Frontiers Friday #123: Humour (Part I)🤪⭕️
Levity, humour and humility. Grounds for therapists to lighten up. (Plus, a special treat to the first 100 to our new book!)
Back from Singapore
I was spent from taking the kids around in Singapore, and I was about to go to bed around 11:45pm. It suddenly dawned on me that it was a Friday! For more than 120 weeks, I don’t think I’ve ever forgotten about mailing out Frontiers Friday.
The moment I realised it was Friday with about 15 minutes left til the Cinderella clock striked, I was at first shocked by my lack of awareness. But I took a moment, rest my head on the bed in the all-too-familiar room that I grew up in, listened to the ambient coffee shop noises bustling in Singapore, and just chuckled at my early geriatric moment. TGIF.
Apologies for the MIA last week.
When I got back to Australia, one of my colleagues asked me, “You glad to be back home?”
“Actually, yes,” I replied. “It was a good trip, but I feel relieved to see the open sky above me in Australia.”
“Oh, I meant whether you were glad to be back in Singapore—so this is home for you now…?” she asked.
“I supposed so.”
I’m really grateful to be here. I can’t imagine being able to keep my head above water if I continued to stay in Singapore. Yet, is it ok to call not one, but two places home?
Everyone needs a home to go back to. And sometimes you can’t grow up til you go back home.
Note to Readers of the Frontier:
I don’t know if this is coming through in these missives, but I am really grateful to be able to connect with your this way.
The saying is true for me, that writing is an introverted person’s way of socialising.
Over the years, this has really given me the opportunity to be in touch with hundreds of you from all over the world, who are also at “the bleeding edge” of your professional—and personal—development. There is more to come on Frontiers of Psychotherapist Development (FPD) and beyond (i.e., from my other site, Full Circles: Reflections on Living. Some of tidying up to do in FC).
I’ve askewed the use of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and God forbid, TikTok.
I don’t think of myself as a Luddite, but these social media platforms rob not only our attention, but thwarts our original intentions (“Gesh, I was just going to read the news, and 45mins later, I’m down this rabbit hole of what my cousin ate for her Saturday’s breakfast.”).
More of us are asking the wrong question about social media i.e., “Is it useful?” Sure, it can be “useful” to stay in touch with people and see what my nieces and nephews are up to, but the question needs to shift from benefits to autonomy. “Am I able to steer this attentional ship of mine, based on my true intentions?
I don’t think I’ve said it out loud, but I’m planning to stop using Facebook (I don’t really use the other platforms anyway). I feel abit of a hypocrite for posting FPD updates but not really perusing it. In the near future, I will no longer be posting in our private group, Frontiers of Psychotherapist Development (FPD). So, if FPD has been adding goodness to you, if you haven’t already, do subscribe below. Share this with others like you too. It’s an unmediated way for us to connect.
What’s to Come
In my blogs, newsletters, videos and podcast, not only do I get to think aloud with you, write not what I think, but also write in order to think, I also get to share stuff that I’ve come across. For some reason, this feels like I’m inviting you to my house. I don’t have to worry about some social media platform shutting down.
Each week’s Frontiers Friday takes about 90 mins to 2hrs to complete, plus ongoing background of compilation and weeding leading up to each release.
I’ve also got a list of essays I want to complete. One that I was hoping to complete for today’s release was “Can Chat GPT Replace Psychotherapy?” but it has turned out to be much harder to clarify my thoughts on this than I expected. Nonetheless, stay tuned for next week’s Frontiers Friday. (Also, I’m trying to flesh out a piece on “What It Means to Be Chinese?” Again, for some reason this one giving me pause).
An Invitation to Write in FPD
Finally, I want to invite YOU, if you have something you would like to contribute to the Frontiers of Psychotherapist Development (FPD), please drop me an email. This can be on any topic that you think can help those who help others.
Instead of posting on some social feeds, I would much prefer for you to not “rent” a space, but have your own lasting platform to share what you have to offer to others. (By the way, nothing should stop you from starting your own Subtstack page too!)
Why So Serious About Humour?
THIS IS NOT ABOUT BEING FUNNY.
Why cover this topic on humour? After all, you don’t need me to tell you that having a sense of humour is good for you (and your clients). But there is something to be said that levity allows us to treat ourselves more lightly and in turn, we become more flexible and creative.
Sometimes, our want to be more “professional,” be more so-called “competent,” and appear more confident makes us treat ourselves way too seriously. As a result, we become more detached from the human dignity of vulnerable connection in the therapy room.
The apologetic writer Peter Kreeft noted that humour is a source of humility, which comes from the word “humus.” (i.e., dirt). To laugh easily, means to allow ourselves to be involuntarily moved by what someone else said, and to have the humility to realise our own foolishness.
Humility, is not to think less of yourself, but to not think of yourself at all!
This really hit home from me when I was examining my outcomes over the years (see this post, Solving for Patterns). Out of the five patterns, one of them I discovered regarding my poor outcome cases was that I had been too uptight, less playful and more rigidified than my usual self.
In this week and the next few, I will be providing some recommendations that have helped jolt me out of my egotistical need to be “more professional,” and swing me back to the ground. Humus.
If this is not about “being funny,” then what? It is about being about to have fun. It’s about having a lightness of being. Levity. Yes, even in the depths of suffering and tragedy. Just look at Dalai Lama.
Humour, the spiritual connective tissue.
📕 🙊Read: Humor, Seriously
I must admit, before reading this book, I didn’t have the word “levity” in my vocabulary.
In a bizarre closing section of the book, called the (After)words, the two authors conducted an interview with the renown writer Michael Lewis. It encapsulated this book well:
Micheal: “…So one of the ways I check to make sure that I’m living life the way I should is: if I notice long stretches without humor of any sort, I know something’s wrong. It’s like you’re in the woods, and you have the sudden sense you’re about to get eaten. You just know something feels wrong. And so I’ll intentionally stop and notice it and disrupt whatever is happening.”Lewis goes on to say that humour is
“…like salt on airplane food—it makes everything better.”
“I think most of the people who pick up this book are going to be people who think to themselves, “I need to be funny.” But they’re going to find out that that’s not what they need. What they need is to introduce a totally different spirit into their lives.”
It’s a worth-read.
📽 Watch: Neal Brennan: Blocks
This 2022 Netflix special is a class-act.
I didn’t know about Neal Brennan’s history with Dave Chappelle’s show. Watching a standup act like this, reminds me of the potency of laughing at your own pain-points.
Brennan has a way of touching on the emotional and relational turmoils about how he feels something’s wrong with him. As a true comedian, he tackles the “taboo” subjects in a hilarious and intelligent way.
(This show got me digging further about Neal Brennan. Check out his interview with Scott Barry Kaufman. I am a fan of Kaufman’s work, but as a listener, this episode felt somewhat awkward at times, especially when Kaufman was trying to “diagnose” Brennan. Yet, it somewhat was a good interview).
📽 Watch: 12 truths I learned from living and writing by Anne Lamott
Author of Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott is strikingly humorous in her list of 12 things. Here’s her number two:
“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes… including you.”
🤪 No Watch Joke
Taken from Rabbi Jonathan Sacks book, Morality, in the chapter Time and Consequence:
An old Jewish man and a young Jewish man are travelling on the train. The young man asks: 'Excuse me, what time is it?The old man says nothing.
'Excuse me, sir, what time is it?
Again, the old man stays silent.
'Sir, I'm asking you what time is it. Why don't you answer?
The old man says: 'Young man, the next stop is the last on this route. I don't know you, so you must be a stranger. If I answer you now, there will be a relationship between us. I will have to invite you to my home. You are handsome, and I have a beautiful daughter.
You will both fall in love and you will want to get married. So tell me, why would I want a son-in-law who can't even afford a watch?'
⏸ Words Worth Contemplating:
“Angels can fly because they take themselves so lightly.”
~ G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936)
Reflection
Breath in the sufferings that you witness…
Breath out the joy and compassion you wish to give...
Repeat with each person that you meet.
BIG HUGS TO NEW PEOPLE WHO ARE AT THEIR FRONTIER!
If you've just joined us, I'm glad you can join us at the "bleeding edge." Feel free to check out the back catalogue of Frontiers of Psychotherapists Development (FPD). You might also want to go into specific topics in the FPD Archives like
And if you want to see past newsletters, the entire archive is now made available in substack.
In case you missed it, see the most recent missives
Devotion to the Craft (6 Parts)
Caring for People in Organisations (3 Parts)
Clinical Supervision (3 Parts)
Feedback Informed Treatment (4 Parts)
Unintended Consequences (2 Parts)
Deep Learner (4 Parts)
Going Further with Deep Learner and The Use of Obsidian (6 Parts)
See What You Hear, Hear What You See (4 Parts)
Trauma (3 Parts)
Deliberate Practice (5 Parts)
Empathy (6 Parts)
Therapist Effects (2 Parts)
Client Point of View (4 Parts)
Tech Tools for Therapists (4 Parts)
Emotions (6 Parts)
Sensitivity (3 Parts)
Alliance (6 Parts)
Existence (6 Parts)
Play (4 Parts)
My other blog site is called FullCircles: Reflections on Living
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Big thanks.
Please excuse any typos.
Daryl Chow Ph.D. is the author of The First Kiss, co-author of Better Results, and The Write to Recovery, Creating Impact, and the forthcoming book The Field Guide to Better Results (APA, 23rd of May 2023).
Psst.
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If you pre-order it now, send me the receipt.
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You’ll also be granted access to two, live, hour-long webinars where we’ll summarize the latest findings, provide implementation tips, and address your specific questions.
To participate, simply:
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