Even in those moments that don't seem so meaningful, meaning is something that you can cultivate, influence, and even coax into existence. Dear Friends,
"What is the meaning of life?", is one of the questions that many self-aware beings ask. And, having a sense of purpose is something that we all deserve and can obtain. If you are in search of guidance in this area, you are not alone. Today we're speaking with therapist and mental health advocate Eric Maisel, about his DailyOM course, Overcoming Meaninglessness. Please read on.
Course OverviewEvery person has the power to live a life of purpose. In this inspiring course, therapist and coach Eric Maisel will guide you in uncovering what is truly meaningful to you and how to act in accordance. Expert insights and practices will offer the support to overcome the things that aren't serving you, in order to gain balance and contententment. By the end, you'll have a greater and lasting sense of clarity and intention.
- Receive a new lesson every day for 8 days (total of 8 lessons).
- Have lifetime access to the course for reference whenever you want.
- Select the amount you can afford, and get the same course as everyone.
- If you are not 100% satisfied, you may request a refund.
How much do you want to pay?$15$35$50
This is the total amount for all 8 lessons
Interview With Eric Maisel DailyOM: Why is it so important to cultivate meaning in one's life?
Eric Maisel: Meaning is first of all and primarily a psychological experience. When our running subjective experience has a certain resonant quality to it -- maybe it is a feeling of rightness, an integrative quality, or an experience of significance or joy -- we have the sensation that life possesses meaning. At such times life feels like it matters, makes sense, is all right, and so on. But human beings aren't trained to notice and name these experiences as meaningful. For example, we might spend an afternoon walking the back streets of a French town wearing a smile on our face because something has been stirred in us but nevertheless not credit that afternoon as a meaningful moment. We had the experience but we did not know to label it as such or to credit it as such. For this reason, the majority of these real-life moments pass by unnoticed and do not get credit.
How you conceptualize meaning matters. If you hold that it is outside of yourself and must be tracked down, that's one idea. If, however, you conceive of it as a subjective experience, that it sometimes comes unbidden and that it can also be coaxed into existence, and that when it is absent you must try to create it rather than try to search for it -- then you are holding a very different idea of meaning. It should go without saying that what sort of idea you hold about meaning matters a great deal, in fact, it completely dictates how you will live your life and how you will experience life.
DailyOM: What kinds of meaning can we have? Can we have more than one, and can it change over time?
EM: Meaning is primarily a subjective experience, one that you can cultivate, influence, and coax into existence. You can craft a smart, functional idea of it to rally around even if something you are doing isn't feeling all that meaningful. For example, you might decide to write a novel as one of your life purposes, but you might find the experience of writing it more arduous than meaningful. To keep yourself on track and motivated, you would say to yourself, "I understand that I am living my life purpose by writing this novel, that it is meaningful to me even though it has challenges. This makes sense to me, "I understand that something that may prove meaningful to do may not feel meaningful in the doing." By understanding it this way and by maintaining a clear perspective on how it operates, you keep in good spirits even if your daily efforts are not feeling all that meaningful. You remember to not give up on the possibility of experiencing meaning just because a given did not provide the feeling you were after. You continue to live your life's purpose, remaining hopeful that by living it lots of meaning will be generated.
DailyOM: What causes us to lose, or diminish, our life's meaning?
EM: Not getting in the habit of naming and living your life's purposes. What are your life purposes? Do you know? You may know many things, have plenty of insights into your nature, have an excellent sense of your strengths and weaknesses, possess strong feelings about how the world operates, feel pretty sure that you have a nose for right and wrong, and yet you may never have translated all that knowledge and all those insights into a coherent vision of how you intend to live your life. Naming your life purposes involves connecting the dots among your desires, your appetites, your dreams, your goals, your values, your principles, your intentions, and everything else pressing down on you and welling up within you. If you were to try to really connect all those dots, you would likely never find a way to make good use of that. The better answer is to keep it simple.
This simplicity I call a life purpose statement. In one great gulp, you take into account the values you want to uphold, the dreams and goals you have for yourself, the vision you have for comporting yourself in the world, and spend whatever time it takes to turn that unwieldy, contradictory material into a coherent statement that reflects your current core sentiments about your life. In this course, you will learn how to create and implement your life purpose statement. This is great learning and something that will hold you in good stead for the rest of your life. Having a portable life purpose statement that you can take with you wherever you go and use in every life situation defends you against meaninglessness.
DailyOM: Tell us about the types of practices and homework you offer.
EM: As one example, you will learn how to seize meaning opportunities. Our mental health depends on us having a good sense of what promotes the experience of purpose in us. This array of possibly meaningful experiences -- this menu of meaning opportunities -- is large and in a certain sense infinite. But there are nine special, strong possibilities: love, good works, creativity, excellence, relationships, stewardship, experimentation, pleasure, and self-actualization, and these we carefully examine in this course. You will also learn how to engage in quick meaning repair. Every day we're bombarded by small (and sometimes large) threats to our experience of life as meaningful. Maybe you're a writer and get a particularly painful rejection. Suddenly writing (and life itself) may seem that much less meaningful. Or maybe you've invested in your home business. Just as you're about to launch your product or service you notice that someone has beaten you to the punch. You are likely to experience that bit of bad luck as a blow to your sense of the meaningfulness of life. To deal with these regular blows, the quick meaning repair habit to acquire is the following one: 1) You recognize that something important has happened. You admit that a blow has occurred. 2) You feel the feeling. Emotional health is not helped by repression of feelings or denial of reality. 3) You remind yourself that meaningfulness is a wellspring and a renewable resource as soon as the pain subsides. 4) You actually make new meaning by taking appropriate action: by sending out your novel again or by actively marketing your product or service.
DailyOM: What do you hope students will achieve by the end of this course?
EM: They will learn how to make value-based meaning. One of your goals in life, if you would like to live authentically, is to live your life meaningfully and to have that align with your values. A sunny day, a bit of tomfoolery, anything might provoke the experience of significance as long as it is in alignment with your values and your life purpose choices. The phrase value-based meaning-making stands for your thoughtful judgments about how you want to provoke the experience of meaning. Ah, but the effort to make value-based meaning is such a serious and challenging one! It is not at all simple or straightforward to choose to do the right thing when you want to do the impulsive thing. It is ever so hard to honor your values when your liberty or your ease is at stake. It is seriously challenging to escape from or transcend your formed personality, with its habitual demands and its repetitive thoughts. It is quite a project even to know what values to support in the real-life situations that tumble before us one after another without pause. This class will help you understand the concept of value-based meaning and how to put it into practice in your life so that you never have to experience meaninglessness again.
How Does It Work?Starting today, you will receive a new lesson every day for 8 days (total of 8 lessons). Each lesson is yours to keep and you'll be able to refer back to it whenever you want. And if you miss a lesson or are too busy to get to it that day, each lesson will conveniently remain in your account so you won't have to search for it when you're ready to get back to it.
Free GiftAs a free gift, when you sign up for this course, you will also receive the award-winning DailyOM inspiration newsletter which gives you daily inspirational thoughts for a happy, healthy and fulfilling day. We will also let you know about other courses and offers from DailyOM and Eric Maisel that we think you might be interested in.
Get Started NowWe are offering this course with the option of selecting how much you want to pay. No matter how much you pay, you'll be getting the same course as everybody else. We simply trust that people are honest and will support the author of the course with whatever they can afford. And if you are not 100% satisfied, we will refund your money.
How much do you want to pay?$15$35$50
This is the total amount for all 8 lessons
Thank you, Eric. He brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to this topic and course, which offers not only helpful ideas and information, but also tools and practices that you can use for a lifetime. Reclaim your value-based meaning, and live with purpose. Until next time.
Be well,
DailyOM
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