Being

Hello Courageous Pals,

This is the penultimate month of our series on psychologist Alfred Adler’s Five Life Tasks. The first three life tasks are about one’s place within the web of human interactions around us: work, love, and community. The fourth and fifth life tasks are a bit more about one’s place in the cosmos. The fourth life task, Being, is about one’s relationship with oneself.

Courage Pie (to go):

The life task of Being concerns our self-acceptance, our acts of self-care, our self-esteem. This life task is about learning to be ourselves and to accept who we are. As humans we are social creatures: no matter how independent we think of ourselves as being, we’re irrevocably tied by invisible threads to other people: our friends, family, community, those we work with – and all the people we never meet: everyone who grows the food we eat, who assembles our phones and clothing, everyone who develops, packs and ships the medications we take, everyone who sorts through the rubbish we drop in the bin in the park. Society weaves webs that offer us many benefits and protections. 

But these webs also create traps for the Being task: pressure to conform to societal norms that harm us or others; silent demands to keep up or excel through ostentatious status symbols; normative coercion to adopt ‘us vs them’ attitudes which drive wedges between people that can progress from unfriendliness, to outright violence. I think we’re having a crisis of conformative passivity right now, where many people are afraid to stand up and say plainly “this is wrong” despite the clear evidence in front of their faces, because they’re so afraid that nothing will change as a result of speaking out. But maintaining one’s sense of self, one’s own values, one’s sense of congruence with the self, sometimes requires us to speak out against the majority view or majority action – even if we know for certain that the result of speaking out will be that nothing changes, or even that we are harmed by doing so. Our life task of Being, our sense of who we are, is served by acts of courage like these. 

Having said that, Being doesn’t necessarily require outward acts of valor: sometimes our bravery is required for self-compassion. If you’re a perfectionist like me, you might be surprised by how often you’re unconsciously playing negative messages to yourself in your head. This is a form of self-rejection – and the good news is that self-compassion is a skill that can be practiced by quietly but firmly letting go of negative internal messaging that is no longer serving you, and adopting an attitude of self-kindness. If the very thought of that makes you cringe, perhaps you might want to spend a little time thinking about how you’re treating your Being!

Fancy a compassionate conversation? Join us at 1 PM on Wednesday, 14 October, outside the Populus Cafe at Leith Community Croft for a gentle walk (or wheel) around Leith Links. Sign up via Eventbrite to be notified of any last-minute changes! Can’t make it in person? Reach out to a courageous pal and use the Questions to Go below for a reflective walk of your own.

Questions to Go:

• In what ways do you believe you need to prove yourself? What things or people outside of yourself do you believe have inherent worth without demanding they prove anything? How might you let go of the need to prove worth through action and instead find self-worth in your existential being? 
• When you are being kind to yourself, how are you doing that? Do you place limits or conditions on your self-kindness, and if so, what are they?
• How would you like to change your relationship with yourself so it is more kind, compassionate, and the right level of challenging? 
• If your 100-year-old self could look back at you as you are now, what advice would this wise and compassionate version of yourself give you? 
• How do we find self-harmony in a world that is full of contradictions, conflict and demands? 

Coming up & out & about…

Courage Pie: to go is later this week on Wednesday 14 October. Sign up via Eventbrite so I know to expect you!

Changing things up a little, we’ve got our Creative Roots, Open Wings (CROW) wellbeing series at the Corvidaeum tomorrow, Tuesday 13 October. This month is about getting along with our inner gremlins: those inner critical voices and self-sabotaging habits which can really interfere with our sense of belonging and our harmony with the universe. We’ve also got a free session on Thursday 29 October all about harvest reflections for the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival!

Further ahead, Jane Macdonald and I are partnering up for another coaching and yoga session in November to Gather & Grow at the charming Salisbury Centre. Early bird pricing now available!

I also had the joy of joining Emma-Louise Gardner for her podcast The Healing Oddyssey recently for a conversation about my own cancer recovery journey and my career helping others return to work following a cancer diagnosis. Have a listen here. (There are some promotional messages up front; our conversation starts around minute 3.)

Science Behind the Slice:

Gilbert, P. (2009). The Compassionate Mind: A New Approach to Life Challenges. London: Constable and Robinson Ltd.

Linden, G.W. (2020). The Fourth and Fifth Life Tasks as Existential Challenges. The Journal of Individual Psychology 76(1), 59-69. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/jip.2020.0017.

Yang, Julia, Blagen, Mark, and Milliren, Alan (2010). The Courage to Be. In: The Psychology of Courage: An Adlerian Handbook for Healthy Social Living. 1st ed. New York, N.Y: Routledge. Chapter 8.

If anything in this newsletter series has brought up a topic you’d like to explore further, here’s where you can find all the info about my coaching approach and current offers.

Very best,

Caitlin