Shawn Yang is a counselor, author, researcher, and father whose work explores human growth, meaning, and well-being through psychology, philosophy, and lived experience.
My story
I was born and raised in Beijing, China, and my life has been shaped by experiences that continually challenge me to think about resilience, meaning, independence, and what it means to live a fulfilling life.
Living with a progressive physical disability has made uncertainty a familiar part of my journey. Over the years, I have learned that a meaningful life is not defined simply by what we can physically do, but by how we understand our experiences, connect with others, make choices, and continue to grow within the circumstances we are given.
My perspective on life changed again when I became a father. My son brought a new dimension of meaning, responsibility, and motivation into my life. Watching him discover the world has reminded me that growth often happens through ordinary moments—curiosity, connection, frustration, joy, and simply being present with another person.
Today, I share my life with my wife and son while continuing my education, writing, research, and professional development. My experiences as a person with a disability, an immigrant, a student, a husband, and a father have all influenced how I understand people and their stories.
I do not see life as a journey toward becoming free from difficulty. Instead, I believe we can learn to understand ourselves more deeply, find meaning in our experiences, and keep moving toward a life that reflects what truly matters to us.
For me, this is not only a personal philosophy. It is also the foundation of how I approach my work with others.
Academic Journey
My academic journey has never followed a conventional path. Growing up in China, disability discrimination and barriers to education prevented me from continuing formal schooling, and I left school after the fourth grade. From then on, I became largely self-educated—learning independently across subjects, including teaching myself English. What initially seemed like a limitation ultimately gave me an unusual kind of intellectual freedom: the freedom to explore questions beyond the boundaries of a traditional curriculum.
I developed a particularly deep interest in Eastern philosophy, studying it independently for many years and gradually forming my own perspectives on the mind, suffering, meaning, human nature, and the possibilities of personal growth. After coming to the United States, I resumed formal education at Pima Community College and later earned bachelor's degrees in both Psychology and Philosophy from the University of Arizona.
I am currently pursuing graduate training in Clinical Rehabilitation and Mental Health Counseling while continuing my study of philosophy in a master's program. Looking ahead, I hope to develop my counseling practice while continuing academic research and pursuing doctoral study, bringing psychology, counseling, philosophy, and lived experience into deeper conversation. For me, education has never been defined by a classroom, a degree, or a destination.
Life itself is a continuous process of learning—questioning what we know, exploring what we do not, and allowing each new understanding to reshape how we see ourselves and the world.
More than a book—it is an invitation to question what you know, confront what you fear, and discover new possibilities for how you understand yourself, your life, and the world.
What if the greatest source of suffering is not the world around us, but the mind through which we experience it?
The Mind That Creates Suffering invites you beyond the surface of thought and into the hidden patterns that quietly shape fear, desire, identity, and pain. Blending psychology, philosophy, and contemplative wisdom, this book explores a provocative possibility: the mind that creates our suffering may also hold the key to our freedom.
You may never look at your own mind the same way again.
Rather than asking how to escape suffering, this book begins with a deeper question: How does suffering arise within the mind in the first place?
Through the intersection of psychology, Eastern and Western philosophy, mindfulness, and lived experience, The Mind That Creates Suffering explores how thoughts become beliefs, beliefs shape identity, and identity influences the reality we experience. It examines attachment, fear, desire, control, self-awareness, and the often-unnoticed mental patterns that keep us trapped in cycles of suffering.
This is not a book that simply tells you to “think positively.” It invites you to observe the mind itself—to question what you have assumed to be true and to discover what may exist beyond the stories you have learned to call “me.”
Perhaps freedom does not begin by changing the world around us. Perhaps it begins the moment we truly see the mind that is looking at it.
Shawn integrates clinical counseling theory and practice with psychology, philosophy, mindfulness, and lived experience to help people understand themselves more deeply, navigate life’s challenges, and discover their own path toward meaning, growth, and well-being.
Shawn’s services are centered on three interconnected areas:
Life Coaching, Mental Health Counseling, and Rehabilitation Counseling.
By integrating clinical counseling theory and practice with psychology, philosophy, mindfulness, and lived experience, his approach goes beyond the individual.
His goal is not to tell people how to live, but to create a space where they can better understand themselves, discover their own strengths, and move toward greater awareness, meaning, growth, and well-being.
