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We offer online coaching and training for building happiness, creating
partnership,
resolving emotional chaos and living a life based on integrity.
What are your greatest needs? What are your most cherished
dreams? Your answers may include a good marriage, well paying jobs, happy
children, a nice house and the respect of your community.
Have you considered that your greatest need may be
happiness? Some sources of the ongoing pleasurable, comfortable feelings of
well-being generally called happiness are
- Acceptance – of your own strengths, weaknesses,
vulnerabilities and finiteness
- Relationships – healthy relationships with family,
friends and colleagues
- Respect - recognition by others of your qualities
and skills
- Justice – being a responsible member of your
society
- Success – defining, pursuing and accomplishing
life goals
- Community – positive regard by members of your
community
- Transcendence – service to humanity
What is Sense of Life?
|
Victor Frankl
from
Man's Search for Meaning |
Ultimately, man should not ask
for the meaning of his life, but rather must recognize that it is
he who is asked. Each man is questioned by life; and he can only
answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only
respond by being responsible. |
By Sense of Life I refer to your evaluation
of whatever purpose and meaning you ascribe to your life.
For me, your sense of life represents and integration of
your relationships, your identity and your values. It began with your first
judgments about your world long before you could rationally judge your
world. It is because of this that your Sense of Life can differ
radically from your metaphysical view. You create Sense of Life by
integrating emotions.
For me, Sense of Life is not just an evaluation - it is your
integration or summary of countless evaluations. Over the course of your life,
you integrate emotions and value-judgments about your relationships. Your Sense
of Life is your emotional summary of who you are and what makes sense.
Role of Sense of Life
Your sense of
life probably influences your focus; what
you attend to and think about when your conscious mind
doesn't evaluate. That means that it will be the deciding factor in an
experience before your conscious mind kicks in, and the deciding factor
in an experience where you don't apply your conscious mind.
The second effect of your sense of life is about
action. It is your basic driving force; it gives you immediate
motivation toward action. If you have a positive sense of life, you
will feel efficacious, and more inclined toward positive action than somebody
who feels that the world is against them.
Introspection
Although introspection can be difficult, the main
benefit of introspection is to look at your life patterns of
relationships, as well as your feelings and thoughts. When you think,
what do you think? What do you value artistically, and why? What are
your standards for friends? Notice when your thoughts and your
emotions are in conflict.
Focusing (Gendlin)
Eugene Gendlin (psychology professor
at University of Chicago) created a format for introspection
that he called focussing, that is useful for assessing sense
of life. Focusing follows six gentle steps. If you find difficulty,
don't push, just move on gently until you experience something changing.
1. Clear space Be still and silent.
Relax and pay attention inwardly, in your chest and abdomen.
Feel what comes when you ask, "How is my life going?
What is the main thing for me right now?"
Wait and let answers come slowly from your sensing.
When something comes, do not go inside it. Emotionally relax and
say mentally "Yes, that’s there. I can feel that,
there." Maintain space between you and that.
Then ask inside "What else do I feel?" Wait again.
Most people find several sensations.
2. Felt Sense From whatever came, select
one personal issue to focus on. Do not go inside it. Stand back from it.
There are many parts to that one issue – just feel all of these things
together. Pay attention there where you usually feel things, and
in there you can get a sense of what all of the problem feels like
together. Let yourself feel the unclear felt sense of all of it.
3. Handle What is the quality of your unclear
felt sense? Let a word, a phrase, or an image come up from
the felt sense. It might be a quality-word, like tight, sticky,
scary, stuck, heavy, jumpy or a phrase, or an image. Stay with the
quality of the felt sense until some quality fits it well.
4. Resonate Go back and forth between the
felt sense and the quality (word, phrase or image).
Check how they resonate together. Notice if you feel a little body
signal that lets you know there is a fit. To do it, you have to have
the felt sense there again, as well as the word. Let the felt sense
change, if it does, and also the word or picture, until they feel just
right in capturing the quality of the felt sense.
5. Ask Now ask: "What is it about
this whole problem, that makes this quality? (which you have
named or pictured)" Sense the quality again, freshly, vividly
(not just remembered from before). When it is here again, tap it,
touch it, be with it, asking, "What makes the whole problem
so ____?" Or ask, "What is in this sense?"
If you get a quick answer without a shift in the felt sense, just let
that kind of answer go by. Return your attention to your body and
freshly find the felt sense again. Then ask again. Stay with the felt
sense till something comes along with a shift, some sort of slight release.
6. Receive Receive in a friendly way whatever
comes. Stay with it awhile, even if it is small. Whatever comes,
this is only the first and there will be others. You can continue
after a little while, but stay with it for a few moments.
If you sense and feel a HOLISTIC BODY SENSE
of your issue, then you have focused. It doesn't matter whether a body-shift
happened or not. Trust yourself - don't try to control it.
When I am asked about the real or true
meaning of life - I often answer is that
it's up to each person to give meaning to their own lives. It seems like many
people wait for some organization or agency to do this for them.
When people tell me,
"Life is hard", I often ask, "Compared to what?"
Do you want to explore and change
any emotional and relationship blocks?
Online
Coaching for Sense of Life
Plagiarism is theft. Copyright © Martyn Carruthers
2005-2012 All rights reserved.
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