a life worth living
I’ve started a new DBT course and my first assignment is to describe my own vision of what is a “life worth living.”
What would I like life to be?
The easy answers: I want to be happy. I want to know what love is. I want to know why I’m here; what is my purpose? It’s almost automatic to write those things, and I know that even that short list is quite daunting. Everyone of those things is a huge challenge in and of itself.
It sometimes feels like I can’t go any deeper than that, though. Saying that I want to be happy brings into focus the realization that I’m not happy and then I’m confronted with all the things that have and do contribute to my unhappiness. I don’t know that I’ve ever been in a truly loving relationship with a man…and simply writing that reminds me of all the times I’ve been so hurt. And when it comes to Purpose, life just seems so meaningless (aside from anxiety, worry and despair).
Currently, I’m battling some serious feelings of low self-worth and I’m a walking bundle of raw emotion. I’d like to change that.
I’d like to feel confident and capable of weathering the waves as they come. I’d like to be able to take on challenges (like the bar exam) without the experience nearly capsizing me and pushing me to the brink of sheer exhaustion so that I’m incapacitated by it.
I think that this is where mindfulness could really serve as an ally. Making it a priority could help address it, insofar as it could help me identify my needs and get them met while maintaining my participation and functioning.
And of course, the big one in DBT: I want to be able to accept myself and *know* that I am precisely where I’m supposed to be.
When it comes to dealing with my issues, I just don’t think I’m ready yet. I mean, I think that I need to get some mad skills in place before I start conjuring up the events of the past…even if it’s to simply identify them, acknowledge them and let them go. I honestly feel too fragile for even that. So I’m not even going to go there.
However, one of the really beneficial things to have come out of this exercise is that Dr. J provided me with some really great resources to help me on my search for meaning and purpose. She had me check out the “Meaning in Life Evaluation Scale” and Logotherapy, and so far, it’s been very interesting. It’s helping me sort through and identify some of my values and I feel like it’s pointing me in the right direction. And being that I’m swimming in confusion at the moment, the smallest twine shall lead me.
