Myths of Life – Identifying and Removing the Myth of Limitation

Relationship counseling helps individuals understand themselves and their relationships better. Socially, a relationship is typically considered to be that between two individuals who are intimately and psychologically connected as a ‘we’. Social and cultural expectations of what it is to be a ‘we’ are seen existentially as social limits to choice within relationship. These expectations are effectively myths – unquestioned assumptions of how we should, ought or must be in this thing we call ‘relationship’.

Relationship Counselling from an existential perspective encourages the couple or ‘we’ to put aside traditional notions of how they should think, feel and behave. Instead, it encourages them to examine how they are in relationship to their partner and their unique experiences of their created co-construction called ‘their relationship’. A shift from the word ‘relationship’ to ‘relating’ allows for dynamic, self-chosen ways of relating to another and opens up pathways to expand our ways of creating this potentially rewarding dimension to our existence through ‘relationship’.

An existential dilemma!  The following is an example of denying there is choice because a monetary value is placed on options available and interferes with our real feelings of worth.

Imagine an unhappy wife who decides to divorce. Her lawyer advises that after dividing their total assets (some currently inaccessible from the extended family), she will be without a home and owe her spouse  $150,000. Formerly adamant on leaving, she now says ‘I really don’t have any choice.  How can I walk away from everything I have put in!’  She starts to justify her marriage and denies her unhappiness and appeals to logic an social and cultural expectations of what the wise thing to do is.

Existential Worth?

Existentially, how can we evaluate our state of being by placing a material price on it?  The value to be gained by choosing what she truly wants, is being measured by a monetary figure attached to some notion of fairness, effort invested, a fictitious myth that previous investment negates any future choice – when, in fact, the previous investment myth is the unquestioned assumption that the worth attributed to her state of being, ‘her life’ is a function of previous investment.  The cost of relinquishing an investment (of time, money, effort, denied choices etc) is not the true cost – the true cost is time and effort wasted in the future, not spent on chosen desires, which are denied as she focuses on perceptions of previous investment lost.

This assumption highlights the myth that limits us in truly ‘showing up’ as beings choosing their existence purposefully with the knowledge that this choice exists.  By attributing a monetary or material value to our choices alone, we miss the real cost of denying our existential freedom.  The cost? A life that lived with duty and obligation rather than purpose, creativity and meaning.

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