Tag Archives: parent-child therapy counseling Manila

Get Natural

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Substantual evidences from the US National Institute of Mental Health, the International Society of Sport Psychology, and other authorities have declared a best natural anti-depressant.

Exercise.

I remember one of my clients who took up boxing in the gym after taking brain drugs for a time. She reported that her exercise made her feel far better than all the psych drugs she took combined!

In dozens of clinical studies, exercise is proven to have superior supportive psychotherapeutic benefits. A repellant against depression and negativity, such as fear, worry, anger and tension.

Practiced regularly, exercise (aerobic or nonaerobic) helps bring better self esteem, enhanced mental and emotional performance, and resilience against stress.

Exercise “natural anti-depressant” may include: power walking, jogging, running, swimming, basketball, football, boxing, dancing, even gardening and housework.

Of course, a rule is do it safely and don’t overdo it to avoid unnecessary injury. Also, don’t try to expect to heal your emotional wounds overnight through exercise.

Major depressives in exercise programs spend their time too in psychotherapy. That goes to the internal roots to permanently keep the blues at bay.

Personally and professionally, I love daily power walks. At times, running. To exorcise my own demons! My own bodywork to free my mind so I can be of better help to others.

I like Henry David Thoreau, who writes:

“I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend 4 hours a day at least … sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements.”

Courage Heals

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Courage was a big thing for Mother Teresa. She said, “To have courage for whatever comes in life – everything lies in that.”

It’s essential to the meaningful attainments she made in her life –serving as a missionary against “injustice among the poor” in India.

Wounded souls. That’s how we may describe the inner state of individuals after suffering injustices in their personal lives and relationships.

Standing up to these personal injustices and wounds requires courage. Overcoming fear in order to heal. In order to be able to do what gives life.

For years, Maria, a 16-year-old high school girl, received abusive, name-calling text messages. She was pushed around at school. She avoided places in her school in fear for her safety.

Finally, she broke down. She could no longer bring herself to continue attending classes. Her grades dropped. She suffered from panic anxiety attacks, lack of sleep, and stress headaches.

Her mother brought her to me. She lamented, “My daughter has become emotionally crippled. It takes all my energy to get her out of the car and ‘go over there.’ ”

To get well, Maria needs a healthy dose of courage. Against injustices and its perpetrators.

It’s not for her own good that she allows her self to be humiliated and shamed in school. To do so only harms her psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually.

“Be men of courage; be strong,” the Bible says (1 Corinthians 16:13).

Courage matters.

It helps us correct injustices and wrongs. It gives us power over risk and its associated fears. It leads us to be better persons, spouses, parents, children, friends and citizens.

Healing from Unemployment

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Jeff is unemployed. He has bills to meet. Two teenagers and one child to feed. And his wife waits anxiously for some response from job applications.

Weeks roll into months. Months roll into years. The clouds get darker as time passes.

Unemployment drains Jeff. Emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually.

The social stigma is also evident. His relatives and friends often withdraw, or don’t know how to react. As if he’s less than a real person.

Jeff used to be a confident, self assured man. But all that is stripped away … by the horrors of unwanted lack of employment.

Understandably, Jeff feels devastated. His self esteem crashes. He feels worthless to himself, his wife and children, his friends, and society.

Unemployment. A personal, private trauma wound.

In my country and in many other places, the trauma of unemployment is a distressing personal malady. It’s known to invade and wound a lot of people.

No totally satisfying cure has been found yet by politicians, businessmen, or doctors. The numbers of sufferers keep increasing in our era.

As one of the suffering unemployed several times before, I’ve found that what we look for in this trauma or crisis are these 3 major keys: wisdom, patience, and faith.

When you’re down in the depths of despair, you’re put to the test. In those 3 major keys and areas. Make sure they’re well covered in your surviving and thriving.

As a Christian myself, I realize that I could not depend on man for solutions. Only God can be my ultimate solution, my ultimate mental, emotional, and spiritual anchor in trying times.

I know how it works. And able to say, “I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed …”

That is a far more lasting and real therapy to unemployment. It yields practical results as well beyond what you can imagine.

Nourish Your Brain Thru Meditation

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Meditation is brain-nourishing. It promotes mental, emotional, physical, as well as spiritual health.

You exercise it, you develop life health overall.

Dante was an over-worrier and overthinker. When he first entered session with me, he got anxious a lot about too many things at the same time.

Also, his perceptual focus had always been on the negative. He responded to other people’s labels as if they were the real thing.

From this kind of thinking, he took labels and opinions from others literally. And, all the time, he’d assume he somehow knew about his “badness” or attribute ill will to others.

One of the first key new habits Dante learned in our work together is meditation.

Mindful meditation. Taking control of intrusive thoughts. Refocusing, when the “monkey mind” jumps again.

With this new habit, Dante has noticed that, on days that he exercises meditation, he is pretty less anxious and agitated.

His meditation breaks help him relax and be more focused on his work.

In my weekend geriatrics group session with aging men, we do a lot of meditation. Training the mind. Taking control of one’s thoughts.

How such a simple activity improve symptoms of depression and anxiety common among the aged! It promotes their learning new things to grow. It preserves the aging brain.

Meditation. Its benefits are profound.

Not only demonstrated by thousands of years of anecdotal evidences. But it’s also solidly validated by exhaustive scientific research.

Self Acceptance

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Sometimes, walking in the street, I passed by armored vans delivering/transporting money to or from the bank.

They have a treasure inside that they’re guarding with great vigilance.

The vigilance is of course a necessity.

It’s interesting that Maria guards her feelings so well. Even those that continue to damage her core being.

As a result, she lost the ability to experience joy in her life. Her personality is unnecessarily locked up by her emotions.

Expectedly, during sessions, Maria gets tight.

Must she lock up her injured emotions and avoid seeing what they really are? Must she imprison her personality?

Of course not.

As in the case of almost all with psychological wounding, Maria must learn to free her self. From a type of prison outside brick-and-mortar penitentiary.

It’s a call towards liberation from emotional imprisonment.

So how then do you free your self from this life-damaging internal prison? How do you find joy, peace, and fulfillment?

Answer: self-acceptance.

That means, self-liking, self-caring.

If you can be vigilant guarding your self from being hurt or damaged by your wounded emotions, surely you can be vigilant and enthusiastic for the greatest task of guarding your best treasure.

That is, the healing and growth of your capacity for self-acceptance.

Accepting your self amid the inevitable ups and downs of life. Accepting your self in a troubled world. Accepting your self — both in triumphs and tragedies.

What’s True Love?

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What is true love?

Everyone talks about it. We want to see and experience it.

You look for it. You long for it. You hope and wish to find that one fellow human being who will truly love you, and whom you’ll truly love in return.

You think that if you find him or her, you’ve found true love to make you happy. True love, most of us tend to believe, lies from outside of us.

I’m used to hearing individuals or couples saying, “I can’t live without you.” So when one loses the other, he or she also loses his or her self.

Even if you get true love from outside of you, it will only be for awhile. It won’t last long. True love doesn’t work that way.

You and your loved one are two separate individuals. You can love another person without losing your self.

True love then is essentially located from within your self. Not outside of it.

As Ravi Shankar put it, “Seek not outside your self, for all your pain comes simply from a futile search for what you want, insisting where it must be found.”

Finding true love then is not about finding your completeness in another person. You don’t need another human being to complete you.

In reality, you’re already complete and whole as you love and accept your self. If you don’t have true love for your self, you can’t realistically expect someone to give it to you.

You only need someone in your life when you desire to share with another your wholeness. Bless the other with true love already residing within your heart.

So a next question is, if true love is found within you, how do you know it’s there, to attract true love from another person?

Rx to Suicide

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It’s sad to note that hundreds of thousands of men and women around the world committed suicide. Men typically die of violence, such as through gunshot or self-strangulation. Women hang or cut themselves or overdose on pills.

What drives people to kill themselves?

I’m not aware of any well-studied psychological theory that explains the nature of suicide fantasy and the final action. But more often than not, i surmise it can be a combination of factors. Neurochemical vulnerability. Identity and self esteem issues. Desperation. Circumstance.

In addition to these factors I mentioned as possible precipitatants of suicide, society and culture seem to also play a role.

Psychology Today writer Abby Ellin writes, ” … we live in a culture where disorders of the mind are kept quiet. People are honest about struggles with cancer or diabetes. They talk openly about injuries. But depression is a dark secret.”

When Albert, 54, saw me, he’d been wanting to kill himself. His identity and self esteem was very tied into his social, public profile – his CEO status, his business, his family – and these things started to dissolve when he was faced with economic bankruptcy and loss of work.

He felt so depressed and down. Talking about his feelings to his wife or friends would most likely help Albert. Except, of course, he was not a person who wanted to appear vulnerable to any one in any way. Even in therapy, he struggled with this.

People who have thoughts of suicide suffer from hopelessness that their business or finances will rebound, that their mate will love them, or that someone will want them after a broken marriage or relationship.

Ultimately, therefore, hope is the medicine to this deadly dark secret.