I learnt from the podcast that Elliot lives by self-help while Pete isn’t a fan of it, and Elliott quotes an example of advice by ChatGPT that says practising mindfulness or awareness and living in the present moment reduces stress and improves mental well-being, which both of them agree is a good advice.
I understand from Pete that his question or issue is why people may find it hard to practise that, and I learnt from Elliot that many scholars and psychologists like to interpret and diagnose human behaviours as if they are like text or scriptures to be analysed and interpreted.
Repeated behaviours may or may not necessarily be a symptom of something, whether be it taking a bath and forgetting to attend a psychoanalysis session in the case of Pete, or getting stuck in traffic and being delayed in the case of Elliott. I suppose everything is open to interpretations.
An example of the kind of self-help books that Pete likes to read is “Why do I do that?” by Joseph Burgo, which defines various defense mechanisms that people might use, because by looking at the hidden reason(s) behind those mechanisms, it can be kind of productive transformational.
The defense mechanism is neither positive nor negative in and of itself – it is a way of protecting ourselves and/or our ego from getting hurt again, so we can learn to live with our emotions by expressing them in a safe way rather than repressing them.
It can be helpful to talk to a therapist or someone who is trained in psychoanalysis because in order to see ourselves, we need to be reflected off somebody else, like how Pete shared about his dream last week and mentioned how he was bad at free association to his psychoanalyst.
It is also interesting to learn that positive affirmations such as saying “I am good at so-and-so” can only go so far as to change negative thoughts to positive thoughts because a deeper and more effective way is to deal with repression of some unpleasant childhood memories or trauma.
I learnt from Pete that an alternative to positive affirmations is to work through the emotions, such as being angry with our parents or some authority figures about some abusive things they might have said or done in the past, with an analyst and realise that the anger might have been misplaced on others along the way, and by recreating the past scene and working through these emotions, one can reconnect the affect or the emotions to the thoughts, and hopefully find freedom that way.
(I think that positive affirmations do help in a sense because we can change reality with our words, for “death and life are in the power of the tongue”. Hence, we can practise both the awareness of our unconscious together with making positive affirmations to ensure that our emotions maintain a connection with our thoughts.)
The main take-away point summed up by Pete at the end of the insightful podcast is that the best way to change is not about telling ourselves not to change but rather ask ourselves if the symptoms might be the solution to certain problems – or in Elliot’s words, the symptoms are actually angels helping us.
For example, I could relate to Elliot’s sharing about having experienced anger out of nowhere at some perceived injustice when he was driving and getting stuck in traffic or something like that because there were times when I was cycling on the road, I too have had similar encounters where I was triggered by the honks of some rude or impatient drivers and felt anger rising up, and as I worked through the emotions, I realised that there were times I was reminded of past memories of being bullied or talked down at by some authority figures in school or in the army during national service or at work dealing with certain people in the government agencies many years ago, for example.
On a similar note, I was inspired to write a blog to recount a road rage incident involving a truck driver and a cyclist back in 2019 (both of whom might have carried out displacement, i.e. taking anger from one place and putting it somewhere else):
“We are all complex psychological beings capable of repressing emotions to function with a certain level of temperance in society.
But if we don’t process our hurts and pains in a safe space, our repressed anger and resentment can erupt when we least expect it.
I believe this is what happened during that fateful road incident.”
Like Pete, I seek to approach the subject of psychoanalysis – which I still have much to learn about – from the perspective of grace and acceptance in order to understand better why people do certain things without judging them and see how I can make room for grace, usually by first making room for grace in myself as I work through my own issues.
Like Pete mentioned in the podcast regarding Don Miguel Ruiz’s “The four agreements”, in order not to take things personally if someone happens to say or do something that pisses us off, the first thing to do is to be gracious with ourselves for taking things personally and ask ourselves why and work through it, instead of prohibiting ourselves from taking things personally.
Incidentally, the same biblical notion shared by the apostle Paul came to my mind earlier, which Pete also said in the podcast about the Paulinian notion that when we try not to do something, the more we want to do it, as written in the book of Romans about the law which tells us to do something in order to become (aka “dos and don’ts” or the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, as opposed to the tree of life).
Truly, grace is the taking away of the prohibition and helping us to see ourselves and ask ourselves whether our assumptions are right, so that we can be more aware of the unconscious and how we navigate the world, and we will experience the liberation and transformation from the inside out, if I may put it that way.
Here’s a shout-out to the radical grace preaching by Joseph Prince in the 2000s who didn’t use the law to condemn or coerce people into doing something, such as loving people – in fact, “we love because He first loved us”.
Hence, the progressive christians are irrelevant to the world today as long as they do not understand or extend grace to anyone even if they try to be intellectual or use social justice such as LGBTQ-affirming etc to present themselves as liberals because their use of the law to condemn or shame people for not subscribing to their theology or church agenda is off-putting.
I believe the apostle Paul himself experienced grace and unconditional love firsthand and experienced inner transformation to the extent he preached grace radically – that “there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ” (Romans 8:1), which is the foundation of the gospel or the good news of Christ.
“I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a violent man; yet because I had acted in ignorance and unbelief, I was shown mercy. And the grace of our Lord overflowed to me, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.”
(1 Timothy 1:13-14)
Hence, any preacher today who condemns people and uses the threat of hell or God’s “punishment” to manipulate others through fear and shame is not preaching the good news of grace, no matter how progressive they call themselves.
Real Rest is the Best 