How things should be

Are some people inherently born happy whilst others are hard wired to be moody? Apparently the constitution of a person's brains do contribute to some extent whether a person is optimistic or not. Good feelings are experienced in the left frontal cortex and bad feelings in the right. It seems that people with a happier disposition have more activity in the left frontal lobes. This explains why some babies are more fretful than others even in the same environment.

Fortunately with the understanding of neuroplasticity it is now known that we can change our brains by changing how we think and feel. Basically the way we behave, think and emote shape the neural pathways and synapses.

Given this good news how do we then psycho ourselves? It may be very easy to tell someone to think positive but bad habits die hard. When the Dalai Lama was once asked to recount the happiest moment of his life, he replied without hesitation "Now". But we are not the Dalai Lama or brought up the way he did. Yesterday a talk I heard over podcast shed some light as to why we can never (like the Dalai Lama) hold on to the belief that "Now" is the happiest moment. The hindrance basically lies in our perpetual "attachment to how things should be". So if I wake up in the morning and realise I run out of bread, my attachment to a normal breakfast of toasted bread may cause some irritation. Of course I can blow it up further by berating myself for forgetting to buy or scold someone who is supposed to see to it. This is just an example when minor things go awry. Needless to say there are bigger issues affecting health and family that are more difficult to accept and that "attachment to how things should be" become more severe and pervasive. In no small measures are these affected by social/cultural norms and peer pressure. A well interconnected world in the like of facebook plus subliminal advertising (manipulating our unconscious mind) also help shape our concept of "how things should be". So even when we fall sick we blame ourselves for not taking good care of our body, not exercising enough or not taking sufficient health supplement to keep ourselves in tip top condition. Needless to say the "should be"s extend to our family members, our expectations of them to be at least in line with the norm. The list goes on.

Ironically the most fearful rejection of "how things are now" is the inability to accept our feelings. This suppression can have serious consequences psychologically. Some people, for example, are brought up in an environment where feeling angry is disapproved. Anger is hence repressed and often results in depression. The happy faces in facebook and the "all-is-well" front we see everywhere also tell us that if we feel sad something is not quite right with us or we make others uncomfortable when we are sad. If you have watched Disney's pixar movie "Inside Out" you will know what I mean. In the show "Joy" was trying to run the main character's life and blocking out "sadness" to the detriment of her authentic self and almost landing her into numbness and depression.

As someone once said "Life is like a piano; the white keys are happy moments black keys are sad moments; but remember both keys are played together to give sweet music to life".

Frienship at work?

Yesterday's BT carries an article about declining friendship at work. Surveys carried out in the States showed that the percentage of people who said they have a close friend at work dropped from 50% in 1989 to 30% in 2004, though more recent statistics were absent. It went on to analyse the cause. Apparently most people now treat the office as a place to be efficient and not to form bonds, a place to be polite not personal. Moreover long term employment is no longer the norm and it is so common to jump ship every few years. At such energy to build friendship is better spent outside the office. Given the connectivity through various media, time is also precious to get the job done freeing more time to engage with friends/contacts outside work.

The article went on to say that jobs are more satisfying when there is opportunity to form friendship. When there is friendship in the office there is more trust, more willingness to share information and help one another which is beneficial for the company.

We baby boomers are luckier in that we did enjoy this type of comradeship in the 1970s to 1990s. Why, because many of us stayed with an employer for decades. Can you imagine seeing each other 8 hours a day, 5 days a week? We actually saw more of our colleagues than our spouse and children in our waking time. Moreover way back in the 80s work life was less stressful without email and office softwares. For example a legal contract took ages to complete starting with handwritten amendments on a typed first draft, sending the office boy to deliver the amended draft to the lawyer's office and then for the lawyer to make the necessary amendments and getting his typists to type out the whole document on a typewriter. Iterations went on forever. In addition there was no handphone; and a worker can literally avoid answering the direct line to buy time. Hence with so much time waiting for the next step to take place, what did we do? A lot of chatting and socialising of course. I don't know about the men but certainly the women had a lot to share about children upbringing, family issues etc. Family Day, annual D&D and year end parties were big events calling for working committees to be formed and much office hours spent in planning and execution, inclusive of working hours rehearsing for sketches and songs. In such a social setting can we not have close friends in the office?

Maybe I was lucky and the place where I worked attracted less ambitious people; but I think generally there was less back stabbing and scheming for positions at work then.  If achievement, power and affiliation are believed to be the 3 motivation factors at work, affiliation definitely played quite an important part.

Recently I received a surprise letter from my former company informing of their intention to form an alumni of ex employees. The thought of reviving that sense of comradeship springs up in nostalgic fantasy.Then I read about an increasing trend for companies like McKinsey and Chevron to build alumni networks. Such alliance and alumni networks can encourage "employees to invest in relationships even when they won't stay at jobs for decades".

So I will go ahead to join this alumni to prolong existing close relationships and to hopefully reignite some others.

Doubt vs fear

I guess a hypochondria will always look for a trigger happy doctor. I was having a reflux problem that makes my throat feels ticklish and a compulsive need to cough out the phlegm. This happens especially when I lie down for my afternoon nap. For some time I have not been enjoying my nap. My dear family doctor straight away writes a reference letter to a stomach and liver specialist recommending an endoscopy. Though she prescribed me medicine for a condition called GERD (Gastroesophageal reflux disease) she did not see the necessity for me to wait and see whether the medicine works first. She also thought my losing 2 kg over the last 6 months was something to worry about.

I was stumped of course and must have shown it on my face. I had expected only some medication to solve the problem. She gave me the incredulous look when I asked about the procedure and the cost etc. I deliberated for a week and when her medicine didn't work found myself at the specialist's office. The receptionist had asked me to fast from midnight prior to the appointment "just in case I need to do a scope". True enough the specialist suspected acid reflux due to weakening of the valve or maybe presence of air pockets in the esophagus. Anyway I was prepared to be scoped. However he also pushed me to do an additional colonscopy ie. bottom up as well. That despite me giving negative answers to abnormalities-detective questions about my bowels, other than my life long conditions of an easily irritable bowel. To do the colonscopy I have to purge for 3 hours after taking some special laxative. He said I could spend about 3 hours in his office and after 4 hours everything will be over and I could go home. He said at my age I should really undergo the procedure. As I was not mentally prepared for that I declined and said I would just go along with the endoscopy. I must say he didn't look pleased at all. At the waiting room outside I was rather disturbed with my decision and toyed with the idea whether I would live to regret my decision. Was I being a fool not to do both at one shot? Wild ideas crossed my mind like what if I miss the test which could have saved my life. To be honest I would have gone with both scopes had there not an appointment which I didn't want to cancel later in the day.

At the endoscopy centre one floor below I met a 40-ish  China national couple who sought my help to fill in some forms and did some translation. I found out that his doctor was the same as mine. They then shared that the husband has a GERD problem and the medicine doesn't really help. To my surprise he had done 3 scopes in 5 years under the same doctor. I was shocked and asked why there was the need for such frequency. The wife just shrugged and said the husband felt safer. Now being a hypochondriac I have done extensive googling not only about the details of various scopes but have also scanned many websites advocating for such procedures as well as websites that list the risks, hazards and the needlessness of their frequency.Now the couple may not have divulged a more serious problem and the websites I visit may be incorrect which is quite probable. My mind may also have been corrupted by bad media against the medical profession and medical commercialism.

What I have described is a common experience of being caught between skepticism and fear when encountering a medical problem. I guess I better go for a stool test soon since I missed out on the chance to do a colonscopy.

Do I look like this guy in the picture below? Sigh!


 

Let them be Heard

Currently I volunteer at a counselling centre which runs a program helping families which are going through various stages of divorce. I engage the children who exhibit emotional issues with sandplay therapy. I will record case notes after each session for my own reference as well as themes and feelings which I have observed exhibited by the child. Often the themes revealed in the sand stories are very telling of the situations the child is in, like loss, insecurity, need for protection and anger. Sometmes the children may also make comments about their parents directly or indirectly through the symbols they have selected for their sand story,

Now I was at a predicament how much of my observation should be shared with the parents. I pass my case notes to the counsellors engaging with the parents. The practice of confidentiality is essential in counselling not only as part of ethics and trust, but in the case of children, to ensure they remain open and do not close up should they know their secrets are shared with their parents. Hence I would request the counsellors to reveal only very broadly to the parents the general feelings of the child and the repeated themes in his/her play so they know what their child is undergoing. At the back of my mind I was also fearful how the child's predicament may impact the parents.

Today however I was relieved to read in the newspapers about our Family Justice Courts embarking on a "Child Inclusive Dispute Resolution" Australian model which gives parents a chance to hear how their children are affected by their divorce. Instances have shown that by adopting this model parental conflicts especially over child custody resolves faster as parents understand the plight and wishes of their children. Australian child psychologist who pioneered the model emphasized the importance for trained professionals to find out the children's feelings, as they may not tell their parents the truth. Therein lies the challenge for the child counsellor to gain the child's trust to share his/her true feelings. In one of my sandplay sessions, a child displayed a very dark theme of a bunch of helpless females hiding behind a castle under siege by enemies and resorting to a divine statue to protect them when their soldiers failed. After the session when the kid's mum came to collect her and asked her what the story in the sand tray was about, I was stumped when she told her mum a brief happy story about the happy princess in the castle taking a ride on a horse in the open country. This child has shared with me how stressed her mum is at home. In my work I have seen so very often the child being worried for the parents.

Yesterday a child's remarks at the children's home pulled at my heartstrings. In the midst of playing masak2 (cooking) she suddenly uttered, "When I am a mother, I will take care of my children". Will this remark if passed on to the parents make them live more responsibly so as not to leave a child in an institution?