One of my earliest memories of self-talk, or thinking to myself, is one of Existential Isolation. Only today have I discovered this term and its meaning, and this memory came to mind.
I remember as a young girl, maybe 6? ...I thought it was younger, I'm not sure. It was probably when my sense of empathy began to develop, so around the age of 6-7. Every now and then I used become aware that I was looking at the world through my own eyes and I would say to myself, "This is MY life". This was the predominant thought, accompanied by the general sense of 'knowing' that other people were also living and experiencing life, but I would never see the world through anyone elses eyes. I wondered what they were seeing and why I could never see it. I must have been so unconsciously scared by the thought that another voice would always jump in and say "Shut up, Katie, you're an idiot".
As weird as this seemed to me at the time, this now holds a lot of significance to me. After reading about the 4 Existential givens/Ultimate concerns (mentioned in my last blog, see 'Love's Executioner' by Irvin D. Yalom), I realized that the voice that told me to shut up was protecting me from the concern of existential isolation. Existential isolation refers to the barrier that exists between the self and others, even in the presence of deep relationships. It is the fact that we are born alone and we die alone. This causes anxiety, and much like the other givens, we try to protect ourselves from this. A common way is to form a passionate relationship whereby we perceive that two become one. Yalom states that this attitude to a relationship is destined to cave, because we can never fully be one with another (at least in this physical form). This anxiety and how I use my relationships to combat it is definitely true for me, but I thought it was just because I haven't been so kind to myself in the past, and I am scared of how I will speak to myself when I am alone ("Shut up, Katie, you're an idiot" demonstrates this well!)... but this theory and my memory have opened me up to consider that a lot of my anxiety is about being alone, not just physically, but existentially.
Yesterday I was pondering about which attachment style I have (anxious - this theme pops up a lot in my life) and now I'm thinking about this. So many theories in psychology, so many possibilities. But nothing is concrete, I guess any explanation is a good one as long as it makes sense and helps with overcoming major problems in life!
Now that I think about it, Existential Theory is applied in a lot of places. Landmark Education (based on Scientology) did actually address the concerns that life is meaningless and that we have the freedom to live however we want. There was a great discussion about how we are responsible for everything that happens in our lives, and once we assume that responsibility rather than blaming it on external sources, we can free ourselves from our barriers and create our own meaning for our lives. That was probably the only good thing I got out of it, aside from learning how to spot a cult, and to be careful of self-help seminars as they will turn their beneficial learnings on you so you feel obligated to attend and fork out hundreds for future sessions...
Live and learn, every day.
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