise you this [moving towards relationships] is not gonna hurt.  In fact, I am gonna promise you it will hurt.  I have no intention of making you happy.  I’d like to help you have a meaningful life so that you can have all the feelings you want, because I don’t know about you but that sounds like an awesome outcome, compared to just being happy.  If you want to be happy all the time, first of all you can’t do it, but if you do achieve something like it, we call it mania and we’d lock you up.”

Not everything that makes our lives purposeful and meaningful is about pursuing happiness and avoiding difficult feelings.  Additionally, if we only did the things that we knew would have guaranteed results, think about how many of the things you would love to do, just does not present such outcomes.  

I loved playing basketball when I was younger and I still love it now as a fan.  Playing the game is not all fun.  In fact, there will be anxious moments, times when you don’t like what your teammates are doing, and boring practices.  It’s a microcosm of life.  We play the game of life knowing we will come across anxious moments in the pursuit of what we want.  We won’t be smiling all the time, but it sure beats watching funny movies all day just to feel happy.  Like it or not, we enjoy doing hard stuff, not just happy stuff!  

Many times our thoughts and feelings get in the way of us pursuing the things that we know will make our lives more meaningful.  That job you’ve always wanted, that business you’ve dreamed of starting for so long, that date you always wanted to have with this person you met at your local fellowship group, and many more, are some examples of what can be scary but ultimately life-giving.  Like a basketball player, you don’t know if you’d one day become a champion or just win the neighborhood pick up game.  You don’t know if that date will say yes or no.  You don’t know if you will get the job or that the business will succeed.  But can you take all that uncertainty and anxiety with you in pursuit of something that’s truly important to you?

So the question is, will you take whatever these feelings are and still pursue what you want?  Are these hopes and dreams worth the anxious moments, the sweaty palms, and racing heart rates?  Are you willing to feel everything that comes with going for your best hopes for your life?  Are you going to play the game regardless of the possibility that you would lose?  

I learned this from Darin Cairns.  It is not really about what the other people think about what you did or how well you did in the pursuit of something important, but how much you liked yourself as you did them.  Did you like you in those moments as you pursued being you?  You’d probably be surprised, because you’ll see from hindsight, that the times when you were most proud of yourself, weren’t really the happiest times at all.  In fact, they were the most difficult and trying of times; and you probably liked the way you went through them.  You liked you in those moments…and that was all that mattered, regardless of what you felt and what results you might have or have not gotten!

The Chess Game In Our Heads

by Nathan Chua

One of the awesome features of ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy)  is the use of metaphors that makes counseling work more experiential and interesting.  One that has recently become my favorite is how an ACT therapist, Chris McCurry, uses the chess metaphor so effectively.  Here’s how I remember some of the ways he describes the chess game and how it is similar to the way our minds work.

Our minds have different thoughts with varying degrees of importance and likeability.  Some are quite important while others are part of our mundane thoughts, like our plans to go grocery-shopping for the day.  The important ones can refer to our sense of meaning and purpose, our thoughts about how we can face life’s tragic aspects, or our important relationships that require our attention.  Now, as chess is a game of two sides of a battle, one side can represent our more positive thoughts while the other will be our negative ones.  In McCurry’s illustration, he says that even if we feel like the positive side may have the upper hand at any given moment, there will always be at least one piece of the negative side that remains.  We can attest to this fact simply by checking in with our personal experiences.  How many times have we enjoyed a vacation and said we don’t have any single negative thought in mind?  Probably not!  If you are married, did you do so with nary a negative thought?  On the other hand, how many times have you been caught up in negative thoughts and still have that little tiny voice inside you that says: You’re alright, don’t worry!  As you can see, neither one can totally eliminate the other.  

In Russ Harris’ version of the chess metaphor for the mind, he shares that each white piece actually generates a black piece and vice versa.  Positive thoughts remind us of our negative ones!  You can test this with your own experience.  See what you sense if someone like me told you that you are the nicest kindest person on the planet!  See what your mind does with that information.  I can also start with a negative judgment.  You are the worst most unlikeable person on the planet!  See what you mind does with that too.  

Did you sense that in the former your mind tells you:  Hogwash!  I am a kind person but certainly not all the time or not compared to everyone else?  On the other hand, did your mind do the same opposite-thinking while hearing me tell you that you are the worst person on the living earth!  Your mind may say something that goes like this:  Yeah, you’re right, sometimes I do feel that way, but that can’t be right all the time!

As you can see in these illustrations that there are no winners in this game that we play in our minds.  It is unwinnable as McCurry describes it.  So it is hopeless trying to be the positive pieces in this war in our heads.  The negative pieces just aren’t leaving for as long as we are alive and with our nervous systems functioning as they are as I write and as you read this post.

The question now is:  Then who could we be in this chess game so that we can get out of this war and move on with our lives?  The answer is the chessboard!  We are the containers of these thoughts but we are not them!  And being the containers, we don’t really need to care who wins or loses in this game.  We can remain as witnesses to this war!  

If you are able to write down your thoughts, then this is a practice in metacognition!  Noticing your thoughts and noticing that you are noticing them!  That’s a part of you that notices everything that goes on in your life!  And with this capacity, we can then choose the particular course of action that is most effective for what is unfolding in front of us!

Furthermore, I love that Chris McCurry also uses the chess game to illustrate life and its tragic elements.  As we play the game, we will eventually lose pieces as we go through it.  The object of the game is to keep playing with the pieces you have left.  This is a bigger metaphor actually of not just our minds but of life itself.  If we live long enough, we will experience the bitter sweetness that life presents.  As Steven Hayes, the developer of ACT writes in his best-selling book, 

“You have only so much time on this earth, and you don’t know how much.  The question “Are you going to live, knowing you will die?” is not fundamentally different than these questions:  “Are you going to love, knowing you will be hurt?” Or, “Are you going to commit to living a valued life knowing you will sometimes not meet your commitments?” Or, “Will you reach for success knowing you will sometimes fail.”  The potential for pain and the sense of vitality you gain from these experiences go together.  If your life is truly going to be about something, it helps to look at it from the perspective of what you would want the path your life leaves behind to mean.”    

Life gives us but one chance and it doesn’t come without moments when we have to say goodbye to our youth, old friends, and loved ones.  Like the game of chess, let’s make the most of what we have at present and live our One Life Only as well as we can. 

Why do we end up fighting over my requests for change?

by Nathan Chua

You will never be like our friend Joe.  He knows how to make Valentine’s day special for his wife.  I clean your closet for you and you never even try!  I need you to change or else I will never be happy in this relationship.  I have done so much for this relationship so why can’t you do the same for me?      

These are just some examples of how couples end up escalating their fights.  They end up not just fighting about the issue at hand, but also the way they fight about it.  In the following article I will be writing about a few common requests that couples make that usually backfire.  Here is a short list of some of these ineffective petitions for change that couples use:

Did you notice how sweet Joe is to his wife?  Why can’t you be more like that?  

The problem with this type of request is that it immediately makes your partner defensive.  Your partner, just like everyone else will then make comparisons to other people who are less thoughtful to their partners than him or herself.  We all have the ability to make both upward and downward comparisons.  Comparisons usually make way for even more comparisons that will defend your partner’s position and invalidate yours.

After all of the work I have done to keep this household clean, you can’t even pick up after yourself!  When will you learn not to dump the dirty dishes in the sink and leave them there for hours? 

The problem with this demand is that you turn your partner’s differences into defects.  It may not take you much to clean up, but it can take quite a bit of effort for your partner.  What may seem easy and logical for you, may not be as evident to your partner.  

There are quite a few more of these, but I will now turn to ways in which you can make your requests more likely to be granted.  Please note that I don’t claim certainty here.  But at least these types of requests will be less likely to compound the issues by turning your fights into fights about the way you fight.  You might be surprised at its simplicity.

Make simple requests for no other reasons but for the fact that such changes will make you happy!  Most, if not all of us, go into a pair-bonding relationship for the simple reason that we want to make our partners happy.  It gives us pleasure to know that we have done something that makes our partners smile.  

In some cases though, you may find it hard to talk about these requests for change without ending up in a major altercation.  In such instances, you might have to be a bit more creative.  Do something different in the way you make your requests, like handwriting an open letter or sending an email.

If all else fails, there are a few things that have less to do with how your partner is, but more to do with how you are in the relationship.  One is being able to accept the fact that in all relationships, there are bound to be inequalities.  Your partner will be unpleasantly surprised if you suddenly demand for something that was never there in the first place.  Secondly, come to terms with the fact that change is bound to happen in any relationship.  In fact, keeping things as they are will take more effort than accepting that change will happen over time.  To use a metaphor, keeping a car or house in its original state is much harder than accepting the fact that they will eventually break down in certain areas.

Finally, the only thing that I can guarantee will make changes in your relationship, is a change in yourself.  Do what your partner has been asking for.  Do it without asking anything in return.  Give your partner an incentive to do what you’ve been requesting for.  Be kinder, sweeter, and show your partner that you have come to accept many of the differences that he or she brings into the relationship.  

Attempts to change your partner by sheer force of command usually backfires.  You can only influence change not demand it to happen in order for it to happen.  If you change, there is a greater likelihood that your partner will notice how much you have come to accept him or her, and thus show changes too.  It’s just up to you to be more mindful of the changes you see in your partner and appreciate your partner’s efforts.  As humans we all harbor aspirations of becoming the best person we want to be, most especially in this one special relationship that is like no other.  Your partner is no exception.  

Are you alone this Valentine?

by Nathan Chua

I have a feeling you would say that this blog post may not be worth your time.  Why?  Because how many times have you read articles that tell you to weigh the pros and cons of being alone in this time made exclusively for couples.  Well, this article will either amuse you or disappoint you.  I am not here to talk about the usual good and bad of being single and alone on Valentine’s day.  That battle in your mind will go on until the day you lose consciousness (well, for good, knock on wood).  It will never end.  It’s sort of like an old marriage joke I heard once from a clergyman, “Marriage is like flies on a screen door.  Those who are out want in and those who are in want out!”

Well, that’s the mind for you!  Sorry to sound trite, but your mind will always convince you that the grass is greener on the other side.  It is a nonstop judgment machine!  

So here’s the deal with being alone this Valentine’s day.  You can either give up your search for a lover, or you can keep doing what you are doing now (rationalizing why you shouldn’t or why you should be extra picky, or why you should anyway), or you can give it a go!  I know your mind will start barking off reasons for you to not even try.  It’s going to be one out of a hundred chances that I get to meet someone interesting.  It will be exhausting!  Boring!  Painful!  I will just get rejected more times than I can bear.

You can either follow what your mind tells you to do or step back a little and say what is dating done in the service of?  Is there a part of you that wants to be loving and caring to that one special person?  If your answer is yes, notice the verbs I use here!  It is about being loving and caring.  It is not just about marrying the right person, or having a long term commitment.  What’s the difference?  The former is something you can do endlessly until the end of your last breath, while the latter are goals you make that tell you you’re partly on your way to be the former!  Get it?  

See if we focus on our goals, we set ourselves up for disappointment…whether we succeed or not.  Why so?  That doesn’t seem fair!  Let’s see how goals work in our lives.  Goals are mostly end points in a process of pursuing something we want out of our lives.  If you fail to meet those goals, then you end up disappointed.  If you succeed in achieving your goals, how long does the satisfaction last?  Have you ever noticed that any new goals you achieve are instantly followed by a lack of satisfaction and an urge to pursue even more goals?  (Ever wondered why some of the richest billionaires end up doing something else besides what they had been doing so well for decades?)  So whether you achieve goals or not, you end up disappointed or at least unsatisfied.  Remember your mind is a judgment machine!  

So think of dating as part of your magic carpet ride!  It will be scary at times for sure, but it will likely be worth it if you know what the activity done is in the service of.  Think of a child who plays games like hide and seek!  Isn’t that scary and anxiety-causing?  But we still played the game for the sake of a more fun childhood!  That was when we hardly knew the rules that our minds gave us!  You shouldn’t feel this or that, or think this or that!  At least that’s what the adults around us said!  So the secret is to see your moves from a child’s eyes.  This is going to be horrifying at times, but alive!  Just like a movie!  There will be challenging times, but that’s what makes a movie a movie worth watching, isn’t it?  

So get in touch with the child in you and enjoy the ride.  This is just part of your journey of being or becoming more like the loving you you’ve always wanted to be!  Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! (and that includes the lonely ones!) 

How to prevent fights from escalating in your relationship

by Nathan Chua

Since I began to sense some dissatisfaction over the counseling approaches I have been using for the first nine years of my practice, I went in earnest to find better and more modern approaches to working with couples.  It didn’t take long for me to listen to a podcast from a couple of psychologists from Oxford University, raving about the efficacy of mindfulness to psychological well-being.   

Most of the approaches I had tried before for couples, were rules-based.  These rules made sense and they didn’t take a genius to understand how these rules can work.  Unfortunately, the drawback of this approach is that couples would then tend to use such rules to bash one another.

How do I now translate the mindfulness approach to dealing with couples?  Do I have my couple sit in front of me for 10 minutes and meditate?  It turns out there is a way to counsel couples to become more mindful in their relationships.  

Mindfulness allows couples to de-escalate fights, prevent fights, and recover more easily from their fights.  Most couples end up separating because their negative interactions have become hard to tolerate.  As a result, these negative exchanges can lead to a lessening of positive interactions that contribute to the couples’ opting to end the relationship.

Dr. Christensen, Doss, and Jacobson have come up with a memory aid for couples to remember.  This helps couples take a more mindful approach to de-escalating fights.  The mnemonic is START:

“Stop what you are doing for the moment.”  Pause to notice what is going on at the moment.  Notice if this is something familiar that you and your partner have gone through countless times in the past.

“Take a deep breath.”  This focus on the breath and being able to breathe in and out of the body part that feels tension in this exchange, can get you off the automatic reactions that lead to escalation.  

“Attend to what is going on with you emotionally in the moment.”  One skill you will learn in mindfulness is to be able to identify or label the emotion that you are feeling.  Couples tend to more easily show a hard emotion over a soft hidden emotion. 

“Reveal your emotional state to your partner.”  Once you have identified the deeper emotion, you may now be more open to tell your partner about these vulnerabilities that have remained hidden for so long.

“Take an interest in what is going on emotionally with your partner.”  If you can be in touch with your feelings without defense, you can be more open to understanding your partner’s feelings as well.

I hope this short blog post will help you and your partner become more equipped when disagreements arise.  Committing to act on these skills is your key to developing a better relationship.