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It is a question often asked in class after poetry readings, at a cool crowded coffee shop within ear shot of others by someone trying to prove their intellectual prowess regarding an Independent Film they just saw or possibly someone with a fantastic job mildly gloating in conversation with someone frustrated and stuck in Drone Automation City.
What does it mean to really be alive?
Often the challenge with that question is that it is truly hard to ask it in the first place with sincerity regarding our own lives.
It certainly knows no occupational boundaries.
Even people making tons of green or with brilliant college degrees at some point have to ask this question.
On the masterful cable series In Treatment starring Gabriel Byrne as the low key Zen like therapist who seemed to have the answers and real solutions to other people’s problems, later had to slowly watch his own life unravel before he left the emotional fortress that he called an office and walked into the streets with no guarantees in sight in search of his own future where he could finally come alive again.
How do you know when you are truly alive?
There are some markers.
One is that you can’t wait to wake up every day to make your income. That’s huge.
Sometimes you make a nice income and don’t want to wake up every day until something changes life as you know it.
Suddenly the old pathways becomes life as you knew it and now life as you have it right now is to be embraced and mesmerized by.
This played out so fascinatingly in the German cinematic jewel, The Lives of Others.
The Lives of Others is a 2006 drama marking the feature film debut of filmmaker Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, about the monitoring of East Berlin residents by agents of the Stasi, the GDR‘s secret police.
It stars the late Ulrich Mühe (who died within a year of the film’s release) as Stasi Captain Gerd Wiesler, Ulrich Tukur as his superior Anton Grubitz, Sebastian Koch as the playwright Georg Dreyman, and Martina Gedeck as Dreyman’s lover, a prominent actress named Christa-Maria Deutscher Filmpreis awards—including those for best film, best director, best screenplay, best actor, and best supporting actor—after setting a new record with 11 nominations.
It was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 64th Golden Globe Awards. The Lives of Others cost US$2 million and grossed more than US$77 million worldwide as of November 2007.
What we loved most about the film was observing a man with financial and job security on a slow death march who very quietly and intensely came alive by listening in on the lives of others who he was supposedly trying to protect society against.
Suffering deep sustained losses can often have an effect where one has to deaden their self against the unbearable pain and in some ceases to feel until a life game changer comes along.
One of America’s finest actors, William Hurt drew us in and taught us a powerful life lesson in The Accidental Tourist.
He plays Macon Leary, a Baltimore writer of travel guides for reluctant business travelers, which detail how best to avoid unpleasantness and difficulty especially since he previously couldn’t.
The Accidental Tourist is a 1988 American drama film starring William Hurt, Kathleen Turner, and Geena Davis. It was directed by Lawrence Kasdan and scored by John Williams. The film’s screenplay was adapted by Kasdan and Frank Galati from the novel of the same name by Anne Tyler.
One of the most acclaimed films of 1988, it was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, and Best Supporting Actress for Davis, which she won. John Williams was nominated by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for Best Original Score.
In the film he suffered the loss of his son and slowly begin to steel himself from life itself until this quirky dog groomer comes along, filled with issues and unpredictable behavior who unexpectedly gave him a second chance to become alive again, but as many of us know who have painfully been there, it would be up to him to recognize the opportunity to change and take the risk of being completely vulnerable again.
In the business world we witness this from time to time as well.
Shark Tank is an American reality television series that premiered on August 9, 2009, on ABC.
The show is a franchise of the international format Dragons’ Den, which originated in Japan in 2001. Shark Tank shows aspiring entrepreneur-contestants as they make business presentations to a panel of “shark” investors, who then choose whether or not to invest.
Shark Tank has been a ratings success in its time slot and has won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Structured Reality Program three times.
The show is currently in its eighth season, which premiered on September 23, 2016.
What we love about the show is that you get to meet a stadium of different personality profiles, many of whom had safe high paying prestigious jobs in their previous life on Wall Street, with Fortune 500 companies and the like who one day decided to chuck it all to truly come alive and fight for their dreams with no guarantees.
And you can see it.
They are so alive.
Well, that was our perspective and we would like to share with you the thoughts of a visiting speaker on this subject whose work we enjoy.
Margaret Paul, Ph.D. is a noted public speaker, best-selling author, workshop leader, relationship expert, and Inner Bonding® facilitator.
She has counseled individuals and couples, and led groups, classes, and workshops since 1968. She is the author and co-author of eight books, including the internationally best-selling Do I Have To Give Up Me To Be Loved By You?, Healing Your Aloneness, Inner Bonding, and Do I Have To Give Up Me To Be Loved By God? She is the co-creator, along with Dr. Erika Chopich, of the Inner Bonding® healing process, recommended by actress Lindsay Wagner and singer Alanis Morissette, and featured on Oprah.
Their transformational self-healing/conflict resolution software program, SelfQuest®, is being offered to prisons and schools and sold to the general public.
Please enjoy.
By Margaret Paul, Ph.D. Submitted On June 20, 2016
Does Your Life Feel Alive And Meaningful?
Vera sought out counseling with me because her doctor advised her to discover the emotional causes of her chronic fatigue. Vera, a successful stockbroker, was in a loving 18-year marriage. On the surface, everything in her life was fine. She had enough money, friends and a good relationship with her husband. Yet Vera awoke each morning battling fatigue and depression. She didn’t want to get out of bed because nothing felt meaningful to her.
David sought my help because of chronic feelings of inner emptiness. David is very successful in his manufacturing business, has a good marriage and two adult children. Like Vera, everything seemed fine. Yet the feelings of inner emptiness drove David to overeat, overspend and indulge in porn on the Internet. Like Vera, nothing felt meaningful to him.
While both Vera and David were successful in their careers, neither loved their work. They worked to make money, but their work held little meaning for them. Yet when they looked inside, neither could discover what was meaningful for them. Both reported that they had never experienced a sense of meaningfulness in their adult lives, and that the emptiness and depression had been with them since adolescence.
As I worked with each of them, it became evident that they had made a decision early in their lives to shut down their feelings to avoid the deep pain of unbearable loneliness and heartbreak. Vera shut down because she was unable to tolerate the loneliness of her mother’s behavior toward her. Her mother would say she loved Vera, but Vera never felt her love. Instead, she felt her mother energetically pulling at her, trying to suck the life out of her. As a very sensitive child, Vera could not tolerate this confusing experience, so she put her feelings in a box and decided to live from her head instead of her heart.
David, also a very sensitive child, shut down because he was unable to tolerate the loneliness of being with two emotionally unavailable empty parents, and the heartbreak of rejection from peers.
As adults, both Vera and David were still shut down to their feelings. They were still afraid of feeling the pain of loneliness and heartbreak – feelings that are actually everyday facts of life. Loneliness is present when your heart is closed or another’s heart is closed, or when there is no one with whom to share love. Loneliness is the primary feeling when we want to connect with another and the other is unavailable. Heartbreak can occur when others who are important to you are unloving to you. If you were completely open to your feelings, you would likely feel moments of loneliness and heartbreak or heartache throughout the day. However, many people shut themselves off from these feelings, completely unaware of them. Instead, the moment there is a twinge of emotional pain, they turn to various addictions and addictive behaviors, such as substances, activities, rumination, shame and blame. The problem with this is that when we shut out pain, we also shut out joy and a passionate sense of meaning and purpose.
Pain and joy are in the same place in the heart. Neither Vera nor David could discover what had meaning for them and what would bring them joy while keeping a lid on their feelings. The very act of keeping their hearts closed to their feelings was creating their depression and inner emptiness.
Imagine that your feelings are like a child within you. If you ignore this child – by ignoring your feelings – he or she feels abandoned. Our refusal to be in Step One of our inner work process – to feel and take responsibility for our own pain – is an inner abandonment and results in anxiety, depression and inner emptiness.
It is your child within – your feeling self – that has the blueprint for what has meaning for you, for your passion and purpose. Each of us comes to this life with a deep purpose to express, and when we don’t express it, we end up feeling empty and depressed. Yet we cannot discover our purpose when we keep a lid on our feelings.
Learning to manage the pain of loneliness and heartbreak is essential to discovering your passion and purpose.
There is no way of managing loneliness and heartbreak without a deep and personal connection to a spiritual source of love and wisdom. We cannot manage these feelings from our mind alone.
You will find deep meaning in your life when you decide to practice our healing process – opening to and learning from your feelings of loneliness and heartbreak, rather than continuing to shut them down. And you will open to these feelings only when you do not feel alone inside – when you begin experiencing the love and wisdom of your spiritual Guidance. Opening to Divine Love and opening to your feelings will bring you the fullness, joy, passion and purpose that are the yearnings of your soul.
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Learn Inner Bonding now! Visit her web site for a FREE Inner Bonding course: http://www.innerbonding.com or email her at margaret@innerbonding.com. Phone sessions available.
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