Tag: Counseling Philippines

Making the Hard Life-Changing Decisions

by Nathan Chua

There are a few crossroads we face in life.  Who to commit to in a long term relationship or when is it time to quit one, what course to take in tertiary education, where to live, what school to send kids to.  These are all part of what life presents to us.  Many of us can get caught up in the rigmarole of decision making.  Many clients come to therapy hoping to get an expert opinion on which path to take.  It is quite the common sight that clients come to therapy with the idea that they can consult as many therapists as they can, and come up with a logical and sensible decision.  That search for a failsafe choice can be a red herring.  Many people, and that includes me, can get really stuck for a very long time in indecision.  

Clients may find themselves weighing pros and cons with an expert in therapy.  Unfortunately, this normally ends up with what is called counterpliance or the client making a decision that goes in the opposite direction of what solution was arrived at with the expert, basically demonstrating what our minds do.  You can experiment on this by remembering how many times you have thought about how successful a decision can be.  Pretty soon, you will notice your mind reminding you about the other extreme result, which is failure.  This is why, although tempting to me, I do my best to avoid dwelling on content when a client comes to me with this kind of dilemma.  If I wasn’t conscious, I can get carried away by the back and forth in therapy.  I avoid this because it isn’t something that the client is not able to do on their own before they come.  So any kind of move in this direction will probably be nothing new for the client.  

Fundamentally, our lives can flow into these situations wherein we have to choose one way or another.  In a wonderful demonstration of how an ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) therapist would work with someone who is going through some difficult decisions, Dr. Steven Hayes shows how our minds can trick us into thinking that we can make a difficult decision and not be scared.  The thought that hard choices should not be scary can creep into this process and paralyze us into not making them to our own detriment.  

I often give my clients a perspective towards the past and the future with a question.  I would ask them if they are familiar with scenes where people are gathered for one of those momentous occasions in life that are supposed to be filled with joy and anticipation.  If these were indeed just full of positive feelings and happy thoughts, then why the heck do we see people crying in these instances?  Isn’t that strange?  Just to refresh your memory, have you been to a wedding, a graduation, a debut (an 18th birthday party)?  More often than not, you and I will see people tearing up with smiles interspersing in their faces.  Why is this?  My client will often sit with mouth agape, not finding the right word to explain such a phenomenon.  I would tell them that the body language is precisely a description of what is going on inside of them. It is a mix of feelings.  It is not just purely happiness that is going on internally.  There could be sadness, fear, anxiety, and many more.  In other words, these are the bitter sweet moments in life.  You know, the ones that are eventually etched in our memories as the most meaningful.  For in life, the best moments are not the fun moments, although they can be, but they are mostly also those that are hardest.

I can still recall some of the happiest moments I had that I spent with a friend.  Although there was nothing but fun and joy at the time, there was still something bitter about it.  It had to end.  Life is sometimes bitter sweet or has to be, bitter sweet.  Otherwise, we could be missing it.  Making hard decisions usually forms part of living richly and meaningfully.  Being brave is not about having no fear.  It is rather doing what matters to us even when there is.       

Finding Your Purpose: A Behavioral Perspective

by Nathan Chua

In a recent article about Tim Cook, the current CEO of Apple computers, he had this to say about an old saying: 

“There is a saying that if you do what you love, you will never work a day in your life,” Cook said during the speech at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans.

“At Apple, I learned that is a total crock,” Cook said to a laugh from the crowd.*

How many times have many of us stared at the horizon to ask ourselves what our existence is for?  There have been many cases in the counseling room wherein people ask me why they have these feelings of emptiness, a lack of purpose or direction in their lives.  Believe me, I still ask myself the same questions.  I am not exempt from life’s difficult puzzles. 

I am quite sure that most of you reading or listening or watching this have browsed through countless articles that try to answer this question of finding purpose.  In this space, I would like to share my take on how this might look like, from a behavioral perspective.  

Here’s my understanding of the subject at this point in my journey inside the world of contextual behavioral science.  We all do things for a reason.  When you pick up your toothbrush in the morning, that has a purpose.  Deciding to use your time to go to the grocery store whether by foot or by the use of a vehicle is also based on reasons.  There are three ways of explaining why we do what we do.  We either think of them as activities that we should, must, or can’t do, that we have to do, and that we want to do.  Now, let’s break each one of them down.  

Musts, Shoulds, Can’ts:

As humans who enjoy being at the top of the food chain, we occupy this spot in part because of our capacity to follow rules without having to experience something first hand.  We can just be told about a rule and not have to test it.  You can imagine how helpful this ability can be if we go back to ancient times when a rule to follow might be, “Don’t go near a lion because it can be dangerous.”   Rules like washing our hands before we eat or avoiding certain places that can pose a danger to our safety are helpful in keeping us safe and alive.

However, this rule following capacity can otherwise be detrimental when applied to threats we sense from the inside.  If we yell and scream at our child or partner, sometimes following that rule can work. 

We get what we want, like a period of less frustration from someone we live with.  The rule here is I shouldn’t be getting to this level of frustration with my child or partner.  Or, I can’t stand this feeling any longer, I must do something to stop it.  Unfortunately, this can have detrimental long term effects on your relationship with the very people that mean most to you especially when done in a harsh manner. 

This can also translate into other consequential decisions in life.  Shoulds like you should be pursuing a career in a field only because it is what others say you should do.

A good example of this is, “I must be a doctor because that is what my family wants for me,” which often leads to burnout and poor performance.

The other extreme is to follow a rule that may not be available for us to follow at the moment.  An example would be, I must be an artist regardless of the fact that I am currently without any opportunities to be one.  

Another form is when we follow rules like I must have a drink when I am stressed; I can’t sleep without a sleeping pill; or I can’t speak before a crowd until I am relaxed.

This type of rule-following can lead to unhelpful and at times unhealthy behaviors where we don’t make advances in what we are capable of achieving within the finite amount of time that we have in our existence.

Have to’s: 

These activities fall under what Tim Cook was probably referring to.  Although we would like an ideal of working in jobs that give us the most fulfillment, we nonetheless would likely end up with aspects of the work that we don’t necessarily enjoy.  This is where some of that idealism has to wear off. 

If you are one who insists on being in that dream job, but can’t find any opportunities to land one, maybe it is time to think about the have to’s.  In the meantime, and we don’t know how long that meantime will be, you might have to work other jobs and pursue your passions through other avenues.  There are people who end up doing what they love on the weekends in a different setting.  Anyway what we love to do we can do even without compensation.  You’ll never know, you might even find it in whatever current job you have that puts food on the table. In other words, there can be parts of your job that allow you to do what you love to do even if it’s less than your ideal.

Want to’s:

Here is where most of us would like to be.  Unfortunately, not even the jobs that fit our passions are purely fun.  If you wanted to play a sport for a living, there’s also the hard part of long hours of practice in a very lonely gym.  So congratulate yourself if you are able to land a job wherein you are fulfilling your want to’s.  

Want to’s can also involve what we do for rest and relaxation.  To go back to an earlier example, your musts, like I must drink to remove my stress, can be changed to, I drink when I choose to remove my stress.  This is where we see the same form of behavior functioning differently in different contexts.

Here’s a quote from Ray Owen, that I believe is a helpful guide for us to know if ingesting something to relax from heavy stress is helpful or not:

“Remembering, planning, daydreaming, imagining, and so on–matter greatly to me too and I wouldn’t give them up.  However, I’d say that they’re good things when they’re chosen,” Ray Owen

You can add having some time off of work or other commitments with a drink or two (or whatever activity it is that you do for recreation) because you choose or want to, and not because you must, is a way to see if you are doing something with your time that is helpful or unhelpful to your sense of purpose.  It is probably something that works for you if you choose to do it rather than something you must do in order to achieve something, like relieving stress. 

So next time you do something that’s like following a rule, notice the rule first, then notice why you’re doing it and see if it is something you feel like you:

  • must, should, or can’t do,
  • or something you have to do,
  • or something you want to do. 

Maybe you will find your place in the sun or what we most of the time call, your purpose for living.  Nice rule of thumb, isn’t it?

*Source: IFL Science

When is it time to end a relationship or set an ultimatum?

by Nathan Chua

One of the toughest decisions to make in a relationship is when you think enough is enough.  I have seen quite a few clients agonizing over what to do with their partners.  Is this issue enough of a reason to remove oneself from the situation?  Am I doing what I think will be best for us or my family by ending it?  Is it just me who is being impatient?

Before I go on though, there are situations where giving up on a relationship may be called for.  For one, if you end up in a violent relationship where your life is in danger or your kids’ safety both physically and emotionally are at stake, leaving might be your best option.  You might also be in a situation where there is repetitive cheating that is emotionally untenable and also endangers your physical well-being.  When I say physical well-being, I am referring to chances of you becoming infected by a sexually transmissible disease.  Perhaps there is substance abuse involved that makes it impossible to have a meaningful connection with your partner.  Ending a relationship may even be more tenable if your partner is unwilling to seek therapy for violent behavior, cheating, substance abuse or a mental health concern.   

Another caveat before you continue with this post or vlog, every couple is unique.  You may have a situation where you are torn between giving up on the relationship or making an ultimatum.  I recommend that you bring this concern to therapy.  Maybe you will see the best option for you with the help of someone who can see your situation from an objective standpoint.       

Nonetheless, this is about making a last stand in your relationship.  If you believe there is something about it that you want to see a change in, here are a few tips on how to determine if your situation is worthy of an ultimatum:*

  1. You are determined to stick by what you decide when the ultimatum is not met.  If you are not able to stick with your ultimatum, it will likely not be taken seriously by your partner.    
  2. This is about one issue alone.  It does not involve a number of steps or changes that have to happen over time.  If your complaint behind your ultimatum is the way he handles household chores, then this may not be a place to make an ultimatum.  This is because it involves a habit that will require time and patience to change.  These will need moment to moment awareness on the part of your partner.  Examples of one issue decisions may involve physical or verbal abuse of you or any member of your family, infidelity, or addictions that have gotten in the way of your relationship. 
  3. The change you are after involves a short time frame.  This is an elaboration of the previous point.  Anything that may require an indeterminate amount of time, is likely not a condition for an ultimatum.    
  4. The partner giving the ultimatum is not pressured to decide.  It is not a game for the person making the ultimatum.  It is rather a difficult and painful process to experience.  You are not playing a game of chicken with your partner.  This pains you to make.  It is not a way for you to gain leverage in your relationship.
  5. The ultimatum will ultimately be for the benefit of the partners involved as well as the people around them.  It can start off a change for the betterment of the relationship or for each of the couple.  Examples of these would be deciding on getting married or not, having kids, getting therapy to address some of the more pressing concerns that could be a reason for ending the relationship as enumerated earlier.

Remember for as long as you have not left the relationship, you are already making a decision to stay.  In the meantime, you are left to your own devices to live out those moments.  If there is one great advice I can give you as you contemplate on whether you should leave or make a final stand, it would have to come from Viktor Frankl who wrote:

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

Ask yourself, when you look back to these moments when you made a decision to set an ultimatum, would you know that you’ve done what is consistent with your deepest parts?  If your answer is a yes, then go for it.    

*Source: Reconcilable Differences by Christensen, Doss, and Jacobson

Should you ask intimate details about an affair?

by Nathan Chua

One of the most common questions that couples ask on their road to recovery from an affair is whether it is helpful for a hurt partner to inquire about intimate details.  This is quite expected and an understandable reaction.  However, couples need to be sensitive to the results of such inquiries.  It is also not surprising to see the participating partner feel uncomfortable sharing sexual details about the affair.  

There are some experts who say that the best advice a therapist can give to a couple is to refrain from going into the sexual or graphic details of the affair.  Although this may sound like good advice to many and could probably work for a majority of couples, it has the potential to backfire.  The thing that I like about the work of Drs. Andrew Christensen, Brian Doss, and Neil Jacobson, is its focus on functional rather than formal rules of engagement between couples.  Formal rules usually involve teaching couples to follow a rule based on what it says alone with less consideration of the unique contexts that surround each couple.  It’s like following a rule just because.  Functional rules are more sensitive to contexts as well as the consequences that occur when they are adapted by the couple.  

A Word About Context:

When I say context, it doesn’t only mean the physical environment of the couple.  Context can involve the very thoughts, feelings, and memories that each partner has going into the relationship as well as within the relationship.  What mindfulness teaches us about this is that we learn to see things from each other’s context or perspective.  This is rather hard to see when couples have narrowed their options to survival strategies like fight, flight, or freeze!  That would take a whole set of blog posts to discuss!  So let me leave it at that.

In therapy, I allow couples to engage in their conversations about an affair with a difference.  That difference is to learn how to do them better.  How is this done when it comes to discussing sexual details?

These questions are obviously mostly going to come from the hurt partner.  Again I don’t want to give formal rules about this, so please be sensitive to what works in your relationship and what doesn’t.  If what you’re doing helps you to move on in the healing or renewing process of your relationship, then go ahead and keep it up.  However, formal rules can end up frustrating both parties.  The couple makes a turn for the worse when these questions are asked devoid of context from the injured partner.  When they turn into demands without reasons or, just because the injured partner is angry and the participating partner must pay, conversations can become fraught with anger.  At times they can become rhetorical and sarcastic.  Interrogation has become a way to make accusations.  And for most of us who have not learned what context sensitivity means, couples can go about doing what they’re doing because sometimes they do end up getting what they want.  As human beings, we have a tendency to keep doing what we’re doing even if the success rates go down on our attempts to remove difficult thoughts and feelings.  Minor, short term successes can obscure long term consequences.  And for couples who have experienced infidelity, the injured partner believes the participating partner is responsible for removing these thoughts and feelings.  This is an impossible task for anyone who’s a human being, let alone a partner who is also experiencing difficult emotions like anxiety and fear about possibly losing the relationship, and guilt about having had an affair.  The injured partner can get rewarded sporadically when the participating partner grudgingly surrenders to the demands.  Unfortunately, such enduring, surrendering, or survival moves by the participating partner more often only last for a short while before the pattern of giving in to keep the peace becomes unbearable.  Thus, an explosion of pent up feelings occurs and the couple escalates. 

The key here is for the injured partner to be more noticing of the softer emotions inside and able to enunciate them with less criticism and accusations.  Focus on asking for information and telling the partner why that is important to know.  Usually, the questions involve some kind of insecurity or a wound that informs the participating partner that such questions come from images or memories of past sexual hurts or rejections, if these are out in the open.  There could be strong feelings of insecurity about the injured partner’s attractiveness.  These types of revelations are more likely to induce compassion rather than defensiveness or withdrawal from the participating partner and allow for a more compassionate response to happen.  

So let me get back to what I mentioned earlier in this article.  In the counseling room, we are not attempting to help you end your difficult conversations.  We are there to help make better conversations, because like it or not, there will be conflicts in your relationship as your contexts change from situation to situation.  Learning the skills to make better exchanges in conflict situations can mean that these conflicts lead you to a richer closeness rather than rip you apart.    

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What to do after an affair

by Nathan Chua

This is intended to be a first aid kit for those who are going through a difficult discovery of an affair.  Please note that this is not a substitute for seeking professional help.  Affairs are situations that would likely require trained assistance.  Some who have taken such events lightly or have let these incidents slip by, often end up having to deal with it later with loads of pent up emotions that make it even harder to recover from. 

I am not sure if I ever had a blog post that enumerates a list of do’s and don’ts when it comes to dealing with cheating in committed relationships, particularly because applying such rules can at times do more harm to an already struggling relationship.  Let me emphasize to you, my audience, that I am listing them here not because I want to give you easy answers to your situation.  It is exactly that your situations are unique that I want you to take these tips with a grain of salt.  I am showing you a list of rules that can generally apply to most cases of betrayal without having the paradoxical effect of the couple ending up fighting about the rules instead of facing the problems affecting the relationship.  

Tip 1:  Know where responsibility lies

  • It is often that the hurt partner puts the full blame of the affair on the participating partner.  Yes, that is a fact that the affair or the recourse to an affair is the sole responsibility of the participating partner.  There is no excuse for an affair even as there are major problems in the relationship.  However, the difficulties in the relationship is the responsibility of both the partners.  We all have reasons for our behavior but they are not to be considered excuses.  Providing excuses can lead to the participating partner to blame the relationship for the affair, and for the hurt partner to justify their past behaviors in the relationship.  Reasons are different from excuses or justifications for either partner.   

Tip 2:  Problem-solve in the immediate aftermath

  • You and your partner may decide to live separately for the meantime if situations at home become too difficult to handle.  This could either be because you have a tendency to escalate or are afraid of how your escalations can affect your children.
  • You may want to get yourselves checked for possible sexually transmitted diseases.  
  • Couples are free to decide if the relationship is worth keeping but making a decision in an emotionally charged state may not be in their best interest.  Delay such decisions until you have returned to calmer emotional states.
  • Withhold conversations about the affair until you are in therapy.  Early on, it may be too much of a stretch for couples to know how to handle the problem without escalating.  Remember, what we want is for couples to move forward in their relationship rather than take steps that bring them to even more hurtful conversations.  Bring these conversations to the counseling room with your therapist.

Tip 3:  What questions to ask and how for the hurt partner

  • It is understandable that the injured partner will resort to questions fraught with accusations and harsh criticisms towards the participating partner.  Focus on what you want to know and tell your partner why that is important to you.  Let your partner know that this is part of the process of moving on rather than a way of punishing your partner.  There are tendencies for the injured partner to ask rhetorical and often sarcastic questions to their partners.  It is advisable that you make factual disclosures and revelations of your underlying softer emotions of fear and anxiety towards the possibility that this could happen again. 

This will be all for now.  For part two of this post, I will be discussing what the participating partner can say or do that can help in the moving on process.  It will also involve how partners can deal with future challenges that can happen if the participating partner is still able to remain in touch with the affair partner.  Another common question is, “Is it okay for the hurt partner to confront the affair partner?”  See you in the next blog!

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