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Falling in Love With What Is: Acceptance in the Face of the Unacceptable

Leave a Comment / Contemplation, Culture, Mental Health, Philosophy, Reflection, Spirituality /

We are living in a modern iteration of the Book of Revelations. Housing affordability, economic uncertainty, political turmoil, war, inequality and climate change have coalesced into what Edgar Morin has called the Polycrisis. The pressures of life can fracture our psyche and erode our wellbeing. This fractious state of affairs is the backdrop against which […]

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Wisdom for Difficult Times: Reflections from Marcus Aurelius

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Marcus Aurelius (121 CE – 180CE) was a Roman Emperor and follower of the Stoicism, a philosophical tradition that prizes virtue and fortitude amid life’s challenges. Widely considered a wise ruler, Marcus Aurelius leaves behind a precious volume of his own reflections titled “Meditations.” I read this book many years ago while backpacking through Europe.

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How to Face Political Anxiety in a Time of Uncertainty

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We have entered a tumultuous time.  The new US administration sends waves of uncertainty throughout the political and economic landscape.  Talk of tariffs has frayed the trade relationship between the US and Canada.  The US’ withdrawal from the Paris Climate agreement signifies a setback in efforts to mitigate climate change. The threat of a US take-over of Gaza

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Reading: The Bread and Butter of Inner Life

Leave a Comment / Contemplation, Culture, Mental Health, Philosophy, Reflection /

In a recent conversation, a friend asked me the difference between reading books and scrolling on a phone: “If you lament the bus riders with their eyes locked on their screens, might you not also bemoan the same absorption if everyone was reading books?” The question led me to ponder the qualitative difference between the

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Each Day I Begin Again

Leave a Comment / Contemplation, Culture, Philosophy, Reflection, Spirituality /

There was a time when birthdays were about cakes, balloons, grainy photographs of toothless children. A while later, birthdays were about friends, campfires, beer-soaked nights at bars. With the passing years, birthdays become more subdued, more in keeping with the mundane circuit of life. Youthful celebration gives way to pensive reflection. Birthdays are signposts on

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I Love Coffee, and By That Very Fact, The World

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Thomas Merton once wrote: “I love beer, and, by that very fact, the world.” This statement is at once whimsical and puzzling.  How does a fondness for pale ale stray into a confession of love for the world?  Perhaps Merton suggests a fundamental relationship between the mundane and the sublime, the miniscule and the cosmical.  Ask a brewer

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“I know. . . but. . .”: Notes for Those Who Wrestle with Themselves.

Leave a Comment / Mental Health, Reflection /

In my clinical practice, I often meet clients who are at odds with themselves, caught between one commitment and another. They wrestle between aspiration and duty, self-care and care for others. There are teenagers who struggle to assert independence against the authority of their parents, lovers who cleave to each other despite the call of

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The Proximity of Pain: The Role of Pleasure in Suffering

Leave a Comment / Culture, Philosophy, Reflection /

The premise of classic utilitarian philosophy rests on the fundamental status of pleasure and pain, each denoted as the countervailing opposites of experience.  Pain is inherently bad and pleasure inherently good; the course of moral conduct aims to maximize pleasure and minimize pain for the greatest number of sentient subjects.  Modern proponents of act utilitarianism

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The Hardest Part of Practice: Practicing!

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Aristotle once made a distinction between five forms of knowing:  Phronesis (practical knowledge), episteme(knowledge), sophia (wisdom), techne (skill), and logos (reason).  Phronesis is expertise forged by experience, the authority of a subject earned through practice.  Episteme, on the other hand, is declarative knowledge generated through research and study.  The challenge of shaping a life lies

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DAVID CHANG COUNSELLING

David Chang Counselling is gratefully located on the territories of the the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. David supports and celebrates diversity in race, gender, sexual orientation, language, culture, and neurological composition.

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