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ChrisSenior Contributor
I for one am plagued with negative thoughts. I feel tired of the struggle. I look and sound ok with people.At home its a different story. I'm stuck, big time.Unable to move. Just look at what needs to be done. To say the least its frustrating.
I've heard this phrase in dbt somewhere along the way.But what does it mean?How do make a life worth living.Open to comments.
In response to: How do you create a life worth living?
kristinSenior Contributor
Dear @Chris
Please do not despair.
I'd like to suggest to you that there are (at least) two kinds of questions. First there's the ones you can get answers to - sometimes universal anwers (often found on places like Google - like where is...). We are so used to these kinds of answers being available relatively quickly and easily at our fingertips, and so we can feel like failures or giving up when we come across the other kind of question.
In my view these other kinds of questions are much more complex (not necessarily in words but concept/ideas). They ake a huge lot of courage to even notice, let alone ask; and in my experience the answer(s) to them are not quick or simple, they are journeying answers. The answers arise through engaging with the question and holding it as you journey in your life, seeking your own answer(s). Because your answers will be different from someone else asking the same question.
This is the kind of question you have asked here. I agree with @Aonaran it is perhaps THE question.
Ocassionally my dad says things that I get so mad at him about that I want to hit him, and sometimes I realise years later that there was wisdom in that thing which made me so mad. (Not sure whether it's the thing itself or his delivery which gets up my nose!) Anyway about 20 years ago he said to me that finding the right answers is relatively easy, it is finding the right questions which is the really hard thing. I think you have found a powerful "right" question for you (or at least close anyway).
A suggestion for you in grappling with this very hard and painful stuff. Does it make a difference/help if you change the word create in the question? What happens if you ask using the word find, or live, in its place?
I also think your question might perhaps need a warning with it. It is potentially an invitation to engage in a profoundly counter-cultural journey to discover what really matters to you (which might have nothing to do with what our society, our families or our friends think "should" matter).
You have great courage, apparent in your willingness to ask the question. So I wish you good journeying. I try to view the painful times as where the learning curve gets really steep and I am growing heaps quite rapidly. It is very hard going for a while, but the benefits afterwards make it very worthwhile.
Blessings of enduring hope to you...
Kind regards,
Kristin
In response to: How do you create a life worth living?
Alessandra1992Senior Contributor
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Unknown userMember
@Alessandra1992 what beautiful words! We are all valuable. Thank you for reminding us all!
In response to: How do you create a life worth living?
AonaranSenior Contributor
Hiya @Chris ,
You've been very much on my mind over the last couple of weeks. I hope you're doing well, mate.
Actually, if I'm scrupulously truthful, I hope you're constructively engaged in this quandary you've raised. I strongly believe that wrestling with the angel (if you'll accept the metaphor) is the only way through the pillar of fire to see the path beyond. Our *own* path. As I see it, we (society) tend to console and comfort and cosset each other, to our own collective detriment. We offer advice (my comments earlier in this thread were misconstrued; I was talking about dissipative advice as empty and meaningless, not my own posts; I'm arrogant enough to believe that my own posts have as much value as anyone else's) and -- my issue with most professional capital-h Helpers -- try to imprint our own reality, expectations and perceptions over the top of someone's native response to the world, thinking that might be "good" for them and might resolve their confusions or inner sense of shortcomings.
I think it's twaddle. In my experience of the world, people's advice-giving is often (mostly?) for their own reassurance or self-validation. People may be genuine in wanting to help, but intended or otherwise, the implicit message of advice is to say you're not sufficient.
I'm thinking a life worth living has to be based on a belief that you (oneself) are sufficient. We may not be complete, or at ease, or feeling on top of things, but we are sufficient. Valid. Worth being alive.
I've had a lot of people in my life -- parents, siblings, "friends", employers, teachers -- whose relationship to me was conditional upon my validating them, and being compliant with their wishes. Apart from being a source of pain and sadness, it's had the negative effect of training me to the belief that I am insufficient, and that I need to live by other people's precepts in the hope of being okay (Hope? Baahh!!), or at the very least in the hope of having companions in my days. But it was a false bargain -- such people are selfish and greedy by their nature -- and in my experience, when I was in genuine need, these people were nowhere to be found. That in turn trained me in the thought that I was valueless, and undeserving, and not safe in life. In short, that my life is not, in itself, worth living.
But in truth, that's because, I'm coming to learn, I'm not living it. I'm living other people's, through their own dreams and expectations, conditions and demands. It's been difficult, challenging that. I've relied so much on people telling me I'm OK (or not!), that I really can't hear my own voice anymore. And I've become used, after interactions with these leeches, to feeling crappy about mysef, and mistaking that for the truth.
It's a painful process. The people I thought were friends have sailed off in search of richer ports, every single one of them. As soon as I stopped being their puppet, and letting them live their life through me, they had no further use for me. That's been a very hurtful experience, and although there's some consolation in realising how hollow they were as people, there's also some considerable sadness in thinking that I settled for such a hollow life myself. And it seems to validate the thought that I was so schooled in, that I have no inherent value, that the only thing I could offer was in value-adding to them. I'm ever-so-slowly learning that that is not a Truth, and in fact is not true in any way. But for me, it's totally dependent on hearing my own voice, recognising it, and trusting it. I long for the day when I might start remembering my dreams.
Does it make my life worth living? Frankly, no, not yet. But I'm starting to feel, really feel, that it's my own soul's measure that counts in this. The truth's not out there; I'm learning that, for me at least, it lies within.
Most of all, @Chris , I wish you peace. And to every one of us as well.
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BabooSenior Contributor
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PeppiPattySenior Contributor
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PeppiPattySenior Contributor
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Alessandra1992Senior Contributor
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Jon22Contributor
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PeppiPattySenior Contributor
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Help us push aside the stigma and discrimination surrounding complex mental health and change the way people talk about, and care for, mental illness.
SANE acknowledges the Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures; and to Elders past and present.
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