S2 - Ep. 10: Encountering Our Existence

In this episode, the hosts invite you, our listeners, to encounter the fundamental conditions of human existence by providing your own response to the challenges that these conditions bring to your own life. Specifically, we are discussing how we can encounter and personally respond to the basic fact that we are here in this world: “I am here but can I be?” Moreover, we are not just here but we are alive, we experience emotions and engage with life and relationships: “I am alive but do I like being alive?” Next, we are also our unique person, distinct and different from others: “ I am myself- May I be myself?” Finally, to encounter and realize our existence we are confronted with the question of meaning: “I am here, alive, I am myself but for what, what is the purpose or meaning of my life?” As you listen to the dialogue among your hosts, we invite you to engage with these four questions: “Can I be?”, “Do I like being alive?”, “May I be myself?” and “For what am I living?”- and provide your own personal answer to these questions as a way of engaging deeply with your existence.

In this episode, the hosts discuss encountering our own moral conscience understood as a personal capacity of sensing what is right in a given situation. In contrast with moralistic attitudes or a priori prescribed percepts about right or wrong, encountering our moral conscience means encountering ourselves as persons, and trusting our own capacity to sense what is right. Listening to and following our moral conscience requires courage and vulnerability to trust our inner moral compass and our capacity to sense what is right and to do justice to what is right.

Pain, either physical or psychological, is a fundamental, inescapable human experience that typically elicits a lot of suffering, resistance, sorrow, and hopelessness. In this episode, the hosts discuss about pain as a complex, challenging human experience that involves both our body and psyche, and, at times, our spiritual life. Concrete ways of encountering pain grounded in the experience of living with chronic pain provide listeners with a felt account and practical strategies of how to turn towards pain in a manner that either opens up the possibility to find some meaning in suffering or transform suffering in acceptance and discovery of new possibilities of living amid pain.

In this episode, the hosts discuss about turning towards our body to encounter the myriad of ways in which our bodies support our existence and make possible our embodied being in the world. The engagement with the world in and through our body has been denoted by the term “embodiment”, wherein the mind and body are inextricably linked and reciprocally influence one another. In Existential Analysis, the body is understood as the primordial physical structure the provides us with space, support, and protection, as the lived body infused with emotions, vitality and sensuality, as an expression of our own unique, authentic self, and as an essential way of contributing and finding meaning in our lives. Encountering our body and cultivating a good relationship with our body is critical for living a good, fulfilled life.

In this episode, the hosts discuss about how we encounter change in our lives, our responses to change, and how we could deal with change in a more personal, intentional way. Whereas change is omnipresent in our lives and it can take many forms, some people tend to be worried about change and try to avoid it out of fear of unpredictability, of the unpleasant or painful consequences or of the destabilizing effect of change. Notwithstanding these possible outcomes that may accompany change, as human beings we are in a continuous process of change and becoming. Adopting an aversive or avoidant attitude towards change may lead to stagnation, possible underdevelopment of some capacities and increased distress or “stuckness” when we will-unavoidably- encounter change sooner or later. Hence, finding ways to remain open to change and to deal with changes in a personal, intentional way is important both in everyday life and in psychotherapy.

In this episode, the hosts discuss about encountering the transcendent broadly understood as that which is experienced as beyond oneself, greater than oneself and which usually yields an intense emotional experience ranging from awe to terror.  Rudolf Otto called this “the numinosum” and coined the name “mysterium tremendum” to denote this unique experience could be marked not only by awe and joy but also by inner trembling and fear. Various cultures, spiritual practices or philosophies refer to the transcendent as the sacred, God, the realm of deities, Being, or the “ultimate concern” (Paul Tillich). The human experience of being in the presence of something larger than oneself towards which one has an attitude of awe or reverence can occur in various circumstances during one’s life such as in front of the majesty and beauty of nature or exquisite artwork, during spiritual practices (e.g., prayer or meditation) or when confronted with an intense experience that takes one outside oneself and brings it in contact with a transcendent realm of experience. Existential Analysis recognizes the human capacity of self-transcendence and the spiritual or noetic dimension of the human beings as central to who we are as persons. The capacity to self-transcend is unique to human beings and it is intimately linked with experiencing meaning, belonging and fulfillment as well as with the sense of being connected to a larger context and purpose. While self-transcendent experiences cannot be pursued or generated by one’s own will, we can cultivate certain conditions and attitudes that may confer openness and receptivity to such experiences both in our daily life and within the therapeutic context.

In this episode the hosts talked about desire, how we encounter desire in our lives, the existential significance of desire, various issues that surround experiencing desire such as the fear of desire, unfulfilled desires, or lack of desire, and how to honour and live our desires authentically and responsibly. Desire is a fundamental human capacity to be attracted or drawn by something or somebody (the object of desire), or to experience yearnings for something or somebody that sometimes we might have not even known and yet speaks to us and calls our name. For the better or worse, desire is a powerful force in the human existence, a strong motivator, and a source of vitality. While there are dangers associated with desire, from an existential perspective, desire points to how we are reached by and connect with life, and how alive we feel. It reveals what we truly want, our deepest heart yearnings. It discloses our truest longings and attractions even if we are not willing to admit those. This way, desire reveals us with respect to the pathic dimension of our existence. Desire invites us to leave our self-centeredness and to open up to encountering something outside ourselves that we experience as good or pleasurable. Lack of desire or avoiding our desires may lead to a flattened emotional life, chronic emotional tiredness, boredom, difficulties making decisions, and lack of fulfillment. Paying attention to our desires is essential for a rich, vital existence and deepens our self-knowledge and authentic responsibility whereas negating our desires exposes us to the danger of mindlessly acting out on impulse or to an impoverished, devitalized emotional and relational life.

In this episode, the hosts discuss about death and encountering the possibility of death amid the ordinariness of our everyday life. Even when we are feeling protected or in control, safe and stable, the possibility of death is always present in our lives in myriad ways, and nothing can fully protect us from it. At any time, at any moment, we could die, and we know for sure that such a moment will arrive for each of us within a limited span of time. The breath of death is omnipresent in ourselves and in the world: from the decay and disintegration observed in the natural world, the ending of each day, the seasons of our lives, our aging, our losses, witnessing the death of loved ones or the death of our dreams to encountering our own death.  As Heidegger wrote, as human beings we are “being-towards-death” and by turning towards and encountering our mortality we have the chance to live an authentic existence, appreciate and care for life, and find meaning and fulfillment in our existence. Ultimately, encountering the very real and certain possibility of our own death addresses us personally and invites us to take up our own existence and live fully and meaningfully.

In this episode, the hosts turn their attention from dialoguing about encountering others in and through love towards discussing how to encounter oneself. Simply put, encountering oneself means turning towards oneself the way one would turn towards someone one cherishes or loves and whom one would like to know more deeply and spend time with. Very much like encountering a dear friend or our beloved. Encountering oneself is a lifetime long pursuit. As Carl Gustav Jung wrote, “we meet ourselves again and again in myriad of disguises during our lives”. But how do we know that it is us whom we encounter? How can we know that it is us who show up when we turn our attention inwardly? And what does this look like? What is needed? Tune in and listen to this episode if you would like to find out more about how to encounter yourself and establish a loving, caring relationship with yourself.

In the first episode of this second season, the hosts explore the theme of encountering love.