Myths of Life – Identifying and Removing the Myth of Limitation

Existential concepts are valuable in understanding every day happenings and provide a different way of interpreting the sometimes bizarre or unexpected behaviour of others.  For example, imagine a situation where you confide in a friend.  For example, you explain that you and your partner have parted ways.  You are surprised by their lack of empathy for your situation and consider them selfish as they turn the conversation around to themselves.  Surprised, you struggle to understand how this person can ignore your plight and focus on what ‘your break’ means to them.   Are they selfish, have you misunderstood the reality of your relationship with them or are the responses more existential in nature?

If you consider the friend’s responses as indicative of a different worldview, it can be a refreshing and insightful way to consider the sitaution – which is existential in nature.  What if, the friend believed that relationships should last forever and that  people should stay together regardless of their differences and work through their problems? What if your changed circumstances challenge their beliefs that separation is even possible and that the world is certain?  Instead of the issue being one of her being unable to offer you support, it becomes one of crisis for the friend, since she is challenged in her beliefs about what is possible.  The world has suddenly become unpredictable and unfixed – unlike her fixed view of what the world should be like.

The changed circumstances reflect to her the uncertainty of life and the ineffectiveness of fixed models of the world.  She, like us all, have to come face to the face with the co-created nature of our unfixed phenomenal existence.

How is it different from anxiety conditions?

People seem to be more anxious these days – overwhelmed, stressed and questioning of how they want to live their lives.  Worries and concerns seem more prevalent as we fit so much into our busy schedules.  How is everyday anxiety different from existential anxiety or is it related?

Existential anxiety is an inevitable aspect of our condition as human existents.  The Existential-Phenomenological perspective questions the assumption of us as fixed identities, instead seeing Self as  focal point in relation, i.e. the-self-in-relation (to others, to itself) rather than a fixed or separate entity (Heidgegger 1962, Boss 1963, Spinelli 1994).  The Self is not a substance but a verb a potentiality (May 1983).  Because of this, we are free to choose our own being.  This is the source of existential anxiety, since we have no yardstick against which to judge the rightness of our being – what we believe, how we live our lives, how we see ourselves and others.  Everyday anxiety results from the busyness of our minds, often against expectations we may feel are unchangeable. Unquestioned expectations however are the source of inauthentic living since they deny the full responsibility we have for our being. Hence existential anxiety might lurk behind everyday anxiety – hence why traditional relaxation and time management solution often don’t work.

By acknowledging and embracing the presence of existential anxiety, you may find that everyday anxiety is reduced or removed since you become an observer of your own being, rather than focusing on solutions unrelated to the true nature of your distress.

How can existential philosophy be of relevance in how you choose to live your life?  What are oyur choices and how can you live with the anxeity of challenging the status quo or questioning the rightness of your decisions?  You have to live in the social world, consider others and the rules that enable you to realise our choices.  The issue is not one of rejecting all that is expected of you – the issue that you DO have a chocie.  It’s about challenging the unquestioned assumptions, expanding your choices and living with the anxiety that meaningful living entails.

The validity of our choices is often questioned when we become disillusioned with our lives, despite achieving many of the things we dreamed of.  We long to have it all but find it increasingly difficult to juggle  jobs, children, homes and sanity! We believe that if only a balance could be struck between the different areas of our lives, we could relax.  Invariably, this balance is never achieved and we become observers in our own lives, wishing for the day when it would all improve.

Bombarded with choices about how to live and be happy, what do we really want to do with our lives? Society’s myths often result in us choosing from a limited array of available options – it is assumed that ‘having it all but in balance’ is the way forward.  Maybe not.  Maybe the parts that make up the balance have never been questioned.  Maybe we have never taken time out of our busy schedules to examine the full range of options facing us.  We choose from a narrow range of choices on offer and never stop to thnk ‘outside the square’ and create the life we want.

As a psychotherapist, I passionately believe you are each the best judge of what is right for you.  By examining the role of Myths in your lives, you can expand our options, reconnet with your choices and judge the rightness of them.  Existential philosophy offers an opportunity to develop a vision of what your ideal life would be like, a yardstick against which you choose – the question, ‘Does this contribute to realising my vision?’ will keep you on track.

However, accepting anxiety is an inevitable part of committing to our choices is an existential realtiy.  Rollo May (1975:21) says, ‘Commitment is the healthiest when it is not without doubt, but in spite of doubt.  To believe fully and at the same time to have doubts is not at all a contradiction: it presupposes a greater respect for the truth, an awareness that truth always goes beyond anything that can be said or done at any given moment’.