Category: Life Quotes

Can a Marriage Get Sick?

“People say things like, ‘We want a healthy marriage.’ Now, how can a marriage get sick? What is a virus that attacks a marriage? What we mean is we want a fulfilling marriage. We want something that our heart yearns for.”
– Hank Robb
Hank Robb spoke about the limits of the disease model in a recent interview with Nathaniel Chua. Watch the interview here:  
onelifeonly.net/two-shrinks-over-drinks-navigating-wisdom-psychology-a-conversation-with-hank-robb/

A Life Beyond Just Feeling Good

One unintended consequence of the prevailing disease or mental disorder model is that life slowly becomes a competition over who feels the best, the happiest, the most confident, or the least distressed.

But if feeling good were the ultimate purpose of living, we would expect our final tributes and epitaphs to celebrate people mainly for how good they felt about themselves.

We know that’s rarely the case.

Most obituaries are not about who felt the happiest.
They are about what people did.
How they loved.
What they built.
Who they helped.
What they stood for.

The Rules We Live By

We all follow rules.
It’s hard to live without them.
We have rules for how to apologize, how to love, even how to make coffee.
But psychological flexibility begins when we ask:
does this rule still work in this context?
For example:
“If I’m angry, I should stay silent until I calm down.”
Sometimes that rule prevents harm.
Sometimes it quietly becomes avoidance, distance, and emotional disconnection.
And sometimes the people around us follow very different rules about anger.
One person believes anger should be controlled and hidden.
Another believes anger should be expressed immediately and directly.
So the conflict is no longer just about the thing that made you angry.
Now you begin fighting about how a person is supposed to be angry.
A good rule is not one that is obeyed no matter what.

A good rule is one that stays sensitive to context.

Better People, Better Country

Contextual Behavioral Science is about helping individuals adapt more effectively to the contexts they live in — while also helping societies build contexts that empower individuals to thrive.

It is an approach to understanding human behavior that can be applied far beyond therapy:
toward better people for a better country,
and a better country for better people.