What is in your “born-again experience” and how can you make your newfound spirituality last?

by Nathan Chua

Growing up exposed to faith traditions, I remember always looking forward to spiritual retreats.  Not only do I get to have time off from school or work for free or at a discounted rate, I also get to meet new people or have more bonding opportunities with friends or schoolmates.  However, it is often a big question among retreat-goers as regards how long the effects of such a religious experience will last into their mundane lives.  Of course, being in a situation where everybody is smiling and having a break from the usual busyness of life, provides an idyllic setting that makes it easier to be kinder and more loving.  No doubt there are doubts if there is an actual spiritual side to any one of us.  Maybe we are just ordinary folks not really destined to consummate lives that are anything close to the clergy who facilitate these events.

Well, what my fellow retreat-goers and I couldn’t figure out in those days, I think some good ol’ science has posed an answer to.  In most other approaches I have encountered in my more than a decade’s long journey into counseling, I think ACT or Acceptance and Commitment Therapy stands out as unique in its inclusion of values into what I thought was supposed to be a valueless undertaking.  Before 2019, I used to think that my job was confined to helping people find a way out of their mental miseries and the rest was up to them.  In ACT though, there is that very powerful component of pursuing a values-based life.

So how do spiritual retreats work?  Why do they have such an impact on us?  How do we keep that spiritual revival going in real world settings?  To answer the first two, these retreats function as a way to help us get back in touch with our values.  These values are chosen patterns of behaving that are consistent with our deepest aspirations for ourselves.  These values never actually leave us, they just become obscured when life as we know it, gives us the challenges of work and the important but difficult relationships we have.  

Our minds have evolved into an evaluative, problem-solving tool that takes over when challenges to these values are present.  Your kid starts to act nastily towards you.  Your boss makes a comment that you found offensive.  Your spouse forgets your birthday.  How are we supposed to still be kind and loving in these situations?  

Dr. Steven Hayes mentioned in one of his talks, that the problem-solving mode of mind can be described as analytical and predictive.  In other words, it wants to find out how we got into such a situation and how we can get out of it quickly and painlessly.  And these modes of mind are focused on the past and the future; unable to recognize what’s going on in the present.  Our minds pretty much work in a way that suggests we take the fastest way out of troublesome thoughts and feelings that come along at work and in relationships.  For example, the recalcitrant child is making us feel angry and frustrated.  The problem-solving mode of mind figures out how we got to this point by thinking that the child has been spoiled, and then suggests the quickest way to solve the spoiled child and get out of our frustrated feelings is to just try to control the child by yelling and screaming at them.  Goodbye sweet, kind, and loving us that came out of the retreat!  It is easy to see how these spiritual revivals are only as good as the few days or the few weeks after.  Simply said, it is more likely that we live out or become aware of our values or what is truly meaningful and important to us, when the situation is well-protected from the challenges of life outside these exclusive retreat enclaves.

And how do we keep the spiritual fire burning when like all good things, the retreat must come to an end?  In ACT, I have learned quite a few ways to do it.  The first step however is to get out of the mindset that all good things are about good feelings.  A good way to challenge this “good feelings equals good life” idea is to notice the not-so-good feelings that come with living our values.  Anything important to us usually comes with a price.  If it were easy then we wouldn’t really care about it.  We hurt because we care.  Our sadness from a loss is because we loved.  We get angry because something has violated our sense of justice.  We experience anxiety because there’s something worth our trouble that we want to accomplish.     

As we keep our final destinations in sight, committing to something also involves taking small steps towards them.  After having been able to return to these values, we can take action no matter how small in that direction we go.  Make it a point today to call a friend you haven’t reached out to in a while.  Go buy ice cream for your kid just because.  Stand up for yourself and don’t take a sip of alcohol in your weekly gathering with your alcoholic friends.  Small steps to break your patterns can put you back in touch with those values you cherish and also understand that situations, thoughts, and feelings have no control over you, but you do.  Start doing the uncomfortable stuff and then take time to savor the results as a reward.  It will likely be worth all the struggle! 

Every so often I do get some calls inquiring about whether I do a faith-based approach in my practice or not.  I welcome anyone and everyone from all faith traditions to come see me.  I’d rather spread the word that I am inclusive, not exclusive.  Why?  Because while we may be subject to different rules of faith, we are all subject to the same rules of science.  For me, there is no conflict.  In fact, what I am learning now from ACT as an evidence-based approach to therapy, just showed me how much traditional faith-based practices have been affirmed by the science behind ACT, albeit thousands of years late.

I always feel a sense of sadness when people turn away from what ACT science can do for them, without first investigating if it is in sync with their faith.  I hope, if you’re one who is looking for a faith-based approach to therapy reading this post, that you give me and this science I use, a chance to help you because it has tremendously helped me.  Call or better yet, text me.  I’d love to go on a journey with you towards a more meaningful and purposeful life you may have yet to experience!

A Life Worthy of Your Suffering

by Nathan Chua

“There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings.”

Fyodor Dostoevsky

I recently heard a podcast interview of Kelly Wilson, one of the developers of ACT or Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.  He had a well-known quote that the interviewer eagerly mentioned at the beginning of the program, which went something like this, “Values and vulnerabilities are poured from the same vessel.”

One thing that really drew me to ACT is it’s probably the only type of therapy I know of that blends values into a practice which used to be for me, more about symptom-reduction.  Much of my work before ACT was focused on this.  Getting clients to get over their problems or to understand the roots of their symptoms for them to finally start moving forward.  For example, my goals were more about helping an angry person be less angry, or a depressed person become more engaged and alive, or a shy person to be more assertive.  It was more of that feel-good about one’s self type of approach.

ACT however, therapy does not have such goals of symptom-relief.  In fact, one of the best ways to start ACT in my experience, is to have people get back in touch with their values, or qualities of being that were and are still within them, and they still aspire to demonstrate in their daily living, but have long neglected due to this overemphasis of having positive thoughts and feelings, not just most of the time but at times even all the time!  We often assume that our values leave us.  The reality however is that they often get relegated to the background and are far from our consciously pursuing them.  

So what you may ask has vulnerability got to do with our values?  It is in our values that we find the scariest parts of ourselves.  As the old ACT expression goes, we care where we hurt and we hurt where we care.  If one of our deepest aspirations for ourselves is being honest, it will be very scary to be honest.  Loving someone means getting in touch with that part of us that’s most vulnerable or hurtable.  Aiming for success means feeling those anxious moments as we pursue uncertain ends.  As one of the developers of ACT once expressed, it is about learning how to feel good rather than feel good.  

We can choose our suffering.  We can suffer because of all the efforts we make to eradicate our difficult thoughts and emotions.  Kelly Wilson has a name for this that really struck me and served as my inspiration for this piece.  He calls it valueless suffering.  Put in other words, we can ask ourselves, “Do we really want a life dedicated to feeling better or getting rid of depression or anxiety or what not?”  Now how is that going to look on top of our tombstones?  Here lies Nathan, he worked really hard to feel good about himself!  

The other option is that we suffer for what we believe in and what truly matters to us when we leave nothing but our memories behind.  This is when we suffer because we choose justice over injustice, love over fear, freedom over safety, etc., in other words, our values over shortcuts.  

Let me leave you with this quote from Viktor Frankl:

“Dostoevski said once, “There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings.” These words frequently came to my mind after I became acquainted with those martyrs whose behavior in the camp, whose suffering and death, bore witness to the fact that the last inner freedom cannot be lost. It can be said that they were worthy of their sufferings; the way they bore their suffering was a genuine inner achievement. It is this spiritual freedom — which cannot be taken away — that makes life meaningful and purposeful.” Viktor Frankl

Living our values is going to be hard, and we are bound to fail at times.  But one thing I can guarantee, it will be rewarding unlike any other thing we may have experienced, and I can guarantee it will be rewarding…up to that very last breath we take

How to be OK even when everything else is not

by Nathan Chua

Multiple deadlines, challenges at home and at work, you’re about to lose your job, someone in the family has a serious ailment, pressure is coming from all sides…life happens and is coming at you like a savage beast hungry for a fight to the death!  These are the times when people come to see me.  The world has turned against my clients and there seems to be nothing they can do that has succeeded in changing anything.  In fact, the more they try the worse the outcomes become!

It is also during these moments that our minds go on overdrive, drilling judgmental thought after judgmental thought into our consciousness.  The key here is to reach a level of awareness of what is within or outside our control.  If you ever wondered what it is that makes us feel that we are living ineffectual lives, it is our misdirected efforts to control that which is not subject to control.  

Just be the human being that we had become through billions of years of evolution!  We have an assortment of wonderful tools inside our nervous system.  Turning against these evolved functions, is like working against gravity.

Ultimately, what happens to us in life is not within our control, but our responses are.  The goal of psychology as a field of scientific study is to bring to bear what it is that makes us live ineffectually and then find ways to change or interrupt that process to get us moving towards a different, more effectual, and more life-enhancing direction.  So it really does not matter as much what happens to us, as how we face them.  How we handle ourselves in those moments is where we can bridge the gap between what we are and what we aspire to be.

The question we could keep in mind is, “Did we handle it well?”  Here’s a paraphrase of Dr. Darin Cairns words reminding us that we can be okay even when everything around us tells us we’re not.   

“I can’t promise you everyone’s going to like you.

I can’t promise you that people will always know you exist.

I can promise you this, if you like you at that time, if you liked how you lived it, then you’ll like that you were true to what you believed in.

That you liked how you handled yourself in terms of whatever you value, then you’re always ok.

You’re ok when you’re popular, you’re ok when you’re alone, you’re ok after a breakup, you’re ok when you’re scared to death, and you’re ok when you’re hurting. 

You don’t have to stand tall but you do have to stand up.  You don’t have to think that you’re better than anyone, you don’t have to have anyone praise you, but you do have to be willing to exist for you.”

So to you my friend, I can say that no matter how dire your circumstances are at this moment, take a look at yourself ahead of you by a year or so, and ask yourself, “Would your future you like how you, the present you, handled the situation?”  I hope that brings you back in touch with what truly matters for you in each and every moment that comes.  No matter how not okay these moments can get, you can be okay knowing you stood up for you! 

Listen to the podcast version of this post on Spotify! Click here! 

Coming to An Acceptance of Your Partner or Loved One

by Nathan Chua

One of the things that our minds are really good at doing is judging.  Our minds have developed this highly useful skill for the ultimate survival of our species that has very few qualities which can protect it from external threats.  We don’t have large sharp teeth or claws and are said to be a species that has the longest gestation period among all creatures.  

You might be curious to know how judgment can play any part in our survival, let alone the survival of a whole species.  Isn’t it that we use judgment more to describe the ways we behave towards others?  We are not used to using the term in light of its impact on our evolutionary history.  Let’s do this little exercise to see how.  If our minds didn’t know how to judge between a threat and a non-threat, we would be like the fish that get caught twice or more times by a fishing hook.  Our minds are there to create rules that keep us out of harm’s way.  If you see a line attached to a bait, that’s not dinner being presented to you, but you becoming somebody else’s dinner.  Don’t cross the street without looking side to side.  Stay indoors when your experience tells you that this is the time of the year when the weather can be harsh.  This rule-following ability is what sets us apart from other species and gives us an edge of tremendous effect on who dominates the planet.

Unfortunately, this talent is double-edged.  It can be useful to judge between a lion and a puppy but not when we use it to judge our internal processes.  If our minds weren’t able to tell that the moving thing in front of us is a hungry lion, we could be its next prey!  The mind applies the same rule to our feelings and thoughts, because the mind does what it does.  Our difficult thoughts and feelings that naturally come by because of the life situations we face, are equated as bad, as in hungry lion-bad!

Couples and families often come to a judgment of their loved ones.  Unfortunately, such judgments often get in the way of the loving relationships each party wishes to develop.  One way of stepping out of these judgments is to consider your differences as they are and not as defects.  Here’s one way to be more aware of this.  Imagine if you had a loved one (either a romantic partner or a family member) who has suffered from a childhood impairment, let’s say, he or she is half-blind or has an injury that makes it difficult for them to walk at a normal pace.  Would you demand that he or she be able to walk and do stuff as fast as you do?  Probably not!  You would most likely make adjustments to accommodate your loved one’s condition.  

Given this, you and I can be more conscious of what our minds say are defects and begin to view them as conditions or differences around which we have to work.  We can recognize our tendencies to see our loved ones as defective and therefore more like problems to solve rather than human beings who have learned a different way to tie a shoelace so to speak.  

Another way of putting this into a clearer perspective is to notice the difference between describing a movie and judging it.  A descriptive statement would be to say that the movie is an hour and 40 minutes long.  While an evaluative statement would be that the movie was too long or too boring.  Why don’t you try this at home?  You can then experiment with a loved one that you have long judged to be defective.  Just like a narrator for Nat Geo, see if you can objectively describe how your partner or child or parent behaves and say to yourself, “This is someone special who I would much rather choose to love with all his or her different behaviors that I have come to accept in the service of a truly honest and loving person that I wish to be in this and every moment.”  That, my friends, is the key, not to feeling good, but to living well in spite of what your mind says are judgments to be made.  It is up to you to look at those judgments and say, I choose not to run away from or struggle with my difficult experiences in dealing with this important person in my life, and to accept them above all.  Be my guest and see peace arrive in your life. 

Abandoning the Disease Model

by Nathan Chua

It pains me to see a number of people who come to me and say that they have spent so much time and resources trying to cure their “mental illness” with a handful of medications, only to find out that after years of their hard work and dedication to the treatment, they have come full circle to the same old problem.  Maybe it was instinct, but in all my years in this field, I have always had an affinity to talking through rather than medicating out of psychological issues.  I never thought the idea that there was some germ or biological impairment involved in psychological struggles was tenable.  Contextual behavioral science seems to bear my hunch out.  

I must admit, some parts of my work in the past, especially the ones that dealt with developing insight, may have sounded like there was something broken or wrong with someone’s history or biology.  I can vividly remember part of my training in grad school where the class had to figure out what diagnosis/diagnoses to give a client.  It was tough!  Why?  Because the diagnostic manual, the simplified version for that matter, was about 600 pages long, and there were so many overlapping symptoms among the hundreds of diagnoses that I frankly was amazed at how the professor was able to come up with one or two!  I thought that only a genius with a freakish memory can come up with an accurate diagnosis, let alone making a diagnosis that matches that of the professor’s.  

As I have learned now from the philosophy behind Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), such a practice may not necessarily come up with the best results.  Far be it for me to make an indictment on the whole diagnostic and classification system.  There certainly is a place for such, but I guess the bottom line here is, finding out what works best for the client.  In certain cases, such diagnoses can, for many clients, become a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy or a crutch that is liable to be used in gaining the attention of others. 

What attracted me to ACT is its pragmatism.  If I was to join this field of work, I want it first of all to work for my own issues and struggles.  Secondly, I want to see results that are meaningful and effective to my clients, which is precisely what pragmatism is after.        

Moreover, seeing the world through ACT eyes means espousing not just the alleviation of human suffering but also the promotion of human prosperity.  As Maslow had proposed with the coming of the humanistic approaches in psychology, humans have certain aspirations that no other creatures on this planet share with them…self-actualization.  

My first nine years of work primarily was devoted to alleviating suffering, which is how the disease model “works.”  Get rid of your difficult thoughts and feelings or learn to manage them, then all will be okay.  One can just go back to the same tired old life that got them into therapy in the first place.  

So why have I devoted my last two years of continuing education to ACT?  Well it is a matter of asking myself if just managing my emotions was good enough to make me realize that I have lived a full and purposeful life.  But life would be so much more fun and challenging if I went for not just managing my inner thought processes, but also being gungho to what for me means doing something out of my limited time on earth.

As of now, I think this is the best science we have for attending to our problems of living.  The science has yet to determine that there is a certain biological cause to the effect of mental wellness.  Otherwise, don’t you think that the world’s geniuses in the field would have come up with a drug that takes care of all of that?  

Who knows?  We might end up finding it in the future.  But I go only as far as what the scientific evidence shows me to be useful in helping others better their lives, now!  So I have chosen this route, until a better science proves this to be inadequate. 

Why do people get hooked on gambling?

by Nathan Chua

It is quite often that people come to me to hear what my “expert” opinion is about their struggles or a significant other’s struggles.  This usually has a judgmental quality to it, like whether what they are doing or intend to do, is considered good or bad.  I am supposedly some shaman who has all the deeper insights into as many aspects of living as one could think of.  

In functional contextualism (FC), the philosophy behind the science of contextual behaviorism however, no behavior whether overt or covert is judged as good or bad.  This would no longer be consistent with the focus on process and would rather be a familiar mechanistic approach that has become the dominant approach in mental health care today as seen in the DSM, or Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, that has turned up several editions that have become thicker and thicker through the years.  

As a philosophy of science, FC deems that all behaviors as just behaviors.  Please note that behaviors here cover not just visible actions, but internal processes as well, such as our thoughts and feelings.  Thinking here is just another form of behaving, which in turn creates feelings.  The focus in FC is whether these behaviors lead to workable outcomes and not whether they are determined to be individually dysfunctional or not.  For example, I still remember in graduate school, there was considerable discourse about feelings like guilt or shame.  Some argue that neither is good while some posit that guilt is good and shame is bad.  In FC though, emotions are just emotions; behaviors, just behaviors.  What matters is how these behaviors function which is seen in what we overtly or even covertly do with these internal processes.  Do these internal processes get in the way of a vital and meaningful life?  

Sorry for the long intro.  Perhaps you are wondering what this has to do with the topic of gambling.  This may be a bit jolting to some of you but since FC doesn’t really involve labels of dysfunction, there is nothing wrong with gambling as a behavior if it is done in certain contexts.  You may play a card game for fun with your loved ones.  A few tries at the slot machine for a few laughs with a visiting friend, does not make the act of gambling unworkable.   

Gambling is a behavioral urge that people develop from past learning or socializing.  Like anger, nobody ever got into trouble with urges.  It’s what we do with such urges that gets us into trouble.  Having these internal urges dictate what we do with our lives is what gets us stuck.  

One way to get into what is behind such urges, is to start determining the reasons for these thoughts.  Why is it that your mind suggests that you gamble?  In my experience, asking these questions can bring us to a deeper yearning for something that is “good.”  When I say “good” here, I mean it not in the sense of a moral judgment, but rather seeing them as motivated by prosocial reasons.  If I dig into the why’s of this behavior from a client rigidly stuck in a pattern of addiction, he or she inevitably ends up with something that is life enhancing or enriching, and of course, prosocial.

Some of the reasons I get for a gambling habit are being able to help significant people in one’s circles, or becoming a positive influence on others through financial success, or finding a place to belong and feel special (in order to belong!).  Unfortunately, all these entail some short term costs to achieve long term payoffs.  Gambling has the appearance of achieving such prosocial goals but has it the other way around.  It provides short term rewards of pleasant feelings of belonging, being recognized for winning, or for the appearance of financial success, but prove ineffective in the long term.  As you might already have guessed, gambling inevitably leads to “bad” or unworkable longer term outcomes, like ending up in debt due to the need to recover previous losses. 

Next time you find yourself doing stuff that is making your life miserable in the long run, remember to ask yourself or your mind, what prosocial or self-protective survival reasons are behind these urges.  It might surprise you that the cause is to accomplish a yearning to belong, to find one’s life direction, or to experience competency through your achievements.  The means might seem to alleviate human suffering and promote human prosperity, but they ultimately end up achieving the opposite.  Look from inside your deeper sense of awareness; you’ll see it.  

Twelve Years of One Life Only, Twelve Years of Trust and Hope in Our Humanity!

by Nathan Chua

As I write this post, there is trepidation about the future given the situation we find ourselves in, as we are mired in a brutal, endless pandemic, and a perpetual and rigid lockdown response; and to add to that, certain groups wanting to take advantage of the weakness of others as they occupy territories that deprive small fisher folks of their sole livelihood, while simultaneously putting the region on the precipice of war, just because one group cannot stand the independence of another; I must admit that sometimes I begin to lose hope that change for a better human race and planet can ever be attainable.   

I thought maybe it would be good to write about why One Life Only exists and why we should even care about change, given the bleak nature of our current circumstances.  My optimism comes from a firm belief that humans are capable of making the hard choices in the service of the greater good.  Given the right circumstances, we are able to do acts that our very pragmatic, my-personal-survival-first minds cannot comprehend.  

I was neither skeptical nor exuberant about finding the best means for change in my life through psychology.  I took an undergraduate degree in psychology plainly for the reason that I wanted to understand why I was who I was.  I then turned to several other paths that for me, ultimately proved ineffectual.  I thought then that I would find the answers in my mind, and that a logical and mathematical mind would save me from my problems in living.  If I could figure it out then I can see the change sooner rather than later.  Maybe I needed to be smarter and more informed.  But all that knowledge of how to accomplish my material and culturally-acceptable goals, actually made me even worse!

The next step in my life was to turn towards the divine.  I saw how people in church seemed to have it all together as I met them in the course of my young career as a businessman.  Alas, it had a ceiling.  Change was for the most part, superficially based on a hope that I found something that had held life’s truths, and the most plausible explanations for my existence.  

I never thought that science would have a path for me towards improving who I can become.  Science seemed to have this cold calculating aura for me.  Further still, I never thought that psychology would ever be a true science.  I pursued the path left by Freud and existential philosophy to find the answers.  I never gave behaviorism a second look.  I didn’t want to associate myself with a group of people who think that humans are just as trainable as animals!  

But lo and behold, I found the answers in precisely this last option.  Who knows?  There could be better answers out there in the future, but for now, the science of behavior has given me fresh wind.  So I have come full circle to psychology, but this time not the artsy type, but the sciency type.  

I must add though that throughout the course of my search for the truths of our existence, I had one thing undergirding all of my efforts.  I always had that instinct that most of it had to do with love.  In my twenties and thirties, I thought that I should love my business and the people who helped me build it.  In my journey through religion, I said love trumps doctrine.  In my study of psychology, I loved the artsy parts, but never loved science, until I found it in a lesser known approach in behavioral science called, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT.

Here’s how the developer of ACT has framed it, or here’s how science can be an exercise in love.  

“Humanity is in a race, a race to create a kinder, more flexible and values-based world–to say it another way, a more loving world…Either we will learn how to create modern minds for this modern world of ours, or we will loom ever closer to disaster.

None of us knows how it will turn out, but based on human history, I put my bet on the human community evolving to meet the challenge.  I put my bet on our capacity to choose love over fear…Deep down, we all know that love isn’t everything, it’s the only thing,” Steven C. Hayes.

If there is one thing that can save the world, at the moment, it is science.  And it happens to be a science of love that can ensure that the human species will continue to prosper and preserve the wonders of this planet. 

Perhaps that is what truly brought me to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.  For in love, there has to be genuine acceptance and a stubborn commitment to do what our logical minds would never understand.  In ACT, I think I found the science behind love, the only thing that matters, which I just found out, not just for me, but for everybody else. 

Happy 12th One Life Only!   

Getting Married to be Happy?

by Nathan Chua

Of course we do, that’s all there is to expect in married life, right?  For those of us who have gotten married, I bet there’s plenty of thought of “living happily ever after,” especially in those moments when it was actually about to happen.  Pretty much up to the time leading up to the wedding, everything spelled h-a-p-p-y.  Pick any random year into a marriage, and we are likely to find about half of that on the brink of separation, because either one or both of the parties are bone-tired of having to suffer through the other’s insufferable ways.    

We often get caught up in these all or nothing moments in our minds, where we believe that within our unhappiness, we can never have happiness.  One or the other has to go.  But here’s a good example to prove that this may not be necessarily so.  Look back at those moments when you and your future spouse were just minutes away from exchanging vows.  If I may so boldly predict, I am quite sure you had moments when thoughts like, “Am I making the biggest mistake of my life here?” were right there coming from the back of your head in the middle of your own wedding ceremony!  He’s so clumsy he keeps stepping on my train!  She’s turned from angel to t-rex in months!  Further still, pick up any major decision you’ve made in your lifetime and tell me you never had thoughts about whether your choice was right or disastrously wrong, and I would be the first to congratulate you for being that rare master of your own mind.  

Part of what can help your marriage is if you understand how your mind works that makes being married such a disappointment.  We often get carried away with thoughts that we can’t have both positive and negative emotions at the same time inside us.  Well, think about your dog or pet.  How many times has your mind told you getting that dog is a big mistake and yet you still love him to death?  So with the dog it goes, “I love him and sometimes I think getting him was such a big mistake.”  There you go, both positive and negative emotions all in one situation.

Getting married to be happy is how our use of language tricks us into going to an extreme.  The reality is more like getting married is meant to find purpose and meaning in your union, and many times it won’t be, just happy.  Playing to win a championship game isn’t just about being happy, it is hard!  Raising kids is not bound to be happy all the time, in fact it is the most challenging task for even the most notable names in history who have done seemingly harder and more exceptional deeds outside of raising a child!  Why?  Because the fact that it is hard and not very easy makes it challenging and fulfilling at the same time.  The same is true with marriage.  Your partner can sometimes be lovable and be challenging to live with.  Learning how to accept this is something couples often have difficulty finding room for, because the mind suggests we can only have room for one.

Sometimes the best things in life are hard and painful, which is precisely what makes a life more purposeful and meaningful.  We humans love solving problems even when it’s not always fun to do, or not always the happy thing to do.  Come out of yourself and notice how your mind works; I bet you’ll see great wisdom.     

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.