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!
One of the awesome features of ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) is the use of metaphors that makes counseling work more experiential and interesting. One that has recently become my favorite is how an ACT therapist, Chris McCurry, uses the chess metaphor so effectively. Here’s how I remember some of the ways he describes the chess game and how it is similar to the way our minds work.
Our minds have different thoughts with varying degrees of importance and likeability. Some are quite important while others are part of our mundane thoughts, like our plans to go grocery-shopping for the day. The important ones can refer to our sense of meaning and purpose, our thoughts about how we can face life’s tragic aspects, or our important relationships that require our attention. Now, as chess is a game of two sides of a battle, one side can represent our more positive thoughts while the other will be our negative ones. In McCurry’s illustration, he says that even if we feel like the positive side may have the upper hand at any given moment, there will always be at least one piece of the negative side that remains. We can attest to this fact simply by checking in with our personal experiences. How many times have we enjoyed a vacation and said we don’t have any single negative thought in mind? Probably not! If you are married, did you do so with nary a negative thought? On the other hand, how many times have you been caught up in negative thoughts and still have that little tiny voice inside you that says: You’re alright, don’t worry! As you can see, neither one can totally eliminate the other.
In Russ Harris’ version of the chess metaphor for the mind, he shares that each white piece actually generates a black piece and vice versa. Positive thoughts remind us of our negative ones! You can test this with your own experience. See what you sense if someone like me told you that you are the nicest kindest person on the planet! See what your mind does with that information. I can also start with a negative judgment. You are the worst most unlikeable person on the planet! See what you mind does with that too.
Did you sense that in the former your mind tells you: Hogwash! I am a kind person but certainly not all the time or not compared to everyone else? On the other hand, did your mind do the same opposite-thinking while hearing me tell you that you are the worst person on the living earth! Your mind may say something that goes like this: Yeah, you’re right, sometimes I do feel that way, but that can’t be right all the time!
As you can see in these illustrations that there are no winners in this game that we play in our minds. It is unwinnable as McCurry describes it. So it is hopeless trying to be the positive pieces in this war in our heads. The negative pieces just aren’t leaving for as long as we are alive and with our nervous systems functioning as they are as I write and as you read this post.
The question now is: Then who could we be in this chess game so that we can get out of this war and move on with our lives? The answer is the chessboard! We are the containers of these thoughts but we are not them! And being the containers, we don’t really need to care who wins or loses in this game. We can remain as witnesses to this war!
If you are able to write down your thoughts, then this is a practice in metacognition! Noticing your thoughts and noticing that you are noticing them! That’s a part of you that notices everything that goes on in your life! And with this capacity, we can then choose the particular course of action that is most effective for what is unfolding in front of us!
Furthermore, I love that Chris McCurry also uses the chess game to illustrate life and its tragic elements. As we play the game, we will eventually lose pieces as we go through it. The object of the game is to keep playing with the pieces you have left. This is a bigger metaphor actually of not just our minds but of life itself. If we live long enough, we will experience the bitter sweetness that life presents. As Steven Hayes, the developer of ACT writes in his best-selling book,
“You have only so much time on this earth, and you don’t know how much. The question “Are you going to live, knowing you will die?” is not fundamentally different than these questions: “Are you going to love, knowing you will be hurt?” Or, “Are you going to commit to living a valued life knowing you will sometimes not meet your commitments?” Or, “Will you reach for success knowing you will sometimes fail.” The potential for pain and the sense of vitality you gain from these experiences go together. If your life is truly going to be about something, it helps to look at it from the perspective of what you would want the path your life leaves behind to mean.”
Life gives us but one chance and it doesn’t come without moments when we have to say goodbye to our youth, old friends, and loved ones. Like the game of chess, let’s make the most of what we have at present and live our One Life Only as well as we can.
I have a feeling you would say that this blog post may not be worth your time. Why? Because how many times have you read articles that tell you to weigh the pros and cons of being alone in this time made exclusively for couples. Well, this article will either amuse you or disappoint you. I am not here to talk about the usual good and bad of being single and alone on Valentine’s day. That battle in your mind will go on until the day you lose consciousness (well, for good, knock on wood). It will never end. It’s sort of like an old marriage joke I heard once from a clergyman, “Marriage is like flies on a screen door. Those who are out want in and those who are in want out!”
Well, that’s the mind for you! Sorry to sound trite, but your mind will always convince you that the grass is greener on the other side. It is a nonstop judgment machine!
So here’s the deal with being alone this Valentine’s day. You can either give up your search for a lover, or you can keep doing what you are doing now (rationalizing why you shouldn’t or why you should be extra picky, or why you should anyway), or you can give it a go! I know your mind will start barking off reasons for you to not even try. It’s going to be one out of a hundred chances that I get to meet someone interesting. It will be exhausting! Boring! Painful! I will just get rejected more times than I can bear.
You can either follow what your mind tells you to do or step back a little and say what is dating done in the service of? Is there a part of you that wants to be loving and caring to that one special person? If your answer is yes, notice the verbs I use here! It is about being loving and caring. It is not just about marrying the right person, or having a long term commitment. What’s the difference? The former is something you can do endlessly until the end of your last breath, while the latter are goals you make that tell you you’re partly on your way to be the former! Get it?
See if we focus on our goals, we set ourselves up for disappointment…whether we succeed or not. Why so? That doesn’t seem fair! Let’s see how goals work in our lives. Goals are mostly end points in a process of pursuing something we want out of our lives. If you fail to meet those goals, then you end up disappointed. If you succeed in achieving your goals, how long does the satisfaction last? Have you ever noticed that any new goals you achieve are instantly followed by a lack of satisfaction and an urge to pursue even more goals? (Ever wondered why some of the richest billionaires end up doing something else besides what they had been doing so well for decades?) So whether you achieve goals or not, you end up disappointed or at least unsatisfied. Remember your mind is a judgment machine!
So think of dating as part of your magic carpet ride! It will be scary at times for sure, but it will likely be worth it if you know what the activity done is in the service of. Think of a child who plays games like hide and seek! Isn’t that scary and anxiety-causing? But we still played the game for the sake of a more fun childhood! That was when we hardly knew the rules that our minds gave us! You shouldn’t feel this or that, or think this or that! At least that’s what the adults around us said! So the secret is to see your moves from a child’s eyes. This is going to be horrifying at times, but alive! Just like a movie! There will be challenging times, but that’s what makes a movie a movie worth watching, isn’t it?
So get in touch with the child in you and enjoy the ride. This is just part of your journey of being or becoming more like the loving you you’ve always wanted to be! Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! (and that includes the lonely ones!)
Do you need counseling for depression, anxiety, trauma, relationship (marriage, family) problems, insomnia, anger management problems, infidelity, teen parenting issues, grief processing, addiction, procrastination, work performance, and even weight issues?
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Interview with Chinkee Tan and Christine Bersola-Babao on MagBadyet Tayo about financial conflicts in relationships, October 23, 2023
Nathaniel Chua is a member of an international organization called the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science (ACBS). He became chair of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Special Interest Group (DEI-SIG) of ACBS; the first Non-North American to do so.
Nathaniel Chua has a Master’s Degree in Counseling and continues to learn more of the most cutting-edge approaches to working with the human condition.
Below is Nathaniel Chua’s first virtual talk held on November 17, 2023 in front of an international group of therapists from Low or Middle Income Countries (LMIC). He is the first from the Philippines to do this:
What is One Life Only Counseling about?
You can be assured that your information with be kept completely confidential.
You will be respected regardless of your religion, gender preference, ethnicity, economic status, and even your personal lifestyle and values. We are LGBTQIA+ friendly!
Your counselor will not impose their values and beliefs on you.
We use a scientific model of counseling that has precision, depth, and scope. Below are bullet points to let you understand better what we mean by this:
By precision we mean that our approach to counseling tells you how these mechanisms of change work. It is not enough to say that a sense of self-awareness is what creates changes in people’s behavior. Our approach tells us how self-awareness works as one step within a set of processes that can lead to lasting change.
Depth means the approach we use does not conflict with other theories and models of therapy. In fact, many other approaches can be used as forms of treatment towards greater psychological flexibility. Our approach for instance does not conflict with findings in the area of attachment theory, gestalt therapy, psychodynamic therapy to just raise a few examples. It cuts across other levels of analyses.
Finally, by scope we mean that our approach comes from the discovery of the smallest set of processes that cuts across multiple mental health concerns from anxiety and depression to personality disorders to psychosis, etc. It is a transdiagnostic approach that seeks to understand what many of the symptoms or syndromes come down to, so these processes can be targeted to address many, if not all of the disorders listed in different diagnostic systems.
We are also probably the only counseling service in the Philippines that follows a certain philosophy of science with certain a priori assumptions about human nature. With this in mind, we offer a holistic consistent approach to life’s challenges that is a-ontological, monistic, and pragmatic.
Furthermore, ineffective behaviors are addressed by their classes and functions, therefore making our model of therapy parsimonious and much easier to apply to daily living. Most of our clients are empowered to use the skills they learn in therapy to apply to a multitude of challenging situations without having to rush to a therapist to address specific concerns. If you remember Einstein, everything can be explained by one simple equation, E = mc squared! In other words, we do our best to be ACT-Consistent or as some other experts would call it, we practice, ACT Fidelity!
The approach we use is also one that is endorsed by the World Health Organization as an effective psychological tool for coping with any kind of life crises! It can be described as a kind of psychological vaccine that has been found to be effective in improving and promoting mental resilience in the face of many, if not all kinds of life challenges.
Here’s a paraphrase from Dr. Steven C. Hayes in my interview with him on April 5th, 2022:
“Here’s what the World Health Organization, the best public health and scientific group in the world says about this protocol, this extensively tested protocol is helpful for anyone who is stressed, for any reason, in any circumstance.”
Since 2019, we have been very excited to offer this type of a radically different approach to therapy that is not just about relieving symptoms, but also about helping people towards creating lives imbued with meaning and purpose.
Here’s a video about what makes One Life Only Counseling Services different:
Recent certificate given to Nathan Chua for presenting a talk about couple’s therapy in front an international audience of therapists from Low or Middle Income Country (LMIC). He is the first and so far the only one from the Philippines to accomplish this.Interview with Julius Babao and Christine Bersola Babao, October 25, 2023Interview with Dr. Steven C. Hayes, the developer of ACT, April 5, 2022Interview with Dr. Andrew Christensen May 14, 2022Guest resource person with Boy Abunda on his show The BottomlineOne of several TV appearances on Sakto with Marc Logan and Amy Perez
July 2024 interview on Kapuso Mo Jessica Soho about jealousy and anger
Here a video of Nathan Chua’s appearance on a “Dapat Alam Mo” Episode:
Here’s a solo interview of Nathan Chua with an ACT Matrix Expert and Counselor from the United States, Jacob Martinez:
Interviews with the experts:
Here are two interviews with the two experts that have had a huge impact on my work in recent years. They are with Dr. Steven Hayes and Dr. Andrew Christensen. Here are the videos:
I think even without a new year to celebrate, many of us have often made certain commitments that we hope to accomplish beginning at a certain time. Well, looking back, how many of those commitments have we fulfilled? What is it that keeps us from getting from point A to point B?
One way we end up not doing what we resolve to do has to do with reasons. Our logical minds have evolved to find cause and effect relations. This is an important function because in order to solve problems in our environment, we need to know what causes something to happen. For instance, relevant to today’s issues, our minds needed to find out what causes the spread of the coronavirus in order for us to keep infections down and manage the extent of the pandemic. The scientists needed to know how the virus causes life-threatening pneumonia, for them to find ways to counteract the process of fatal illness developing in people.
The only drawback to this mental capacity is when the rule becomes inflexible. They are applied across other domains when they don’t really put us on a path to where we want to be. For example, we say, “I have to eat chocolate if I am sad.” The rule here is sadness should be removed by eating unhealthy snacks. However, we can reverse this statement and say, “I should not eat chocolate to stop me from feeling sad, because in the end, the lack of control of my behavior makes me even sadder and therefore the urge becomes stronger.”
Now if reasons really have so much power over us, wouldn’t we be all following the reasons why we should not be eating chocolate when we feel sad? The answer is no matter what the reasons our minds come up with, we still can opt to act one way or the other. This only means that no matter how much we try to give ourselves reasons to do stuff, we can always make a decision that complies or doesn’t comply with the behavior we want to either stop or begin doing more of.
This means reasons are just thoughts that our minds come up with for us to make logical decisions. Unfortunately, what may sound logical may not be what’s good for us. Now, you might be thinking, what then do I do about this? Well, one way to do it is to first notice your thoughts as thoughts. They are not you. Your mind is just a part of you and your bodily functions.
One way to practice this ability to keep your thoughts separate from you, is to give your mind a name. Thank him or her for the suggestion. You’re not bad for having those thoughts, it’s just part of your minds’ functioning. It is nothing more than a reason-manufacturing tool.
You can also add in one more step. You can notice what sticking to your diet is in the service of. Maybe you’d like to become more attractive so you can start having more opportunities to find a date. It could be that you’d love to see your kids grow old enough to see them go through different life stages. Whatever your motivations are, it is best to come up with ideas that give you intrinsic motivation, rather than those that make you think that you are a bad or lousy person if you don’t follow your resolutions. The latter only spirals into the negative feedback loop of emotions.
And finally, keep in mind that whatever life-enhancing habits we want to create, it takes time and patience. Your road will not be a straight line. Every time you fail at your commitments, you can always pick yourself up and keep going towards a direction you want. We are creatures who want to create habits that work for our lives. If we suffer an injury to our leg, we still want to stand up and walk again, don’t we? And yes, you and I will fall to the ground as we rehab, but we pick ourselves up and keep going, with pain and all. Because walking matters, just like living does too!
Anger was a familiar foe to me. As a child, I saw how anger in the family was able to get the giants at home what they wanted from myself and others. And so I learned that albeit unpleasant and unbecoming, anger can be a means to a good end. Anger for me was never an end in itself. People should understand the reason for my short temper, so I thought. Yet, there would probably be very few occasions when I would realize that my angry behavior served me in good stead as I pursued the good ends.
Much of what ails us with anger is not about the feeling itself, but rather the coping style that most of us use as we feel this difficult emotion. You see, my biggest problem with my anger was precisely what I had just indicated in the opening sentence of this blogpost. Anger had become a familiar foe, when all it was, was a part of my nervous system telling me that I just experienced frustration or disappointment or anxiety.
For as long as anger remained my enemy, then it would continue to stand in the way of me becoming the person I wanted to be. Back in my days as a businessman, anger got in the way of my acting in a manner that was most faithful to my deepest aspirations for my life. My inner yearnings to help the people around me made me passionate about keeping the business healthy and viable. Mistakes at work meant a step backwards and threatened to move the company away from this goal. My mind dutifully and persistently told me that the solution to avoiding mistakes, is to exert control over the people working for the business with my anger. Unfortunately, gaining full control over other people is like keeping ocean water from being salty.
The logical solution was to intimidate people into feeling motivated every day. What’s worse is that my mind has learned this dictum to try and try the same thing over and over again until I succeed. Put in another more familiar way, my mind told me to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result.
Here are some tips for you my readers on what to do when anger pays you a visit:
Welcome your old friend and breathe into the feelings and body sensations that arrive with your anger.
Notice it and observe it in your body. Observe what it is egging you to do. Notice it with a beginner’s mind.
Remind yourself that this is but part of a journey, a hero’s journey if you will, and you just encountered something that is getting in the way of the valued outcomes you want at this very moment.
Give yourself some compassion as you suffer through these obstacles and difficult feelings.
Remember what it is that you wish to stand for in your life.
Notice the thoughts as thoughts and not as commands that will make you go in a different direction if you’re not aware. Remember the actions your mind will dictate can move you away from the valued outcomes you had imagined.
We all have seen the unfortunate results of harsh behaviors in our midst. We have also seen how it affects our sense of purpose and meaning as we go through the daily challenges of life and relationships. Anger is neither bad nor good. It’s just a feeling that we all can contain within us. It is a part of us. Not wanting it is akin to saying that you want your tongue to taste only food that is pleasant. Unfortunately, our tongues and other senses come in a package. We will feel both ends of the spectrum of emotions.
And if you are like me, your anger might have something to offer you. For many years, my anger had been telling me that I did care about the business, because its viability meant the well-being of the people involved. This realization has helped me see what was behind my frustrations and disappointments. I cared and I still do to this day. May we experience the benefits of accepting life for all the bitter-sweet experiences it presents. As an old ACT saying goes, “We care where we hurt and we hurt where we care.”
When you raise your head to look ahead as you traverse the busiest streets of Manila, there will undoubtedly be dozens of billboards craning for your attention as you look into the distance and survey the sea of traffic ahead of you. It sort of is a means to break the monotony of tail lights shimmering about several kilometers ahead. Lots of cheery faces showing you how much more you can grab out of life if only you had that new car, home, outfit, hairstyle, and yes, even that new loan! Yeah, that is the good life, the feel good life!
Positivity has become the antidote to much of what we experience in life as trials and misfortunes. We can always just think about positive things and all will be alright as far as our internal mechanisms are concerned.
Just recently heard Dr. Steven Hayes in one of his podcast interviews talk about the futility of this approach to life’s realities. Once again he uses an interesting comparison of this “feel only the good” agenda to just wanting our fingers to feel things that we like. Unfortunately, that is only doable if we totally remove the sense of touch from our fingers. There is no way to teach our fingers to just feel the good ones and not the bad ones. If you feel the soft touch of your pillow at night, you will also feel the roughness of sandpaper as you work on some cleaning project at home. Removing what we dislike can only be done if we remove all the sensations our fingers can feel.
It’s a pretty apt metaphor for not wanting to feel unpleasant emotions. Our minds and our nervous systems come with the ability to experience both sides of the spectrum. If we constantly wish to run away from difficult thoughts and feelings, we will also end up unable to feel pleasant emotions. If we numb ourselves from feeling difficult emotions, we also by default have to remove ourselves from feeling the opposite.
Because of the constant barrage of information we get saying that, the meaningful life ought to make us feel good, we lose touch with what is truly important to us. Maybe that very thing that you have been looking for to find meaning in your life is really contained in some activity that you wish you could do, if only your mind would stop telling you that it’s too hard! Forget about it, you will end up just getting hurt.
Maybe it is in that project you wished you could start because it is where you lose consciousness of time when you engage in doing it. But you are afraid that you will end up being a laughing stock to your friends and family if you did. Maybe it’s in that dating life that you wish you can resume after a painful divorce. But your mind tells you, you better not, because it will hurt even more. Maybe it is taking that step to talk to your child about something you wish he or she can see from your perspective. But your mind tells you, you will just end up spoiling your kid and surrendering some of that power you have over him or her.
All of these yearnings point to what truly matters to us and the existential anxiety we have about how we spend our time as we remain alive and conscious. If it is important for you to have that career, then you will feel anxious pursuing it. If it is important for you to have a good relationship, then you will feel terrified by the idea of meeting new people for romantic reasons. If it is important for you to be loving to your child, then you will feel like you’re walking on eggshells raising one.
As an old ACT saying goes, we care where we hurt and we hurt where we care. Anything that is worth pursuing in life will hurt because we care about them. It won’t always be happy. There is no guarantee unfortunately. The only thing that is sure is that if you pursue a life that matters rather than a life that’s happy, you will then know what it means to live meaningfully. As one 19th century sage put it, “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”
If you are like most people who are frustrated with their partners’ incorrigible ways, here’s an option you might want to consider. What if you and your partner can become more objective in the way you view each other’s peculiarities? What if these defects were just your differences? What if you view your differences more from your past perspective of why you two clicked in the first place?
Of course, this is always as we say, easier said than done. That person you thought had all the complementary qualities you wish you yourself had, has now turned into a nuisance. You fell in love with him because he was always cool, calm, and collected. He was never frazzled by any of the crises you had to deal with in your months or years of dating. Unfortunately, you realize that these same qualities when displayed in certain situations, are not the source of solace and comfort you wish they would be. They now come across as snooty or insensitive, dismissive of how you feel about your current problems at work or at home. You now complain and criticize, and your partner is flabbergasted. He thinks it’s unfair for you to come up with new standards of how he should be. Isn’t it that you loved me with all these qualities before? Why do you want to change me completely all of a sudden?
Now, I have gone through so many approaches to couples counseling in my years of working with distressed couples and have found this so far to be the most intriguing of all and probably can turn out to be the most effective. I call it the, Why Of Course You Do Therapy! Why? Because I realized that these are the very words I would be mentioning quite often in my work with couples! Given the circumstances and given your histories, you will react in certain ways that are quite predictable and understandable.
The problem starts when each of the parties in the relationship begin to demand, criticize, show annoyance, and reject attempts at connection or reconciliation. What were qualities that each of you accepted early in your relationship, are now irritants that turn you into adversaries. Your partner becomes a project to change. As mentioned earlier, your partner will feel rather betrayed if what he or she thought were things you were willing to accept, have now become unacceptable. The differences that you had once accepted have now turned into defects that can make or break the relationship.
The key is that through acceptance, your partner may in turn notice how much harder you are working to come to terms with what can be difficult to change. The irony in psychology is that unless we learn to accept things as they are, then change can happen. As the words of the great Carl Rogers remind us, “”The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I change.” This works well with couples too! The more your partner senses that he or she is accepted, then they feel more motivated to change. Why so? It’s the paradox of the human mind, the paradox of being human!
Happiness, contentment, gratitude, a look on the bright side. These are just some of the terms that we throw around a lot like an old ad slogan, but find eternally elusive.
I remember a former philosophy professor write this on the board once, “Humans are insatiable beings.” I have pondered on this truth for so long but have long wondered what the reason for this is. I am now beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel in my long search for an explanation. Maybe science has found the answer, the behavioral sciences that is.
As far as this area of study is concerned, the culprit is really our human minds. Don’t get me wrong. I am not here to say how stupid our minds can get. In reality, our minds are wonderful! Without them we would not be where we are now as a species. We’d be subject to what other species experience on a daily basis that we can only imagine in movies which depict our prehistoric existence.
Pardon my writing nowadays as I adjust to talking more like a scientist than before when humanistic language came very easily to me. So help me out here, I am struggling trying to get a more scientific message across. Nonetheless, it is my hope that my blog remains as inspiring to you as it is for me to write my thoughts and share them with you, my visitors and subscribers.
I digress!
So here’s what our minds are very good at doing. Our minds are judgmental machines. They can churn out all kinds of criticisms anytime, anywhere. You can try this at home. Pick any object in your room wherever you may be (you can even be at a friend’s house, but just do this quietly in your head for your sake and your friendship’s!). Now try to see everything that’s wrong with it. Go ahead, try it. When you’re done, do it twice more on two different objects you see in the room.
If you’re like most everyone else, you would probably notice that your mind can really do a great job of this. It gets better as you move from one object to another. Do you see now what I am driving at? That’s your friend Mind’s forte!
Ever noticed how some of the most successful, famous, and wildly attractive people in the world can’t seem to get to a point where they can say, “Hey, this is great! I am happy where I am at!” You would have probably noticed that in yourself too. Look back about five years ago and think of the things you have now that you wished you had then. Remember how unsatisfied you were with what you had and where you were at? If you have been losing some stuff you used to enjoy, then it becomes all the more easier to let your mind go and tell you how much more stuff you still need.
That in a nutshell is what our minds do. It’s natural and it also is the secret to why humans dominate the earth. So don’t worry or don’t fret if you feel like a selfish person for thinking that you don’t have enough. It is your mind, mind you, that’s doing it for you. It thinks it is doing you a service by keeping you thinking about what you could be missing or what could go wrong when you’re missing what you’re missing.
But what you can learn here that your mind cannot get, is that you are a human being that is capable of noticing what your mind is doing. All those judgmental critical thoughts of who you are and what you’ve accomplished are just part of the deal of being a human with a brain. The key here is to know when it’s happening and make a pivot or shift towards what life has to offer in the moment. For this moment is all we really have. Neither can we change the past nor control our future. It is this moment that we can change and we can control!
It is that mode of mind that tells you you are watching the sun go down, and you look with wonder and surprise at how wonderful it can be. You know, that sunset mode of mind, like the title of this blogpost? I betcha you can’t appreciate the sunset and do the exercise we just did in this post! I don’t think so! For who wants to see the sunset and figure out what’s wrong with it? Not me, and I guess neither do you.
And guess what, science has come full circle to an old eastern tradition of being mindful. The answer was found in the future, in the form of science that has gone to the past to find the answer!
Mindfulness gets us into that sunset mode of mind…everyday! Do it while you’re brushing your teeth or walking around your neighborhood…and see how great it is to be alive just by being more present, more conscious, and more aware!
Until the next (more scientific) blogpost. See ya!
Don’t touch that! Don’t go there or you’ll hurt yourself! These are just some of the rules that anyone who grows old enough will learn perhaps during the early childhood stages. Such rules are important to ensure our safety and survival. It is precisely this capability that allows us to not always have to rely on our experience to know that something can threaten our physical safety. This has made us as a species such a success. In fact, so successful that we dominate the planet! Ever wondered why such helpless beings as we, with no enlarged fangs or sharp claws, can keep menacing predators away? We have built cities to surround us and keep us away from such threats. Otherwise we’d be dinner for some of them!
These rules however, only work when we are dealing with computer problems, external threats of a physical nature, and when we want to fix a leak in the house. Our minds are pretty useful when it comes to such problems. Unfortunately, our minds are also unable to discern when these rules are handy, and when they are less helpful or even unhelpful. In ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) linggo we call this phenomenon fusion. It is when we fuse with our thoughts that we run into trouble. Fusing means we either fight away these thoughts or we follow what these thoughts say we should do.
In the first nine years of working in this field, I can see the parallels between this perspective and my work regarding emotions. We need to be able to feel our emotions because they can serve as a guide for better living. From a cognitive behavioral standpoint, it gives us another angle from which to view such phenomena. Why do we explode in anger? Or shrink our lives into depression and anxiety? Where have we learned this strategy that the best way to live our lives is to shirk our unpleasant emotions and grab on to the pleasant ones. The rule states that emotions are bad for your health; get rid of bad feelings.
Here are some ways that we fuse with our thoughts about emotions. We fuse with the idea that some emotions are bad and that they need to be eradicated. Feeling good is not a valued outcome in life. There is certainly nothing wrong with wanting to feel good, but our emotions shift constantly throughout the day. Having that feel good target in our lives can only lead to one frustration over another.
And because we have these evaluations about our feelings, we also derive a new rule that tells us that feelings can become causes of our behavior. As children, it was quite normal for parents to believe that being able to predict their child’s feelings meant having more control of the child’s behavior. They would not want the child to be angry because anger normally leads to physical altercations.
Sadly the rule that some feelings are bad or that some feelings can cause us to do something bad takes its roots from here. The results of such rule-based decisions about our behavior can be constricting to life. Here are some examples:
I need to feel confident before I can mingle with the people in this party.
I can’t exercise if I feel lazy.
I feel depressed so I have to go get some comfort food.
Dr. Russ Harris has a great example of how we can actually see that these rules aren’t true, and even if they were true, they’re not helping us live the lives we are aiming for. If someone pointed a gun at you and told you that you should not feel anxious, how successful do you think you may be? But if someone did the same thing to you and told you to sing and dance while a gun is pointed at your head, you’d probably be more successful.
So next time your mind gives you these thoughts that somehow you should get rid of “bad” feelings first before you can get on with your life, stop for a moment and see how helpful or unhelpful this thought is. Are your feelings stopping you from applying for that promotion? Are your feelings stopping you from calling that person you want to date? Are your feelings telling you that you’re a loser when it comes to losing weight?
The key here is to learn how to handle such difficult feelings that come with life’s challenges, more effectively. We normally do great when things are going well in our lives. It is when we encounter the harsh realities of life that living our lives the way we want to, becomes a challenge.
