A Sustained Will to Live

In the midst of stress and chaos, we can be sane. We can find our way. But it helps if we have someone to turn talk with, understand what we experience and suffer. I’ve been seeing psychotherapy patients for forty years, listening to feelings, memories, and dreams. There’s been much healing and progress for many. For others, they’ve got a little of what they needed and then move on. And, you and I meet up on this blog post. It’s our way of talking. Each page has one insight for reflection, a little something gained from years as a therapist and human being attempting his best to understand self and others.

 In stressful moments, I find that staying true to what we are feeling, in a non-hurtful way, helps. There’s no lashing out at others or self-recrimination. We let the emotion run its course and eventually speak to us. There’s something to learn from vital feelings. If we don’t act out, instead settle ourselves and, if possible, talk, listen more, reach an understanding, then clarity comes. It usually is in the form of an Ah-Ha! Moment. The clarity is striking, however subtle or obvious. Your head clears, and the relationship begins to heal.

 Right now is a lovely time to be alive because, at this moment, we’re engaged with one another. I’m passing on my inspiration. There’s a reaching out that I feel, an empathic stretch your way. Maybe, just maybe, I’m touching on something meaningful for you. I hope so. You know, chaos and stress will always be here. There’s no way out of people problems, no way out of the pull toward negativism in our head. But, we can resist the pull, resist the downward tug, resist despair. And as William James, father of American psychology, noted in The Varieties of Religious Experience, it is the virtue of hope that offers the sustained will to live in a stressful world.