SELF-ARCHEOLOGY

Over the years, I have encountered, observed, and professionally worked with many people who come from difficult childhood environments . One common feature that these people, and the vast majority of people, have after becoming adults is feeling empty, lacking, and lost. Many of us enter adulthood hurt, deprived, misled, lonely, anxious, tired, angry, numb, bored, or terrified. When a person grows up, leaves their childhood home, and “becomes an adult,” it is common for them to feel totally lost and disconnected. They don’t know who they are, what they like, how they feel, where to go, and what to do about it. Now why do so many people feel this way? If, as a child, it is forbidden to be yourself, and if your true self is met with violence, rejection, scorn , or invalidation, then you learn to hide it. This is necessary to your survival in an otherwise problematic or dangerous environment. And so you repress your feelings, you hide your thoughts, you abandon your interests, a...

Here we are again. The holiday season is upon us. People are running around trying to organize things for the upcoming holidays, and trying to find gifts for their friends, loved ones, and those they don’t care about or even hate. Why? Many reasons, and we’ll talk about some of them. There are a few problems with all of this and here I will discuss two of them. Moreover, I offer a perspective on how you can make things better for yourself and those around you. The first problem is that the whole tradition thing can be messy and complicated. Yes, the holiday tradition can be beautiful: devoting time and attention to those who are dear to you, thinking about them and giving them something that will hopefully bring them some joy. But—the important thing is to ask yourself if it’s something you WANT to do or if it’s something that you feel you HAVE to do? Plenty of people think they “have to”—that’s the tradition, and everyone is doing it. Yet, many people hate the holidays and exp...

Contrary to some people’s expectation, this article will not be a jolly, ho-ho-holiday read, despite it having both "holiday" and "hope" in its title. It will be about the reality of how a lot of people perceive holidays and their life in general, and about a possible alternative to that. As some of you may or may not have observed, many people live a lost, confusing, unconscious, and unhappy life. One of the manifestations of this phenomenon is that they live from one event or happening to another. Halloween is coming! I better get those decorations and candy ready! Aaaand it’s gone—but Christmas is next! Family time, gifts, Jesus, and songs! Aaaand it’s gone—but New Year is next! Aaaand it’s gone—but my birthday is next! Your friend John’s birthday; a new Star Wars movie, a new Fallout video game; NBA playoffs; Black Friday, a new episode of Game of Thrones, a weekend, etc. Don’t get me wrong, it’s wonderful to feel excited, and some of those things can provide ...

The following text is from Nathaniel Branden's book "The Psychology of Self-Esteem." Self-esteem and pleasure Pleasure, for man, is not a luxury, but a profound psychological need. Pleasure (in the widest sense of the term) is a metaphysical concomitant of life, the reward and consequence of successful action—just as pain is the insignia of failure, destruction, death. Through the state of enjoyment, man experiences the value of life, the sense that life is worth living, worth struggling to maintain. In order to live, man must act to achieve values. Pleasure or enjoyment is at once an emotional payment for successful action and an incentive to continue acting. Further, because of the metaphysical meaning of pleasure to man, the state of enjoyment gives him a direct experience of his own efficacy, of his competence to deal with reality, to achieve his values, to live. Implicitly contained in the experience of pleasure is the feeling: "I am in control of m...