The Existentialists Podcast

In this episode, the hosts explore the experience of boredom. It is most often experienced as very unpleasant as a person is left entirely with themselves. When boredom is present, life asks us how we show up to this and what possibilities there are. It is tempting to ease the discomfort of being thrown upon oneself by trying further self-distancing, but perhaps if we can stay with the experience of boredom we may also find possibilities to show up fully with ourselves and birth creative expression.

In this episode, the hosts invite you, our listeners, to encounter the fundamental conditions of human existence by providing your own response to the challenges that these conditions bring to your own life. Specifically, we are discussing how we can encounter and personally respond to the basic fact that we are here in this world: “I am here but can I be?” Moreover, we are not just here but we are alive, we experience emotions and engage with life and relationships: “I am alive but do I like being alive?” Next, we are also our unique person, distinct and different from others: “ I am myself- May I be myself?” Finally, to encounter and realize our existence we are confronted with the question of meaning: “I am here, alive, I am myself but for what, what is the purpose or meaning of my life?” As you listen to the dialogue among your hosts, we invite you to engage with these four questions: “Can I be?”, “Do I like being alive?”, “May I be myself?” and “For what am I living?”- and provide your own personal answer to these questions as a way of engaging deeply with your existence.

In this episode, the hosts discuss encountering our own moral conscience understood as a personal capacity of sensing what is right in a given situation. In contrast with moralistic attitudes or a priori prescribed percepts about right or wrong, encountering our moral conscience means encountering ourselves as persons, and trusting our own capacity to sense what is right. Listening to and following our moral conscience requires courage and vulnerability to trust our inner moral compass and our capacity to sense what is right and to do justice to what is right.

In this episode, the hosts discuss about how we encounter change in our lives, our responses to change, and how we could deal with change in a more personal, intentional way. Whereas change is omnipresent in our lives and it can take many forms, some people tend to be worried about change and try to avoid it out of fear of unpredictability, of the unpleasant or painful consequences or of the destabilizing effect of change. Notwithstanding these possible outcomes that may accompany change, as human beings we are in a continuous process of change and becoming. Adopting an aversive or avoidant attitude towards change may lead to stagnation, possible underdevelopment of some capacities and increased distress or “stuckness” when we will-unavoidably- encounter change sooner or later. Hence, finding ways to remain open to change and to deal with changes in a personal, intentional way is important both in everyday life and in psychotherapy.

Pain, either physical or psychological, is a fundamental, inescapable human experience that typically elicits a lot of suffering, resistance, sorrow, and hopelessness. In this episode, the hosts discuss about pain as a complex, challenging human experience that involves both our body and psyche, and, at times, our spiritual life. Concrete ways of encountering pain grounded in the experience of living with chronic pain provide listeners with a felt account and practical strategies of how to turn towards pain in a manner that either opens up the possibility to find some meaning in suffering or transform suffering in acceptance and discovery of new possibilities of living amid pain.