Dr. Neill Neill

Sophie and Mary

I knew two women I’ll call Sophie and Mary. Sophie was about 30 and worked at a job, but she knew it was not what she should be doing to find fulfillment. The problem was she didn’t know what she was ’supposed to do’. She was single, although she had been married for a few years in her early 20s. Ever since then she has been soul searching for meaning and purpose in her life.

Sophie tended to stay to herself and think a lot. Happiness was elusive. In fact she was showing signs of grief for reasons she did not understand. She wanted to have a sense of purpose in her life, but couldn’t find it. She worried about things like global warming and wondered if she could ever be in another relationship.

Mary was about the same age. At 20 she married a young man she had met in high school. She had known since she was a young child that she was supposed to grow up, get married and have children. And she had done just that. She did wifely things and she was a good mother.

However, Mary wasn’t happy either. It was dawning on her that she had spent her adult life to this point looking after others. She cared for her children but she felt unfulfilled. She too wanted to have a sense of purpose in life, but had no idea what that looked like. She admitted that she really didn’t know who she was. Mary too was exhibiting symptoms of grieving for reasons unknown to her.

Sophie and Mary both had a sense that something had to change because they were both miserable. Without knowing it they were both grieving the impending loss of who they had been up to this point. Grief is a normal emotion in anticipation of loss, as well as after loss. Clearly, the lives of both of these women were out of balance.

Sophie had spent a number of years looking inside herself for meaning. She focused her energies on self growth through therapy, self-help books and meditation. She had certainly taken to heart Socrates’s edict, "The unexamined life is not worth living." But years of self-examination just wasn’t doing it for her.

Up to this point, in contrast, Mary had never looked inside herself. Her life had been about caring for others…doing, doing, doing. Everything she did was external. Never before had it occurred to her to question who she was. She was so busy doing she had never heard of the famous Socratic edict.

Seekng a Balance

The problem is you can’t find meaning and fulfillment by spending all of your time inside as Sophie did or all of your time outside as Mary did. Meaning and fulfillment require balance.

You can feel truly fulfilled when you go outside of yourself to create or do something in your life, but it has to come from a place of deep knowledge of who you are.

So if you find yourself stuck in a place of unhappy self-examination, you may get back in balance by creating outflow: get out and volunteer; start a new job or business; just do something. Meaning, purpose and happiness will emerge from getting into action.

On the other hand if you are stuck in endless doing and you’re not happy, you may need a period of self-examination and reflection to find out who you really are. Then the doing will take on new meaning for you and lead into other action that will lead to even more happiness and fulfillment.

Dr. Neill Neill, Registered Psychologist and Diplomate, Comprehensive Energy Psychology, maintains an active psychology and life-coaching practice on Vancouver Island, BC, Canada. He is a member of the treatment team at Sunshine Coast Health Centre, an alcohol and drug treatment center for men. His goal is to help you to help yourself to a better life. http://www.neillneill.com