One Life Only Blog – Page 5 – One Life Only Counseling Services

How humor can save your relationship

by Nathan Chua

We are funny creatures, I have heard Dr. Steven Hayes say in one of his interviews. In the approach that I use for my couples, there is a component that endeavors to help couples reach a level of objectivity especially with regard to their differences. These differences are part of what they bring into the relationship given their histories both from within and outside the relationship.

To illustrate this, let me use an example that is quite a common issue among many couples. A fairly common difference that couples experience is their issues about time and patience in certain contexts. One might be slower than the other. Your partner may be patient in certain circumstances while not so much in others. This may or may not change in your partner. They can be patient as a lamb while waiting for you at the salon but not as patient when waiting at the parking lot. The cases I see mostly have very short fuses when it comes to these enduring differences. It is quite usual that I see couples who complain about major fights and when asked to describe them, would regularly come up with a realization of how trivial the subject of the conversation was to begin with.

Here are a couple of ways you can better cope with such differences. Let’s use the example we just used about waiting. If your partner does not like waiting at the parking lot, then there must be something about that context that makes it problematic for them. See if you can understand what’s behind it. Maybe they are very prompt most of the time and having them wait at a parking lot conjures up some thoughts that make them more anxious. Something they might have learned in childhood or from a previous relationship. You can also recall how much this promptness has made you come to like them in your earlier interactions. As I often share with my clients, if we have time during the session, can you recall what made you like your partner the first time you met? Often, couples will come to see that what is now a sticky issue between them, was part of what initially made them attracted to each other. Qualities that endear you to one another may turn out to be a double-edged sword. The promptness that you came to like from your partner can have impatience on its flipside.

The second tip I have for you today is how to deal with this problem and is actually the topic of this article. Humor! First of all, you have to be aware and mindful of the situations where potential conflict on this issue may arise. In other words, have some foresight. Knowing fully well that your partner can be impatient in such situations, find a way to take that scowl on your partner’s face more lightly. A good example is saying, “Oh I’m so sorry I was five seconds late. I promise to keep it at four seconds next time. I know four is okay, but five is a bit much. My bad!” Of course, say it with the matching facial expression and tone. I hope though that you have a modicum of comedic timing. Finally, please time it when you’re indeed five seconds late!

If you have been to a wedding anniversary celebration a few times, you might notice some of the ways couples cope with their enduring differences and sensitivities. It’s a mixed bag of emotions. You might have seen some tears welling up around the couple’s eyes as they face each other to renew their vows, even as they come up with funny experiences they’ve had in the past about the trivial things they fight about. Remember the proverbial toothpaste and toilet habits? Why? Because that’s what life and relationships are all about. It’s hard work but at the same time as funny and rewarding as they can be.

Remember, coming to couples therapy is limited to an hour or so of work every week. It will not drastically change who you are as individuals. Maybe you can recall some widows or widowers you have visited after the demise of their partners. They would cry and laugh throughout the wake. Laugh because of those treasured moments of laughter that their differences provided. It was hard and came from having years of practice and wisdom, that couples have come to accept and love in each other with a bit of humor, of course.

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Divorced? Separated? What can you do?

by Nathan Chua

It took quite a while, but after listening to a podcast interview between Steven Hayes and a couple of divorced individuals, I realized that there is a significant part of the population that I might have missed writing about in a while. I mean we even have local laws that give this segment of our population the same perks as the elderly and differently-abled. Like them, I have also had my share of failed relationships to say the least! How could I?

One of the main problems that people in this segment find themselves in is the walls that they can build around them. Borrowing from an illustration that Dr. Hayes used to describe what these walls signify in our language, it is like asking these clients who have chosen this path after a painful end to a relationship to fill in the blank in this statement, “I will never be that _________ again.” The words that came out of your head tell you what these walls were meant to protect. In the interview Dr. Hayes and the interviewers came up with the following: trusting, innocent, and vulnerable.

Now don’t get me wrong though, there is a place to be mindful of red flags in a potential relationship. But for many who become closed off to relationships and the risks of having one again, they usually end up lonely. They substitute the pain of presence with the pain of absence.

Here’s my version of a little metaphor that Dr. Darin Cairns used in one of his demonstration counseling sessions. If you were playing a therapist to a client named Joe, who decided after being dumped by the love of his life, to remain closed off from any future dates with other women, ask yourself a few questions about him. Do you think that Joe would become safer and less vulnerable to getting hurt? Of course. In the long term though, if he remains unwilling to go out and date someone, do you think he’d be happier? Would he be more or less lonely using this way of coping in the long run? You’d probably say no to both.

Recovering from a lost relationship takes a bit of a balance. You and I still have that part of us that’s willing to go out there and try something different. It is something we share with other animals. We learn by trial and error. We have a bonus though, we also have minds that can direct us to what really matters to us in the long run. If we learn to open up to the pain of our past, we also learn that we care about relationships, or what it is that’s important to us. If you sense the same negative feelings you have had with that abusive partner, then it’s probably time to say no to another one. The problem happens when you and I close off to those painful memories of the past, then we are liable to become victims of the same problems in the future because we don’t learn from them. We just run away from them.

We might also cling on to the belief that somehow our relationship will change the person in front of us. Our problem-solving minds really try to do us the service of staying away from unpleasant thoughts and feelings and clinging on to the pleasant ones, so much so that we are left unaware of the possibility that we are falling into the same traps in the past. Yes, it may feel good to see how you changed the individual in front of you, but do wait for a while and see if it lasts. As Dr. Russ Harris mentioned in one of his training modules, there is a difference between blind and mindful trust.

To summarize, if there was a rule that I can recommend you do in your future as a single individual looking for companionship or deciding to choose a life as a single, then it is this. Be mindful. Be mindful of what you see in front of you, be mindful of your thoughts and feelings, and be mindful of your dreams and aspirations. Maybe then you’d come to see that whether you remain single or find that relationship that you’ve been looking for, you still have a full life in front of you that’s vital and challenging at the same time.

You can regain that vulnerability and innocence all over again, but also be wiser and more mindful at the same time.

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Climbing the Mountain of Your Life

by Nathan Chua

Have you lost hope recently? Does it feel like you have hit a ceiling in your life? Does it feel like everything is just one dreadful day after another? Has life turned into a series of musts, shoulds, and can’ts? Are you tired of running away? Perhaps running away from a life that you had always wanted? What is left to pursue with your time?

Whether it’s an addiction, anxiety, depression, or whatnot, it’s probably time to change your perspective on what’s going on with your life. If feeling safe is what you had been looking for in a long time, then you might notice that it is only a matter of time when your anxiety, depression, addictive urges, or anger catch up with you. It’s a fruitless endeavor. Why? Because you had been hardwired to have them. To what extent will depend much on your personal history. Unfortunately, no matter what, your personal history is going to be with you. Your memories are not your roommates that you can avoid by just picking another place to stay.

Clients who start gaining the ability to move forward in their lives would often run back for help whenever there are new challenges that come or when these obstacles feel insurmountable. Well, here is something that might encourage you. Let’s say you are a mountain climber. As you climb up that mountain, you would probably feel the challenges getting more daunting. Why? Because the higher you go the harder your fall will be. You also notice that you begin to have some bruises or more tired muscles as you reach one milestone after another. Your supplies may also show that you have less of what’s left as you climb. There may also have been unexpected delays or injuries that needed more time to heal.

Such is life when you go after what it is that gives it meaning and purpose. Success or no success, what’s important is the climbing. I mean you probably wouldn’t exchange the experience with just having a drive up the mountain in a nice SUV.

You might be reading this and think about what this has got to do with your problems. Let’s say you have the dream of finding a partner that you can love. You may fail along the way. Not all your relationships end up with an exchange of vows. The other end of this journey could be finding the person with whom you want to spend the rest of your life. Either way there is one common denominator in this pursuit of a meaningful relationship. You want to be in a relationship because you want to love and care for someone. And this doesn’t change regardless of outcomes, but the challenges can change and become even more challenging.

Another example is, you might be working hard for your dreams of sharing the fruits of your labor with people you care for. Bottom line is you probably are not working for money for the sake of one day lying down on top of it. You probably want to use this money for the people that matter to you, including yourself and maybe that sense of being independent. Whether you succeed or not in making the level of income you want, it would not change the fact that you wanted to be generous with what you earn. So the outcome doesn’t really change who you are and what you want to be. That’s a constant companion. They are your dreams and aspirations of being the person you want to be and living the life you want to live.

So let that mountain that I just stuck in your mind be your guiding metaphor. As you climb higher towards your dreams, you will have new and more difficult challenges that will come. Learning how to embrace them as opportunities to continue with your mission is the key. It is not about results, it’s about you and your dream of just being what you want to be in every step of your way there.

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Vulnerability: The Price of Admission to a Loving Relationship

by Nathan Chua

If you are one of my readers who is married, let me ask you this question, “Was there some little, small part of you that wondered if marrying this person, a right decision?” If your mind is just like mine, I am sure it did. There’s a funny anecdote about what comes to the mind of a bride as she walks down the aisle to wed her fiance. It’s a play with homonyms, “Aisle, altar, hymn,” turns into, “I’ll alter him!”

If you are one of my readers who was making a big decision of buying a car or a home, was there a little, small part of you that questioned such a decision? If your mind is just like mine, I am sure it did.

If you are one of my readers who is deciding on whether to start a career or go back to school for higher levels of education, is there a little, small part of you that questioned such a choice? If your mind is just like mine, I am sure it did.

As you can see, all of us have one thing in common, that judging, comparing, and problem-solving part of us that is located in between our ears. In some cases, it’s basically telling us that all choices have to be easy and that we can always hold on to both sides of a decision without sacrificing the other.

As we get near Valentine’s day, I want you to start noticing what your mind tells you is not working in your relationship. Are you starting to feel like the moments when you’re feeling resentful in your relationship are increasing while the pleasant ones are coming fewer and farther between? If so, the next step is to notice what you do when these resentments take over your behavior. Do you become aggressive, passive, or passive aggressive when these resentments show up? Are you starting to see your partner as a problem to solve? As someone who needs some psychological fix? As someone who is incapable of doing certain things that you like? On those occasions, what do you notice happens to your interaction with your partner? Are your ways of interacting or communicating helping you get into a more intimate relationship, or is it making your relationship more distant and problematic?

Secondly, remember that that problem-solving part of your mind is there for a good reason. It wants to protect you from harm and help you get through challenges to your personal comfort. The least it wants to happen is to keep you in a vulnerable state. When it’s time to check your finances because you seem to be losing part of your savings, your problem-solving mind will tell you that you need to find out what’s wrong and what’s making your finances vulnerable to the changing conditions in your work or career. If you are being attacked by a dog, your problem-solving mind will help you get out of that vulnerable situation and into safety. If your partner is physically abusive and verbally threatening, then your problem-solving mind can help you find ways to escape such vulnerable situations or find help from the authorities.

When it is our inner experiences that are involved though, our minds still treat our thoughts, emotions, urges, and physical sensations as external threats. It’s part of the work that is done in therapy where people learn to recognize what is a mental or inner threat and what is an actual physical threat. We can escape, fight, or surrender to a physical threat to stop the pain, but we cannot do the same to our inner experiences in order for them to go away, at least without severe consequences to our own vitality. To paraphrase an expert, “Where are you gonna go where your thoughts, feelings, memories, and emotions don’t go?”

Whether you’re celebrating Valentine’s day with a romantic partner, a parent, or some other loved one, the key to a connected and loving relationship is opening up to your more vulnerable feelings. For those of you who are married, remember that your vows meant that you are opening yourself up to vulnerability. No matter how perfect your partner may seem, he or she may suffer a debilitating disease or die anytime. You are taking that step towards the risk of experiencing emotional pain, because love and vulnerability come in a package. Vulnerability means you open up to the pain of possible loss, rejection, mistakes, and many others that come with what is called that state of being human by both you and your loved ones.

Let me end with this quote from Ross White:

“Vulnerability is the price of admission for a vital and meaningful life. If we are to be true to what is important to us, we will inevitably expose ourselves to some risk,” Ross White

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!

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Living with Obsessive Thoughts

By Nathan Chua

If you take a closer look at the title of this article, you might see that one word is not capitalized. First of all, it’s what I learned in English composition about how titles should be written. Prepositions are supposed to remain in the lower case when inserted into a title. Secondly and coincidentally, it is probably what would make the approach I use a bit different from what you would mostly encounter in other mainstream therapies. I used the word, “with.” I could have written something like, “Living FREE of your Obsessive Thoughts,” or “Living with LESS Obsessive Thoughts,” or “OVERCOMING Obsessive Thoughts,” or “MANAGING Obsessive Thoughts.” However, that would just take me to the same agenda that is, as I said, mostly what you would expect from the mainstream.

The “”with” part is a big part of what I do in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy or Training (ACT). You might now be worried or your mind is begging you to ask, “Are you into some kind of torture method?…Don’t you have a way of bringing me at least some relief from these obsessive thoughts? Well, of course we all want relief, and that’s pretty much why people come to see a shrink. But it’s in the “how” you get relief that makes it problematic.

The automatic reaction which is logical, reasonable, and sensible, is to come to therapy with the idea that I can somehow magically remove or lessen your obsessive thoughts. As a renowned psychologist would say, and I paraphrase, “You just happen to be doing what’s reasonable, logical, sensible, and by the way, pathological. It’s logical but it’s also nuts!”

Now before you come to me for help, I want you to notice what it is that you have tried to get rid of those thoughts. Have you taken pills? Have you tried to reason out to yourself to relieve yourself of those thoughts? Have you opted out of things you used to do, hoping that if you stop doing them, you wouldn’t be reminded of those thoughts?

So my next question is, “Have those attempts worked?” Have you been able to remove such obsessions that your mind gives you? Well, you could say yes they have, but if you come to me, then ask yourself, “What for?” Most likely, you are reading this or coming to see me because the thoughts have remained. Yes, they did leave you for a while, but they seem to catch up with you sooner or later.

So let’s do one of my favorite ACT exercises to help you live WITH your obsessive thoughts. On a piece of paper, write down all the difficult obsessive thoughts that you have. You may even include some feelings or bodily sensations that come with those thoughts.

Now, do this. Put it in your pocket and answer a few questions.

Do you have to want to put this paper in your pocket, to put it in your pocket?
Does it take a lot of effort to put it in your pocket?
Do you have to change anything that you have written in this piece of paper in order to put it in your pocket?
Do you have to believe in what you wrote in this piece of paper to put it in your pocket?
Do you have to pretend to put the paper in your pocket in order to put it in your pocket?

If all your answers here are no, then put it in your pocket. If you answer yes to any, think about why your answer is yes. Are you trying to suppress these thoughts? Are you playing the role of another person you think will represent who you are? Are you trying to argue with such thoughts? How many of these have you already tried before? Have they worked to get you to live the life you want or be the person you want to be?

If you’re one who answered no, then put this in your pocket to remind yourself that you are willing to have this because it is in your own best interest to have all these thoughts in your pocket and still do what’s important to you.

Let me end with a quote from a book that also quotes a regular person who had attended an ACT group. This is one of a number who described what willingness meant to them and to their lives:

“Why willingness? Because it is a normal human process to feel pain, and it is inhumane and unloving to try to hold myself to a different standard,” from an anonymous ACT training participant, taken from a book co-written by Steven C. Hayes.

How to be a guide to your teenager

by Nathan Chua

Generation gap? What happened to my baby? I want the best for her but she seems to not understand! He’s not listening to my words anymore. She seems to spend more time in her room, on her phone than with us parents exactly when there are opportunities to connect and bond. These are just some of the common problems I see from parents who, for the first time, are feeling like they have lost control over their teenage child.

One of my favorite metaphors to share with parents who struggle with their teenagers is that of a mother bird who has a few grown up chicks that are just about ready to fly out on their own. Your teenager wants to take flight. They will have some unsuccessful attempts and this is the time you could be seen by your child either as a teammate or a big obstacle.

The teen years are like the toddler years. They can be really challenging. Remember how much you had to worry about your toddler hurting himself, or losing them in a mall? Your teenager is no longer a child but not yet an adult, just as your toddler is no longer an infant but not yet able to walk without falling badly at times. This can be a painful realization for the parents. If there was separation anxiety for kids, I think this could be the closest thing to it that parents experience.

One of the more frequent complaints I get from parents is that their kids are no longer listening to their admonitions and at times showing no fear of their sterner warnings. In some cases, one parent plays the good cop and the other the bad one. Not only does the conflict happen between the parents and the child, but also between the couple. One resents playing the bad cop and the other resents the other for being the bad cop. It’s quite a common issue for parents with kids, to disagree about how to parent.

But I get it. Parents have all the good intentions to keep their kids from harm and get them to a brighter future. The problem lies in the way they do it. Dr. Darin Cairns has come up with an interesting metaphor on how to help your relationship with your teenager get better. Dr. Cairns asks parents to choose if they wish to act as gatekeepers or guides.

More often, parents perform the role of gatekeepers. They determine for their children what they should or should not do. Of course, there are certainly some things that parents would not want their kids to try, like crossing the street without a care about vehicles coming toward them. Most of the time however, gatekeepers use rules of what to do or not to do for their kids without much of an explanation or giving the child a sense of some autonomy over their actions and choices. Guides, on the other hand, are parents who validate their teens, allow them to make choices, and let them see for themselves the consequences of these choices.

It doesn’t end there though, being a positive guide is also part of this equation. By positive I don’t mean that everything should be happy and joyful. This will give the impression to the child that it is bad to feel sad or anxious or angry or any of the unpleasant emotions. By positive I mean that you should focus on asking your child to do things rather than telling them what not to do. Why? Because through this your child will not feel criticized and will take your guidance as an opportunity to learn new things and give them a sense of agency.

Well, I am getting tired as I write this. Suffice it to say that I completely empathize with parents of teenagers. It is quite the chore but nonetheless it can be rewarding to be a guide and a friend to your teenager rather than a gatekeeper who is constantly on the lookout for what disaster your kid is up to now. Haha!

How to start Marriage/Relationship Number 2

by Nathan Chua

New year, new dear? Yes, you can, as a couple, start your relationship all over again! You might be wondering how in the world can I, as a counselor, help you change your partner? Oh he’s been like that for a good part of two decades now! What gives me the audacity to claim I can change your partner? Well, there is a way my friends! And the wonderful thing about it, is it’s up to you, not your partner. Let me tell you how to curtail your long wait.

I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but paradoxically, the best way to change your partner is to accept him! Of course I’d be lying if I told you that this was guaranteed. But chances are, if you’re reading this, you’ve already tried many, many ways to change your partner, and they all haven’t worked. In fact, the more you try to change your partner, the more rigid he becomes. Most of the time, you find yourselves stuck in a verbal skirmish that could put to shame some lawyers you know, in terms of the tenacity and adroit argumentation that both you and your partner display.

Let me explain what I mean with an example. If let’s say your partner is not as neat and tidy as you are. You are now exhausted with all the cleaning up to do and the reminders you have to make to help your partner remember to do her side of the bargain. You then come to therapy and learn that these things are better off accepted and can take a long time to change, especially with the way you have been heretofore dealing with the problem. Based on this new understanding or awareness that what you have been doing is part of what keeps you stuck, you start laying off on the reminders and become more accepting of the fact that your partner will be hard-pressed to turn into the neat and tidy person that you want. There is a likelihood that your partner will notice the change in your attitude. You no longer holler and complain as much as you used to. She may notice that and begin to see how hard it is for you to be left alone taking care of house chores. Pretty soon you see her performing some of the chores to please you, precisely because you have accepted her with these differences she brings into the relationship.

Another tip is also to be more noticing of your partner’s efforts to change. If you notice that she has started doing some unexpected cleaning, be mindful enough to show her your appreciation. Give her a smile or a hug or say some encouraging words of appreciation. You’d know more than I do what makes your partner happy. Show her that you’re not missing the forest for the tree…maybe for the first time in a long long while.

Now, do you notice also that in both of these pieces of advice that I just enumerated, who is in control? Is it your partner or you? It is you. You have control over your actions of whether to accept your partner’s differences in the way she keeps her place tidy. You also have control over your behaviors that involve encouraging her by your appreciation.

So creating marriage number two is not about changing your partner, it’s more about changing you! And the most accessible parts of you that can be changed, are those that involve your choices to act. You may feel frustrated and uncomfortable, but in the end you have the option to keep whining and complaining and criticizing your partner, or start the process by coming to accept that certain things are hard to change.

As a summary of what you can keep in mind to help you change the way you have been approaching your relationship or marital concerns, here are some immortal words from Albert Einstein, “We cannot solve problems with the same thinking that we used to create them.”

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Facing the New Year with Awareness, Courage, and Love

by Nathan Chua

The title of this post is not an original, at least the part that counts most. Many times in my graduate studies, I had wondered what, bottomline, counseling was about. I mean, what is it basically that we are trying to accomplish? At some point in my graduate studies, I thought it was forgiveness. It turns out that I will find an answer to this in my readings of Kevin Polk and his co-authors. It’s about helping clients to become more aware, to act courageously, and to do so lovingly.

Let’s take them one at a time.

Awareness:

Much of what we regret doing stems from acting in ways that are automatic. How often have we seen people commit homicides in this country, only to see them realize that they had lost control over their actions for a split second? There was even a case of a police officer who had a sterling record of service, who now has an indelible audiovisual account of him shooting a hapless middle-aged woman dead. His promising career that took him years to build was upended by a brief moment of rage.

Awareness is a word that I often heard around the graduate classes I attended. In ACT or Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, the word that is more often used to describe awareness is noticing. For me, the gerund form makes it an active pursuit that we can do from moment to moment. If we learn to practice noticing, then there’s a chance for a split second that the police officer I earlier mentioned would be able to choose more effective actions in that moment of rage. It could have averted the loss of two lives. One ended by a shot in the head, while the other was left to languish in prison.

Courage:

One thing ACT has taught me is that noticing is not just noticing or being aware of the difficult thoughts and feelings that we have. It also involves noticing the rest of us. By that I mean, we also notice other facets of the context that can move us in the direction of what is important to us in each moment. Being a complete human being with all its history and complexity involves noticing that part of us that can move towards important ends.

Over involvement in avoiding and controlling difficult inner experiences can lead us to tiring out of life and learning hopelessness is just around the corner anytime. The peculiar thing about us is that we are capable of doing things that we don’t normally expect from ourselves when the stakes are high enough to respond in ways that go beyond our own urges to be self-protective. We seem to be capable of running towards difficult inner experiences rather than run away when it matters. That shy, unassuming classmate of yours can all of a sudden show up in the news being called a hero for saving a complete stranger from a burning car. As Dr. Steven Hayes, the instigator of ACT, loves to say, “That’s just the kind of monkey we are.” So we are capable of doing courageous, selfless acts. It’s just built in. It can resurface in our consciousness if we become more noticing.

Love:

And as we do those courageous acts, we are also capable of seeing the world from other people’s perspectives. We are capable of empathy and acts of kindness in the face of challenging circumstances. You, my readers, do it every day! We can do inconvenient acts for the sake of someone we care for. We come to the side of those who mourn. We help out without anyone knowing. We care for our kids even if it means sacrificing our own convenience.

That in a nutshell can sum up what we do in counseling. Making us the whole human beings that we were meant to be based on how we were wired. It’s not easy being human because we have a very handy tool that can also cause us much suffering. The mind is there to do its job. Objectively noticing that it is neither a boss nor an enemy makes a big difference. We just need to learn to notice it doing its thing, face our fears and do things that matter anyway, and then do it with love and care for ourselves and others as well. In other words, we are all capable of awareness, courage, and love, but sometimes we are not aware, or aware that we are not aware sometimes. And this my friends, takes practice!

Have a more noticing new year to come and thank you for coming to this place for the past 2021.

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Don’t judge yourself…but how?

by Nathan Chua

Don’t judge yourself!

Well, how’s that done? Unfortunately, once we decide to not judge ourselves for judging ourselves, then what are we doing? We are judging ourselves for judging ourselves. It is not just that we judge, but we judge the judging. So we are judging “judging!”

Let’s do this well-loved exercise to discover how our minds work. If I tell you that you are a pretty okay person, notice what your mind does to that thought. If I tell you that you are the nicest, most wonderful person on the planet that ever lived, notice what your mind does with that thought. Finally, if I tell you, you are the worst and least kind person on the planet, notice what your mind does with that. If you notice, your mind will come up with different thoughts with every comment. It’s like it is arguing with itself and it will not stop!

In its earlier days, ACT was called comprehensive distancing. This means that in ACT, we are not so much interested in the content of our thoughts as the function of our thoughts. In order to do that, we need to separate ourselves from our thoughts. The first step is to notice our thoughts as just thoughts. They don’t have to be gotten rid of or believed or followed.

The key to more psychological freedom is to notice how the mind works. By freedom I don’t mean that we will eventually be free of our thoughts, but rather that we will become more capable of saying no to the dictates of our thoughts. Some of those dictates lead to compliance, while some lead to resistance and judging! In other words, noticing how our minds work helps us to become more capable of making effective choices for a better life.

Now let’s get back to the judging. The mind is an excellent judging machine. It has to because otherwise we would not be as successful a species as we would like. Why is this so? Judging has its uses. In order to survive longer, our minds have to judge the surroundings and look out for threats. Therefore, to know which ones are a threat and which ones are not, our minds would have to judge!

As Dr. Russ Harris illustrates, back when we were cave dwellers, we needed our minds to judge the presence of a threat to our survival. Our minds are there as survival tools that get us through inclement weather, save us from predatory animals, or whatever threats there may be. Unfortunately, that same function of the mind is not limited to external threats only. The human mind translates all signals of threat as one. Regardless of whether it is a physical external threat or an internal one, the signals evoke the same urges to respond in a certain way. The fear of an approaching bear is construed as the same fear when we have thoughts of a bear.

The subject of the work of an ACT therapist is to help the client notice that these mental processes are just that, mental. The noticing is followed by an open stance or a willingness to have such difficult experiences in the service of doing what is important to the client.

So there you are! If there was anything that you and I know about ACT as an approach to therapy, this skill of noticing thoughts as thoughts and judgments as judgments is key! Now how about judging the “judging?” Notice the judging and remember that this is just another function of the mind. There is nothing inherently wrong with judging “judging,” for that is what the mind does. What we can practice is to notice the judging as what it is, not what it says it is.

Our minds are like an overzealous friend who wants to be helpful. It is not our enemy. Think of it as your child just wanting you to be a comfortable and safe parent. Therein lies one of the keys to being mindful and living the mindful life. These parts of you are not your enemies but your friends or your children. Love them for what they are, not as what they say they are, and we’ll soon be on our way to a more loving and more compassionate existence.

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Why some remain skeptical about counseling

by Nathan Chua

With the way many mainstream and social media entities have dealt with the topic of mental health, it may be surprising for some to know that therapy and counseling has yet to completely shake off the social stigma attached to seeking help for mental health problems. Although the pandemic could have reduced some of the skepticism, there are still many who are adamant about their views. I know some of you reading this will think, “Uh oh, here we go again, another article in defense of seeking professional help.” Quite the contrary though, and sorry to disappoint you, but this post is more about taking a long hard look at what the profession has done to produce such skepticism. Maybe it’s time to look inside our practices and see what our role is in contributing to this lack of confidence.

In his book, “The Anatomy of an Epidemic,” author and journalist, Robert Whitaker talks about how drugs have been abused to treat otherwise well-functioning individuals who suffered serious albeit temporary mental problems. As I have written before in a previous blog post, this is what Dr. Steven Hayes often refers to as the “DSMization” or biomedicalization of mental health care. Dr. Hayes even encourages dropping the term, “mental health,” for something that is more attuned to what the current science is showing. He suggests the use of mental resilience or mental skills instead. In sum, the current approach of classifying people into categories and subcategories of disease has done more harm than good. It has led to the abuse of medications that more often produce unnecessary and rather serious side effects. I have written about this in a past blog post, so let’s turn now to the crux of what I want to share in this one.

The second point which I want to emphasize for this post is what I heard Dr. Hayes said about our work in the helping profession that uses talking (or language) as a primary medium of change. At the time I heard it, I couldn’t understand what he meant when he said that in our field of work, experience predicts confidence not competence. I even took the time to post my difficulty understanding Dr. Hayes’ words in one of the social media groups I have belonged to since attending some workshops in the past. I didn’t really find any of the comments to my posted question to hit the nail on the head. Finally and luckily, I came across a podcast where Dr. Hayes himself explained what he meant.

It’s pretty much like learning how to shoot the ball in the game of basketball. Looking at how your shot went gives you the feedback you need to see how you can improve your shooting skills, or which shooting form works. Yes, feedback! Now can you imagine if you were shooting with a blindfold all along!

In my first nine years of practice, I had followed what was mostly being taught in mainstream psychology here in the Philippines. Of course, my clients eventually get better! But better at what? Well, mainly they had become better at reducing some of that anxiety, depression, etc. The rule of thumb can be summed up this way, you are here for counseling because you need help in removing some of that difficult feeling inside in order for you to do whatever it is you want moving forward.

At times then I was wondering, do my clients really get better because of my work, or are they just recovering on their own over time? The other side of it is, why are my clients coming back for sessions every time there is a new challenge in front of them? Furthermore, with the approaches I had tried, I had to read up on so many books and enroll in so many training modules in order to address the myriad of cases presented to me! I thought this feels quite like an impossible task! Is there anyone who can master all of these protocols for every mental health concern? Is that even human?

And of course I was getting good feedback, because clients do learn that these difficult emotions do have a shelf life! And I had become their shoulder to cry on when things get rough once again! So who’s the expert here?

Even while I was in business, I was always looking for better stuff. I remember in my 40s, I found myself hitting a ceiling with finding answers through my spiritual journey. And as I pursued further studies in counseling, I hit another ceiling! It felt like whatever I was doing, I could not attest to myself that these same methods I use with my clients do lead me to get past my own limitations!

Now I am not saying here that I have reached some kind of perfection in terms of the way I deal with my personal struggles. In fact, I am still learning up until this writing. But in Contextual Behavioral Science (in general and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in particular), I think I have found a place where there is a way past that final ceiling. And guess what? If there was something available out there that proves to me that I can find a science that can even be better than what is available in contextual behavioral science, I will take it! Because what matters to me in my work is what actually works! That is why I am now an ACT therapist and a functional contextualist! I think it is by far the most scientifically sound approach and the one that will gradually take me through that hardest of all ceilings! This is the fire that burns in me and the reason why I am passionate about sharing this with you!

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