Oct 25, 2025 Reflections

Things I have been leraning about…

Yahweh:

“But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Have no regard for this outward appearance, nor for the maturity of his stature, because I have refused him. For man does nto see as God sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord sees into the heart.” (1 Kingdoms 16:7) I appreciated reading this text as I am in my final year of my counseling graduate program. Granted, I still see as humans see because I am undoubtedly human. However, God has taught me much about the heart through my own experiences of being counseled to, and one thing I hold dearly is one of the counseling values of “unconditional positive regard”. This value means what it says, and theologically speaking, it means to view people through the lens of “original blessing” – that we were born blessed, loved, and connected to God, and to figure out together where that sacredness of this connecting was not taken away, but twisted.
“But the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him.” (1 Kingdoms 16: 14) This verse was just very intriguing to read. Growing up, I had thought that for this part of Scripture, it was more like God’s spirit departing from Saul and so an evil spirit finally being able to get some real estate on Paul – but this does not seem to be the case. This verse almost implies that an evil spirit was sent from God, which is good cause for raising some questions. (I am already of the camp that good chunks of the Old Testament are not factual, so the writing of God in this light makes me wonder about the intent of the author at this point).

Things I have been learning about others:

This is just a general complaint I have… As I have had to been commuting more, I feel like I am running into more wreckless drivers here in the Silicon Valley. I am not sure if it has always been like this, or if it is simply because I am on the road more so I am seeing more. But part of me thinks it is more the former, because I’ve had to commute a lot before during my speech therapy internships, and I don’t remember as many drivers beeing this careless back then. Be careful everyone !
This point has to do with Kpop Demon Hunters (I have a post on this which I am still writing) ! I just appreciate the fan base’s respect for all the original art and music. Granted, covers and fanart from the film is still wonderful to come across, and people from the original film team think so. I am mainly thinking about how people really respect the original concept art for Rumi’s family, as well as people finally feeling the permission to sing ‘Golden’ at a lower pitch because Ejae did so live on The Tonight Show. Of course people can create whatever they’d like, but I just really appreciate the high honor people have held towards the original art and music of the film !

Things I have been learning about the world:

Lately, I have had a growing interest in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), especially as a sort of bicultural budding counselor. I used to think TCM’s explanations for emotional disturbances were really ‘woo-woo’, because I grew up thinking that emotions were “all in our head”, so to speak. Obviously, I have grown from thinking that and have learned that trauma and emotions are all stored throughout our body. I thank Western Medicine for helping me learn about the connection between trauma and disease, and it has helped me to realize that TCM might actually be ahead of western medicine in this regard – of how connected our emotions and bodies are. Both have to be treated holistically for better healing.

Things I have been learning about myself:

I feel like since I returned to Taiwan to get my citizenship this past summer, something happened within me that I can’t 100% explain. I feel like my interest in counseling is not has vibrant as it once was, and I feel there’s things related to this mother country, my culture, and my mother that my body needs processing. There’s definitely some griefwork that needs to happen but I just don’t know what that’s supposed to look like.
With all the terrible news that we’re hearing of this administration, my own therapist was telling me that the counseling work we do is a form of resistance – which was encouraging for me to hear. It does not feel like we’re making much change at a grand scale, but change often starts small anyways. It’s just a good reminder for me to counsel people with more heart the more this country’s systems regress.
This is more of an unfortunate reminder, but because of my lack of self-awareness for most of my life, it is often difficult for me to FEEL stress (other than during high-anxiety situations). I mostly see the stress manifesting itself through my body: sleep issues, restlessenss, hormonal balances, gut issues, acne, irregular cycles, etc… It sucks, and these long commutes don’t help either, but I am trying my best to counteract this stress as much as possible. I know exercising would help a lot but I frequently am tired after coming home from my internships, so this is something I need to be thinking about more.