Enjoy Your Life

I feel a little silly posting this because it seems so obvious, yet I feel like I find myself working with people on how to allow themselves to do this all the time. Many of the people I work with are super achievers and I find myself more often than not teaching them how to let go.

Many of us have been taught from an early age that we must grind. The most successful among us are usually the people who sacrificed a lot in order to get to where they are. A lot of these people find themselves with successful careers, lots of money, and a real lack of joy.

No matter who you are, you are only alive for a limited amount of time and none of us knows how long that will be. We tend to forget this in the hustle and bustle of life but it remains eternally true. Near-death experiences, loss, and other life events can remind us of life's fleetingness, but we eventually forget again.

I find it wild that I am essentially paid to remind people of this truth daily and help them apply it to their lives. So many people come to therapy simply because they have forgotten this truth and their lives look nothing like how they wish them to be or perhaps anxiety and depression have taken over. Anxiety and depression can be signs that something is out of whack. That our defenses are cutting us off from the world and what truly matters. The only way to "treat" this is to realign with our values and face our fears.

Ultimately, the best way I teach these truths is by embodying them myself. I never ask my clients to do things I have not done myself. There is "arrival" at enjoying life. It is a constant motion toward enjoyment and fulfillment but there is no goal, no endpoint. I am constantly learning how to better enjoy, improve and appreciate my life. I seek to notice my defenses and what lies deep within my unconscious. It is not for those who seek only comfort and (the illusion of) safety. But the fruits of this work are very sweet.

“And if you want to know why all this running away cannot help you, the answer is simply this: you are running away in your own company.” – Seneca