Tag: Counseling
Are you at war with sleep?
by Nathan Chua
It is not uncommon that I get complaints about sleep from my clients. It is understandable that when you come home with some major disagreement with someone at work, or try to sleep when you just had a major fight with your spouse, or experienced a panic attack while on your way home from work, sleep might be a problem.
If you’re one who believes that there is a way for you to have sleep on demand, I have news for you. You can’t demand sleep! Sleep comes when you get tired. If you haven’t yet caught the irony of this article’s title, here’s what it tells us, “You can’t sleep when you’re at war with sleep!” See if you can remember the last time you were primed for a fight or a competition. If your goal is to win the fight or the contest, then there’s that sympathetic nervous system that gets activated, whether you like it or not. It prepares you for action! And how do you think being prepared for action works to make you sleep? Probably impossible.
One of the more common pieces of advice that we get for falling asleep is to prepare for sleep with certain rituals. So much so that the preparation itself becomes so elaborate and the subject of our focus, that one thing is for sure, once something does not fall into its proper place, then you can’t sleep! Oh! I didn’t get the proper darkness right or the bathroom ritual went the wrong way. If sleep becomes something that you need to prepare for every night, then see if you manage to fall asleep when your sympathetic nervous system is primed for action! The sympathetic nervous system is what our bodies call upon for situations that demand action, like when we’re about to get hit by a bus. Try falling asleep while you see a bus hurtling down the street towards you. It’s called falling asleep for a reason…it’s not something within our control.
More often than not, you will struggle with sleep if you believe it is something you can get on demand! What the third wave of cognitive behavioral therapy or what some would call mindfulness-based cognitive therapies suggests is that we can be present in the moment and attend to whatever it is we are attending to. So instead of focusing on the struggle with sleep, or whatever it is that you need to do in order to sleep, we can choose to focus on what it is that we are doing at the moment. Metaphorically speaking, we can stop and smell the flowers.
For sleep problems, one can focus on how your pillow feels like behind your head, or the mattress on your back. You can even focus on your body sensations with a scan of your body from your toes up to the top of your head. Notice that when you do this exercise, your mind will come up with thoughts not just of what it is that is keeping you from sleeping, but also thoughts about what you are doing at the moment too! What’s this? This is crazy! This isn’t going to work! Notice those as thoughts as well, and then just go back to your body sensations.
As Jon Kabat-Zinn defines mindfulness, “Mindfulness is awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally.”
Bottomline is the less willing you are to have these difficult thoughts and feelings, the more they will come to haunt you. Just notice it as part of how you have learned to cope with such thoughts and go back to what you intend to do on your bed at night. See where this takes you!
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.
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.
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.
Interview with Matthieu Villatte Part 2
Interview with Matthieu Villatte Part 1
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!