Personality Test

As I have mentioned in the preceding blog, I have taken the NEO personality inventory test two weeks ago. My spiritual director gave me this test to further underpin the vulnerabilities of my personality. That through this test I may be able to understand how to better handle my issues. I thought this test would give me some hope that despite my struggles, there are untapped talents I can use to my advantage. Much to my surprise, the result showed that I have to do a lot of hard work and house cleaning. I was all the more sucked into my so-called depression. There were no untapped talents that I can use to convince myself that things were not as bad as they seem. On the contrary, my weaknesses surfaced out in that test. Weaknesses that I may have denied unconsciously were all verified in black and white.

I was down and felt so broken that I seem so hopeless and helpless. Good thing was it made me realized that that was reality. Just like in any math problems, all the unknowns, givens and constants are laid down. There is no other option but to buckle down to work and find the solution or a means to cope with the situation. When the unknowns, givens and constants in a problem are correct and true, I am at least 50% confident that there IS a correct answer to be expected. Self-pity and blame will not help alleviate those uncomfortable feelings in me. Happiness was my only choice.

A tool that is helping me in my recovery is the book Feeling Good by Dr. David Burns. It is a book about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. This field of psychotherapy proposes that what we feel is a product of our cognitions and/or behaviors. If we work on our distorted cognitions and behaviors, our feelings can improve. Of course, it is not as simple as that. There are unexplainable feelings that affect the way we think and behave; that sometimes, without the help of professionals, we would not be able to understand and improve.

I know that I am not alone in this healing process. My friends have their own fair share of struggles. And mine may not be as serious as theirs. I now live a day at a time. Things may not look as good as I wanted them to be but I know I am moving in the right direction. It will just be a matter of time.

Counseling Course

I passed Module 1 of the Basic Counseling that I took up in January'07. I have not yet decided whether to take up Module 2 and 3 which will start this week. Module 2 is a supervised counseling practicum and Module 3 is on Marital Counseling. I am having second thoughts of finishing this course because I will be getting busier the next two quarters as we are about to launch a product at work. If I really love this endeavor, I will find ways to manage my schedule and find time to finish this course. I feel I have the talent to be in counseling. But lately, it seems that the desire to finish a course in counseling have simmered down a bit.

I wanted to take up counseling because I felt that I have the talent to become a counselor. Close friends have encouraged me to pursue this course as they appreciate my gift in counseling(in reality, people do not come to me to seek advice but to get the approval of the choices they have already made). But counseling is much more challenging than I what I thought it was. It's more than understanding the problem of the client and gaining insights into possible causes and solutions. It is a total giving of oneself to the client. It is offering something that I have to the client. Success in counseling does not solely depend in the micro-skills and analysis skills of the counselor (though they are important skills to have). One must have a genuine love and interest in the client.

After taking the NEO personality inventory test two weeks ago, I am having doubts as to whether I really have the gift in counseling. I still have so many homework to do with my self. A lot of house cleaning to perform. With all these, what can I really offer my future clients? And if I should decide to take the deep dive first and see, I might be loosing the $800 course fee if I back out In the middle of the course.

Lord, guide my heart to make the right decision. Not my will but Your will be done. Amen

Catching Up

I need to do some catching up in this blog after more than a month of silence. Not that I was extremely busy nor very preoccuppied with more important stuffs the past several weeks. In fact, I am starting to blog again because I am getting busier these days at work.

Not only do I want to catch up with blogging but I want to catch up with life. I want to blog again because I want to live again. (How about that for a jingle?) Ok, hold it right there. I do not intend to dramatize whatever challenges I've been through lately. I just want to say that sometimes we feel that we have stopped living because we get confused with what's more important in life. That's what happened to me. Life sometimes has it's way of telling us that some of our ways of thinking and doing things don't work anymore. And we cannot forever bargain with life. Time and tide do not wait for any man. We have to move on. Forward.

Yeah, life sometimes kicks our butts! It sometimes hits us where we are weak and vulnerable. And when it hits us there, there is nothing more important to us than the pain we experience. Our toothache is our world! I had a "toothache" lately, that's figuratively speaking. And am now in the process of extracting this "decayed tooth". I want to enjoy life with all its realities. There is joy in simple things. There is joy in taking big risks in life even though we may fail sometimes. And that is why I am blogging. I want to experience the simple joy it brings which for the past several weeks I can't find joy in.

So I am welcoming myself home. I want to catch up with myself. I want to be soulsearcher again!