Political Warfare Bureau,M.N.D.PostDate: 2017/05/01

You may grasp happiness in your life if you change your heart

By Zhuang Yuling, Counselor, Mental Health Center, Central Region, Ministry of National Defense

A western philosopher said that if our hearts are changed, the world will be changed accordingly.  If you insist on wearing a pair of dark glasses to see the world outside, you can not clearly see the bright, beautiful things.  Sometimes, it is very important to change your thoughts and adapt yourself to your environment if you cannot change it. In practical cases, I always ask objectives of cases “What will you do for yourself if you cannot change the environment?”  By asking the question, I seek to terminate the sense of hopelessness and helplessness toward the objective in the environment, and turn the focus back toward the objective of each case.  Internal changes will provide more flexibility and allow us to control ourselves to face problems.  After all, frustrations and failures are part of the journey of life.  Therefore, it is very important to learn how to strengthen resistance against pressure in order to pass through difficulties when we face frustrations.

There are several simple principles of adjustment in mental health:

1.  Moderate rewards

In our childhood, we expected rewards in boxes.  However, after we grew up, we found boxes without rewards inside.  Rewards,however, are very important to people.  When people obtain praise and compliments, they become enthused, and they acquire the incentive to face problems. It’s just like receiving a bottle of water during a marathon.  The one who can moderately encourage you from time to time is yourself.  Therefore, find a reason for encouraging yourself to feel the happiness in your life, and build up the courage to face problems.

2. Maintain the support system:

During the process of counseling, I found very often that, because of lack of support from relatives, many patients are in despair and frustration when they encounter problems.  If the patient cannot obtain support or company in time, the problem will get bigger and bigger like a snowball.  Thus it is a positive action for facing problems if the patient maintains regular contact with relatives and friends, learns how to tell people about the problems, and obtains moderate help from others.

3. Look at things with a humorous attitude: 

Sigmund Freud said “The sense of humor is the highest defense mechanism of human beings.”  A sense of humor is a rare and precious gift which enables us to remind ourselves to release pressure, stop emphasizing the seriousness of the problem, and to help us see the problem from different angles.  Making fun of ourselves allows us to accept ourselves as people who make mistakes once in a while.  

During the process of counseling, I usually ask the patient  “How do you stand firm in difficult situations?  What are your strengths?”  Facing difficulties, people usually forget about how they coped with pressure, and regained their own strength back when they were being guided before.  Several patients told me that their own strength consists of optimism, exertion, support from relatives and friends, and forbearance.  With these strengths, patients obtain the opportunity of finding the internal power to overcome difficulties.  It becomes easier and a simpler matter to face their lives.

The article is extracted from Page 3 of Youth Daily News, 16 November 2006