Beyond Survival: An Existential Blueprint for Health, Wellbeing, & A Life Well-Lived - MR #4
Redefining Health & Wellness in an Increasingly Challenging World
In a previous edition, I talked about the 3 most important assets or resources in life:
💎Time
💎Attention
💎Health
Since I wrote this last post I realized that, in the context of resources, it's more accurate to use the term "Energy" rather than "Health".
Health, for me, is a much bigger topic than mere physical health.
And so, I’d like to extend that discussion and dig a bit deeper into what it means to be a truly healthy human being.
In my years of nursing, I've had a lot of time to think about this.
In fact, one of the first questions they tend to ask you in nursing school is:
What does it mean to be healthy?
Typically, as a nursing student, you're pointed to the WHO's definition:
“Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” - World Health Organization
Accordingly, I came out of nursing school with this definition as my ideal and I truly thought this was what my job was going to be all about.
Sadly, the ideals of my profession did not hold up to the cold light of honest scrutiny for very long.
Hospitals, and by extension my work as a nurse, are set up to care for the needs of a sick physical body.
They are factory-like.
You bring your body in, we patch you up, and away you go.
Or at least that's the idea.
But, what soon became glaringly obvious to me was that people's physical ailments were often tightly associated with how they were choosing to cope with their mental, emotional, and psychological distress.
The Hard Truth About Being Human in Today's World
As a nurse, fixing people up with antibiotics or treating a broken bone is the easy part.
In my 13 years of bedside nursing, I've seen a rampant increase in anxiety, depression, substance abuse, and process addictions like eating disorders.
I've also seen an increase in what the medical model terms "Diseases of Despair."
These include drug overdose, suicide, and alcoholic liver disease.
The upward trajectory of these afflictions that began in the previous century is gaining steam.
Hopelessness, helplessness, lack of purpose, chronic grief.
These are all mind states that, if left unchecked, end up destroying lives.
And anyone can be affected, regardless of socioeconomic status or ethnicity.
It became clear to me that no amount of antianxiety meds or antidepressants will fix this brand of deep emotional and psychological pain.
The problem, it seems to me, is existential.
And so I began asking myself a fundamental question that seems to lie at the root of all this despair and self-destruction:
What is it exactly that makes being human today so damn hard?
The 5 Existential Givens & the Nature of Being Human
It is pretty clear that humans are more than just animals playing a survival game.
The survivalist, Darwinian worldview that has taken such a hold of us in today’s world does not cut it when it comes to figuring out what it means to live a quality human life.
As humans, we need a much bigger, more expansive game to play.
To be human is to grapple with the 5 existential givens:
♾Death
You will die someday.
♾Freedom:
You have the freedom to make choices and you must live with the outcomes/consequences of those choices.
♾Isolation:
Your subjective reality can never be completely shared.
♾Identity:
To have a clear sense of self, you must figure out where you end and another person, group, society begins.
♾Meaning:
You must develop your own sense of meaning that makes sense to you. No one can do this foundational work for you.
And so, in the context of these givens,
what can we say about what is truly worth pursuing in life?
Addressing Our Deeper Existential Needs in Midlife
For most of us, by the time we get to our 30s and 40s it's likely that we've at least figured out how to pay our rent and put food on the table.
We've figured out the basic survival game.
But it's also usually around this time that our existential plight begins to weigh on our minds.
It may be subtle at first.
Internally, we might finally realize that chasing the next promotion, pouring another drink or binging a new series on Netflix is not going to “fix” us.
Or maybe something external happens that shocks us out of our comfort zone.
A loved one passes away, a marriage breaks down, you begin to notice some arthritis in your knees that wasn't there before, or a wisp of grey hair at the edge of your temple.
The passage of time becomes more readily apparent.
And so where do we turn?
What is the treatment for when those Existential Givens start knocking more heavily at your door?
The Essential Elements of an Existential Framework for Living
There are hundreds of psychological, philosophical, and religious frameworks out there all vying for the privilege of teaching you how to live.
After wading through a great deal of them in my lifetime, here are the 5 categories that most of these frameworks have in common.
More than any material thing, humans need:
🍏Purpose & Meaning
having a sense of direction and a compelling, coherent life vision to work toward
🍏Emotional Wellbeing
an overall feeling of positivity and optimism about life
having the space, time, and resources to process emotions like grief and anger
🍏Autonomy & Personal Growth
the power to determine your own direction in life
an ability to choose your own values, mission, and personal development goals
🍏Relationships & Social Wellbeing
having healthy, supportive, connective relationships built on trust and open negotiation
experiencing a sense of love and belonging
🍏Achievement & Competence
the power to cultivate your unique strengths and achieve a sense of mastery, competence, and recognition in a chosen field or area of life
enjoying a sense of self-esteem, accomplishment, progress
These categories are deeply connected and integrated.
Success in one will naturally facilitate and enhance success in the others.
Start with the End in Mind: Shape Your Existential Vision through Reverse Engineering
So how do we break this down and operationalize what philosophers and mystics have known and have been trying to tell us for 5000 years?
✍Try this exercise:
Imagine yourself at the end of your life. Ask yourself:
✅What would it mean for me to feel truly "self-actualized" at the end of my life?
✅What needs to happen for me to actually achieve this goal?
✅How can I realistically design my life so that when the time comes I can truly say to myself, "I am happy with my life and the choices that I have made"?
🎯Create some Backward Goal Setting Statements:
♾Purpose & Meaning Goal Statement:
At the end of my life, I feel that I have fulfilled my purpose and have experienced deep meaning and significance in my life.
♾Emotional Wellbeing Goal Statement:
At the end of my life, I feel emotionally fulfilled and whole because I found the courage to fully embody and experience the full range of my emotional life.
♾Autonomy & Personal Growth Goal Statement:
At the end of my life, I feel a sense of freedom and expansion. I am content that I was able to self-actualize as my true, individuated self.
♾Relationships & Social Wellbeing Goal Statement:
At the end of my life, I am satisfied with the nurturing, supportive, authentic relationships I have shared with others. I feel grateful to have received the peak experiences of connection and intimacy.
♾Achievement & Competence Goal Statement:
At the end of my life, I feel delighted with the levels of mastery, accomplishment, and contribution I have been able to achieve.
📝Take these statements and edit them, rearrange them, make them your own. Your mind will automatically grab hold of them and begin subtly guiding you towards finding ways to turn your vision into a reality.
Open Yourself To the Possibilities of a Life Well-Lived
So what is holding you back from living a life that truly moves you, that fits you, that lights you up?
What goal, dream, vision will keep you going when the Existential Givens start knocking at your door?
We live in a world where you can find a mentor, course, training, book to guide you toward mastery of any obstacle that stands in your way.
If you reach out for it, you will find and receive it.
The only thing that remains is for you to decide to put the right amount of your
💎Time
💎Attention, and
💎Energy into going after it.
Because, truly…
What else is worth pursuing in life?
I would love to hear your thoughts on the 5 Existential Givens or anything else that comes to mind. Please leave me a comment or you can drop me a line here.
Thanks so much for reading!
Unless otherwise noted, all images in this edition we’re created by the Author.
**Table 1 Citation:
Koole, S. L., Greenberg, J., & Pyszczynski, T. (2006). Introducing Science to the Psychology of the Soul: Experimental Existential Psychology. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 15(5), 212-216. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8721.2006.00438.x
This is a great piece, Charity! Awesome to see you rolling on Substack. Looking forward to the next issue.