Ep. 209 - How to Help Someone Who Feels Lost Find Their Purpose Again
When someone you love is struggling with depression, addiction, or simply feeling lost in life, it can be heartbreaking to watch them lose their motivation and sense of direction. You can see their potential, but how do you help them see it too?
In this episode, Dr. Kibby McMahon explores why having a sense of purpose is so important for mental health and addiction recovery, and how you can help a loved one reconnect with what makes life meaningful.
Inspired by her mother's personal journey to sobriety, Dr. Kibby shares how finding a reason to get better can become a powerful source of motivation, even when recovery feels difficult.
You'll learn:
Why purpose and happiness aren't necessarily the same thing
How depression, addiction, and shame can leave people feeling stuck
Why pushing someone to get a job, find a partner, or change their life can backfire
Four practical ways to help a loved one rediscover their sense of purpose
How small, meaningful actions can help someone begin moving forward
Finding purpose doesn't mean discovering one grand calling or suddenly feeling happy. Sometimes, it starts with one small action that reminds someone their life matters.
💜 Need support helping someone you love?
KulaMind provides practical skills, guidance, and community for people supporting loved ones with mental illness or addiction.
Learn more: https://www.kulamind.com
Subscribe for more conversations about mental health, addiction, relationships, and supporting the people you love.
#MentalHealth #AddictionRecovery #FindingPurpose #FamilySupport #KulaMind
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Hi guys, welcome to A Little Help for Our Friends, a podcast for people with loved.
Ones struggling with mental health.
Hello little helpers.
Today I'm going to be talking about helping people find their purpose.
0:16
And this episode was inspired by my mom actually who she listens and watch watches this podcast, which is interesting because I talk a lot about her and our relationship together.
0:31
And in previous episodes, I've talked about how she got sober and she's been sober for many years.
And she was like on death's door.
She was, like, ready to go, did not care about living, did not care about stopping drinking.
0:49
But she really turned it around when one day I said, you know, I was in the hospital with her.
And I said, I'm waiting.
I'm preparing myself for both my parents to be dead.
And that was the day that she got sober.
1:06
You know, there's a bunch of other steps towards sobriety, but that was the thing that kicked it off.
And I had understood it as a moment when she realized the impact of her addiction.
1:22
But she said this past week, she said, you know, it was actually that I had a sense of purpose.
I had a sense of purpose outside my addiction.
And she suggested that, you know, tell people that that it's it's finding one sense of purpose outside of illness, outside of your emotional struggles, outside of your addiction is such a healing and driving force of recovery.
1:51
So that you know, and, and the to thank my mom, she inspired this and I thought it was such a really important message to tackle.
But I so I wanted to spend this time talking about why, like what, what does it mean to help someone else find their sense of purpose in life?
2:14
When you watch someone that you love kind of flounder or get stuck or trading like long their long term happiness or success or, you know, growth for something else like drugs or alcohol or or isolation or something like that, like what do you do?
2:37
So I'm going to talk a little bit about that.
Of course, if you love someone who is struggling with mental illness or addiction, that's what I'm here for.
So check out Kulamine KUL AM ind.com.
2:53
That is the program that I give hands on help for loved ones of people who are struggling with these different kind of illnesses, whether it's people who are depressed, people who are struggling with anger and a lot of emotion dysregulation who are stuck at home and you know, aren't launching in the same way.
3:16
So if you identify with that, I can help you with all the different skills that we talked about on this podcast.
Check out cool of mine.
Besides for that, I also want to shout out to a number of people that I've talked to in the past couple weeks who are little helpers who are listeners.
3:35
I went to my sister's wedding last week and met a couple of people, like a surprising number of people who listen to this podcast.
So I'm really, really grateful for you, especially.
I'll do a shout out to Matt and a new listener, Ali.
Also, there's a bunch of other people that I don't know if they want to be named, but a lot of people who talked about how they really liked listening to this podcast and I'll help them and everything.
4:00
And that really means a lot.
So thank you guys so much because again, I'm like talking to my wall essentially, and I put my heart and soul out there for you guys and it's just nice to get the feedback from the other side and just interesting also to I forget how like I forget how you might be listening to this or watching this.
4:25
You might be doing your laundry, you might be at work, you might be going on a run.
I actually want to hear how you're listening to this.
So if you want to drop a comment or want to reach out to me in some way, you can always reach out to me on Doctor Kibbe ADRKIBBY on Instagram.
4:44
He just DM me.
But I want to hear how you're listening to this.
Like what are you doing?
You listen to this so I can really picture and tailor what I'm saying to the kind of vibe you're in.
But so I want to say thank you guys as little helpers.
It really means so much to me and I'm doing this for you.
5:01
So there's any suggestions, anything you want to, any questions you want to tackle, please let me know.
Yeah, I just love you guys.
So this topic is really interesting to me because I actually, for as many struggles as I've had in my life, I've always felt a sense of purpose.
5:24
Whether it was just something that I made-up in my mind or I don't know, just delusion or just sense of drive that I'm interpreting as purpose.
But that is something that I've often have as anchored me.
I can't describe exactly what it is or what I'm called to do.
5:45
It's not like I wake up every day going.
My sense of purpose is my, you know, spreading the word of God or something, something that's really defined.
It's always just a sense of I got to do something.
I got to contribute to this world and I especially want to contribute to like emotional healing and connection in some way.
6:04
But that has really been kind of this like floating feeling that I've always had that has really got me through really hard times.
Not to say that I haven't had moments where I've lost it, like especially during cancer treatment or after I had my first baby, my baby, I really lost that feeling of like, I don't know how to describe it.
6:28
I guess it's like I'm on, I'm on a track I'm on, like there's some driving force inside me that's pulling me through doing stuff.
The times I didn't have it, I felt like I was kind of like standing in the middle of the field not knowing where to go, which is really disorienting for me.
6:47
So I've always kind of taken the sense of purpose for granted.
And I've noticed talking to a lot of you who have loved ones struggling with mental illness or addiction, that your loved ones are often floundering without a sense of purpose.
7:06
I've talked to a lot of parents who have like 20 to 30 year olds who maybe don't have a partner, who are like single, who are maybe living off of them in their basement or financially supporting them, don't have a job, don't know what they want to do in life or what makes them happy.
7:22
And they're like, what am I here for kind of thing.
And it really leaves them stuck, like they might spend every day soothing that pain of feeling lost with drugs or getting angry or ruminating over what could have been or video games or just something that kind of fills the void.
7:44
But they are lost.
They're lost boys and girls.
And there's a lot of people in that position.
I mean I really do think that we are dealing with long term trauma effects of COVID, like long COVID, but emotionally where we just saw life freeze and everyone just paused the world as it is.
8:11
So the the kind of feeling that life can just change on dime is scary and weird.
And also a lot of people are talking about like the economy and how it's unstable and how AI can take away so much of what we thought was important, right?
8:28
Like people are questioning whether college makes sense.
People are questioning whether certain careers and jobs are going to be there.
So like, why bother training?
Why bother fighting for that career if poof, like AIAI bot can just replace you one day?
8:44
So there's so much uncertainty and that feeling of loss can really leave people stuck.
So I want to 1st talk about what is a sense of purpose.
I think it, you know, just to make sense of what I'm talking about here.
9:07
A lot of people might talk about it like happiness, what makes me happy, right?
There's so much pressure to find something that makes you happy.
Find the career that you're passionate about that makes you happy, a person that makes you happy, right?
Happy, happy, happy.
But I think we're getting happiness confused with a sense of purpose because in the research, when people feel meaning, their life is full of meaning or they feel purposeful, they don't necessarily feel happy.
9:37
Like yay, fun joy, right?
You're, we're getting the state of joy or excitement or pleasure.
We're getting that mixed up with a sense of purpose, right?
Like, oh, I go to my work and yeah, I'm doing good work, but like it's boring or like I don't sit, I don't like sitting on a computer all day.
10:00
It's like they might confuse that with I'm not happy in my job or this is not meaningful, right?
So I want to say that it's, I'm not talking about just plain wee happiness, but I'm talking about happiness in the sense of a different, a different meaning.
10:19
But the sense of purpose that I'm talking about, I almost, I almost can just like feel it in my body.
So I'm trying to articulate it as we speak right now.
So it's this feeling of like, like, that's what life is all about.
Like, yes, like not not fun, but just, yeah, like, that makes life worth it.
10:41
And there it could combine a lot of different constructs, like coherence, right?
It combines coherence.
Like, oh, my life makes sense.
There's something that that has had a calling to my life or it ties together all the things that I've been through before and now this is what I meant to do, right?
11:08
So that kind of feeling of like making your life make sense as a whole, as a whole narrative.
There's also significance, which is the sense that your existence matters to someone else, right?
Whether it means you are a parent and you matter to your child or you have put out a book that has changed people's lives on a on a more public scale, right?
11:34
But it's like you are valuable to someone else.
Someone else finds you useful and their lives are better because of you.
And there's also in what I'm saying is purpose is a sense of direction, which is like what are the guiding principles to moving forward when I make decisions on an everyday basis, when I decide what am I going to do in five years or, you know, what is going to guide how I show up every day or how I interact with people?
12:08
Like what is that sense of purpose?
But it's also like a direction.
So when I'm talking about purpose is going to combine all those things, coherence, significance and direction.
And I do think that we think about having a purpose in life as something we go for when we're feeling good, right?
12:30
Like if we're depressed or struggling with addiction, we don't want to think about our Gen. like this bigger life purpose.
We're like getting through each day.
But actually we find as psychologists that that sense of purpose really pulls you through the drudgery and the pain of day-to-day, especially if you're in recovery, right?
12:52
It makes you recover.
It gives you a reason to recover, as my mom was saying.
And I think we all, when you, when you're in that depressed phase or angry phase or traumatize or, you know, struggling with addiction, you think about how do I feel better?
13:08
How do I get my motivation back?
How do I feel less of what I'm feeling right now?
But actually a really important question is what kind of life do I want to build?
What is going to make life feel worth living right?
13:24
What, what do I value and how do I shape a life and build a life that reflects that value, whether it's a life of integrity, honesty, community, power, discovery, travel.
13:41
You know, I'm just throwing out all the different kinds of values that we talked about in DBT or harmony, right sustainability, right?
How do, instead of just how do I get through every day?
It's a really important question to ask what is, what is, what does a life worth living look like to me, right?
14:04
What makes your life worth getting better for?
And then, and the reason why that's important is because when life throws us curveballs, right, we get, we are thrown by an illness or addiction or COVID or something, it might strip away a part of our life, that life that gave us purpose, right?
14:29
When I first gave birth to my kid, my brain was super foggy.
I felt pulled in all these different directions.
I felt pulled towards taking care of this kid, But also I derived a lot of purpose through work and my, my brain using my brain.
14:50
So when everything was shaken up, I was like, I don't, I had one major way that I felt like had an outlet for my sense of purpose, right?
That I like derive meaning from, which is my work.
And now there's like this new being, there's no, there's a new demand for my intention.
15:09
And I feel this new sense of purpose is not the same, but it it's different with this child and that interruption.
That's what made me feel super lost, right?
So these life changes, life disruptions might take away an important source of meaning for you.
15:32
Like, I mean, all the thing that pops in my head is Friday Night Lights.
I don't know if you guys have watched that, but it's a really good show.
It's it's old at this point, but OK, a spoiler for the first episode.
So if you're planning to watch the first episode and you want to know, you don't want to know what happens like, you know, skip forward a couple seconds, but in and it starts out with a star football player who gets injured, right?
15:59
And there was there's so much riding on this kid and being able to be like the star quarterback and then he gets injured and all of that is in question.
So that's really common with people who have been athletes or had to, you know, have had some way of finding purpose and feeling like this is what makes me worthy and this is what life is all about.
16:23
And then it's taken away for some reason.
So mental illness and addiction are really tied into that because, you know, you have this.
It could be because you've lost, lost that sense of purpose.
But those big life interruptions leave us adrift and leave us lost and out of touch with our purpose.
16:44
So it's really synonymous with like suffering, like you feeling loss and purpose less feels bad.
But simply, and I don't want to say that finding meaning is the only way to heal mental health or addiction, but it gives us motivation to do so, right?
17:05
It creates the conditions where we can build a life that we're motivated to make that might pull us through the depression or the addiction.
Right from my mom, she was saying that when I said, you know, both of my parents going to be dead, especially because of this addiction, she was like, oh, I had to get better because I want to be there for this girl.
17:29
I want to be there for Kibby, who has suffered so much in her life.
And I'm that's what she said.
This is verbatim.
So it was really sweet.
She was saying that being showing up for me was the thing that gave her purpose, that motivated her to like, OK, you know, every day I'd want to just wake up and drink.
17:47
But instead I'm going to try something else for this, for this reason.
So really it's like her therapy and all that, All the things that she did to get sober were the things that cured her in a way, but it get the purpose, gave her a reason.
18:03
Also keep in mind that if you start to take steps, which I'll talk about, like actually what to do, but when you start to take steps towards building a life worth living, a purposeful life, it's not always going to feel good.
18:21
You're not always going to magically feel less depressed or your addiction is now gone.
It's going to feel crappy for a while.
So I want to make that really clear because I don't want anyone to expect that starting to build a meaningful life is going to feel good all the time.
18:42
That version of like, oh, it does this make me happy.
That's not going to resonate because it's not going to feel good sometimes, right?
A Doctor Who really values taking care of people and, you know, saving lives.
18:58
You could ask a lot of doctors.
It's like pretty crappy and pretty hard a lot of the time.
So you're, you know, the, the illness or addiction or whatever, it's not going to disappear once you start to live a purposeful life.
It's it's a process and it's going to create a good foundation for experiencing other things that are life, life giving.
19:22
Now I'm going to sound so as I talk about all these things because I can feel it and I'm trying to articulate it.
So bear with me.
I appreciate, I appreciate all you guys being being patient while I try to work through these thoughts out loud.
So when we talk about purpose, I want to talk about why finding your purpose can be so difficult, especially for your loved ones.
19:50
So when someone feels intense emotion, right, they're depressed, they're isolated, they feel intense, disregulate emotions like anger, shame, and anxiety.
It really narrows attention, right?
20:07
It really diminishes capacity.
It takes away energy, motivation, pleasure, and the ability to see outside of their emotions so they could visualize a good future, right?
If you as a loved one, it might be easy.
20:24
You're like, Oh my gosh, you have so much potential.
You, you know, you're so you're so gifted.
There's so much more to life.
Like why don't you just see that?
And that's just part of biology.
When someone is, you know, especially struggling with addiction, addiction will narrow your attention to the drug because they're like, that's the only source of dopamine, only source of reward that I'm going to be attuned to.
20:50
Everything else seems like, right, depression is just like that, but globally.
And also, you know, all these symptoms can cause barriers to the things that bring you purpose, right?
It could, you know, having a psychotic episode or you know, some other kind of disruption trauma might make you lose your job, might interfere with your relationship.
21:13
So there's that.
There's like you, you have diminished ability to like look out and actually engage in those activities that means so much to you.
And then it might cause like interruptions in that.
21:30
But also there's a lot of shame, right?
So shame is, I've been talking about shame recently a lot.
And shame is just like a is this, it's a tricky, it's a tricky lady.
It's a tricky emotion.
I feel like shame is not as much of this like how you feel it.
21:50
Like I, I feel sad or I feel anxious or anger, like I feel like those are fire emotions.
Shame has this.
It's like in the background, it's like it's something's withering.
It's like this fear that's a little like fear mixed with sadness.
22:08
And we can't always detect what's going on when we feel shame.
But shame can make you think that you have nothing valuable to offer, that no one wants you, no one's going to find you useful.
And like it happens a lot when people lose their jobs for just economic reasons, right?
22:29
Like, oh, you know, like they just had layoffs and they just had to fire like 15% of the workforce.
But that rejection and that kicking you out of like an essential community makes people feel a lot of shame.
Like I'm just replaceable.
I'm actually expendable, right?
22:46
I don't actually have anything to offer.
I'm going to replace my AI.
Or if you, you break up with someone just because you're not a good fit or you know you haven't found your person you fall in love with.
And that shame can really be like a poison can make you believe that you don't have anything valuable to offer just because of this interruption or rejection or disappointment, Right.
23:10
So I'm seeing a lot of people just drowning in shame.
And that will really prevent people from what you need to do to, to find purpose, which is like, take active steps every day, like try things out, take a risk.
So shame kind of holds you back.
23:30
It's it's his own little prison.
And I think also the way we think of, Oh, I'm living a life that's purposeful or meaningful.
I think we think of these big things, right?
I'm on Instagram now all the time, unfortunately, and I'm seeing these like, oh, I mean, millions of dollars.
23:47
And at this perfect relationship, like, right, we were were shown these ideal lives and we think that is what purpose looks like, right?
It has to be big.
It has to be like, I'm famous or I'm well respected in my career.
I won an award, right?
24:03
We have these like big like signs of prestige or grandeur as the idea of like, ah, that's what made a life worth living.
But no, like it actually, what actually gives you purpose are the smaller steps that you do each day to contribute to the world outside of you in in a way that you value, right.
24:25
And so I think people have like a bad idea, like an illusion of what purpose feels like.
Mental illness and addiction shrinks your your physical and mental capacity to even take steps towards it.
24:42
And then then you spiral in shame and you stay locked in and you blame the world.
You find reasons to get angry just so you don't feel like such apos.
So I'm seeing that that is a a big spiral into why some people are feel lost and are not moving forward.
25:06
And I also do think too, unfortunately, that at least maybe the people that I'm talking to, they're kind of expecting for purpose to find them, right?
It's, it doesn't help that the word is calling, right?
25:22
It's, it's, you're almost kind of waiting for this divine intervention, this like miracle where one day you're like depressed and addicted and not living the life that you want.
But then something calls to you, right?
Something external wakes you up and, and pulls you out of this funk and you find the love and the career and this little life that you want.
25:49
It could be, it could happen, right?
It often does.
Like sometimes people just like meet someone and fall in love and they start a family and that's a sense of purpose that they didn't initiate themselves.
But I do see that a lot of people are are losing themselves in the passivity and assuming that a purposeful life comes from the outside, right?
26:15
And like luck almost or something that's just going to inspire them one day.
That doesn't always happen.
If you're lucky enough for that to happen, great.
But often that's not the case.
So all of those things that I just mentioned are why some people might just stay stuck and feeling lost without purpose.
26:38
And I think a key thing to remember there is that you don't need or your loved ones don't need to find a grand purpose, right?
They don't have to suddenly become famous and write a book about it, right?
Or have Nathan Fielder do a documentary on you.
But you need help believing that you and your life still matter to the world, to someone, right?
27:01
That you can make an impact in some way, even if it's tiny, it could be a major one, right?
So I'm going to draw from different kinds of therapies that really talk about this.
I am biased that a lot of my training was in what's called contemporary CBTS that are based on more Buddhist philosophies and leaning more into acceptance and mindfulness and presence.
27:35
So like acceptance and commitment therapy, behavioral activation and dialectical behavior therapy.
Those are the, the, the three kind of therapies that are really effective and are used well now.
And the cornerstone, the one of the foundations of starting that those kind of therapies is finding what you value.
27:59
Because in these contemporary CBTS, they don't say, oh, you need to live in service of God in order for you to, you know, they, they don't prescribe what a purposeful life is for you.
It's really easy when that happens, when the cult or religion or person or someone says, this is what a meaningful life looks like.
28:20
This is what a man looks like.
This is how you know, like some, some very easy, like playbook for how to have a purposeful life.
But these therapies don't do that.
They say, you know, the principle is that everyone needs to feel like their life is in line with their values in order to be quote, happy or feeling purposeful.
28:43
It's these are guiding principles that shape your everyday decisions shape like looking back on your whole life, right?
Coherence, pull you forward and something that you feel important.
And it could be individual, right?
29:00
My sense of purpose and value is different from yours.
And then but another really important thing about what all of these therapies talk about is actually before I dive into that, let me give you like more examples because I think sometimes people then get confused by what values are because they think that that's preferences like, Oh, I value when no one lies to me and that might or I value making a lot of money.
29:30
Those are forms of the way values can take shape.
But having no one lie to you is a value of like, I believe honesty is important, right?
And I'm also talking about what you are looking for from the world, but also how you show up, how you make decisions.
29:51
It's not, it's a kind of a, it's not really the same thing.
If you want everyone to be honest with you, but you're lying, right?
And you're like, oh, I value honesty.
It's like, no, no, no.
You also have to live it too.
For example, something that was really sweet and my sister's wedding is that a lot of the guests and speeches talked about how my new brother-in-law is, has very strong values.
30:17
And then she had a beautiful, my sister had a very beautiful way to describe it in her vows.
It was like, I hope I do justice, but she said there's no daylight in between his values and his actions.
30:34
Oh, I just, that was just so beautiful.
And what she meant by that was her now husband really lives in line with his values, like what he says that he cares about, he does.
And one of those values, he has many values, as everyone does, but one of his values is family.
30:53
And that that family is important.
You need to create family and work and show up for your family and be loyal to them.
And I see that.
I see like he makes an effort to reach out to like me and make dinner plans with all of us.
31:11
He was really excited to be my son's new uncle in law.
And he is really respectful and kind to his family.
And you know, so it's just, you know, just see someone who's living in line with their values.
31:26
He's a my new brother in law's a really good example of someone who values family.
And and I also want to say that there's no right or wrong kind of value.
I know you might not like everyone's value.
31:43
And that's really where, well, now I'm diving too much into the like what you as loved ones can do.
So let me pause that and I'll want to say one more thing that these therapies, acceptance and commitment therapy, behavioral activation, DBT, they all talk about how important it is for everyone to kind of discover their individual values, what they find important in life.
32:11
And that will shape how you go about things like what does better look like to you?
One person who says I want to stop being so depressed, well that could look very different than another person, right?
32:27
Some 2 patients who say that they want to get better from depression or want to kick their addiction to drugs.
One of them wants to do it because they want to be there for their family.
They want to spend more time with them, they want to help them, they want to have children, right?
32:45
So that could be what one person is life worth living like a sense of purpose is The other one someone who is also depressed but wants to get better because they value productivity and they value, you know, writing and they value creating more like work, like written work in the in the world, right?
33:13
It's like that their sense of purpose is they want to write and teach others or produce more things.
So that is it.
Two people with the same illness can get better in very different ways, right?
33:29
So finding out what your individual, what your individual sense of purpose is, it's important.
But also knowing all of these therapies talk about this, it's not going to feel good at first, right?
Your anxiety or someone's anxiety and depression is going to get in the way, right?
33:46
Someone who's depressed, who's like, I really value family is going to be like, it's not going to feel good to go on dates.
Let's say they want to find someone and have a family.
It's not going to feel good.
It's they're going to feel awkward.
They're going to feel like they don't want to, they don't have the energy for it, right?
34:04
And all of this or you know, someone who values writing, they're going to have writer's block and it's going to feel painful.
All of these therapies have told taught us that when you start to build a life worth living, the purpose and if you're struggling, it's not going to feel good at first.
34:26
But that's not the that's not going to be a good indication of whether it's quote working or not, whether you're actually living a purposeful life.
So do not think that the first time or even the 1st 10 times or the first couple weeks of moving towards your values or finding purpose, it's going to automatically feel good to make you feel better.
34:48
It's not it's probably going to be really hard.
You have to take it in bite sized pieces.
That's what all these therapies do is take that sense of purpose and break it down to like, what can you do today?
If you value family, can you text one family member and tell them you love them, right?
35:06
Instead of like, oh, now I'm going to go and date and find a, you know, perfect partner and have a family, right?
Like, let's take it step by step knowing, knowing that it's really hard at 1st and it takes a long time to get those wheels turning.
And there's also therapies that are really specifically about finding meaning in life.
35:30
When I was thinking about this episode, I remembered that in COVID, a couple friends, including my, you know, previous Co host Jacqueline Trouble, a couple friends and I did a book club and we did a book cup on Viktor Frankel's man search for meeting, which is was like a heavy read for for the time.
35:53
We're like all stuck at home reading about like his first, you know, like experiences in Auschwitz.
It was really intense, but it was a really interesting book.
The first half was about was him describing just the experience of being in the camps as a as a prisoner of World War 2.
36:14
And it was just harrowing.
I mean, the details of the Holocaust are just like, you know, he was, they would, he was describing like how they would be so hungry that they would get like a little piece of bread and they would heat like squirrel away bread in their pocket, even just a few crumbs so they could treat themselves by like taking out the crumbs and sucking on their fingers.
36:36
Like stuff like that, Where that was this day-to-day experience.
But he it was interesting.
He's talked about like this is like one of the biggest tragedies in human history, the hardest conditions that people are put in, right?
Literally stripped from all the things that give them purpose and happiness and you know, like just terrible conditions.
36:57
And he, his purpose was trying to understand the human condition, right?
He was a, he was AI think a psychiatrist or psychologist.
Either way, he was, I mean, he was in the psych field and he was like, the way I get through this is to use this as a study, as a way to understand something more about the human nature and how we can survive something so terrible.
37:22
And he watched all these different people, including himself, go through the same horrible conditions.
And he watched that the people who made it, who like pulled through and survived were once who had some sense of purpose.
37:39
It could have been just something random.
Like for him, it was, you know, almost like doing this as like a psychological study, which so sad.
He like, wrote down a bunch of his notes and thoughts and then they, the guards found him and took it away and destroyed everything.
37:55
So he had to start again, but he said that that was something that gave him purpose, but also someone who just wanted to see their wife one more time.
Like they didn't even know that their wife was still alive or not.
But that idea of like one day I might see my wife again was enough to keep people alive and motivated to survive in the camps.
38:16
So from that book was born Logo therapy.
It's not that popular anymore or, you know, not used, but the principles still hold.
Where it's a really important part of humanity and healing and mental Wellness to think about what gives you meaning, what gives your life meaning.
38:39
And there's all these different and a lot of these other kind of therapies will explore what your values are and the different potential sources where someone can discover their values.
Like a job is 1.
It's not everything, but a job can bring you a sense of purpose and community, but a peer group or other kind of community, caring for something like an animal or child, volunteering, spiritual practice, if that makes sense, creative work and friendships.
39:09
So all of those and those, you know, all those kind of therapies are different places, different settings where someone can derive meaning.
As you notice, it's all like people, right?
It's all like your sense of value and significance to other people or other living things.
39:30
So this is just to give you a little taste of what an exercise in these therapies that would help you find your sense of purpose or value.
So these are values clarification exercises.
39:46
I'll give you 2.
This is for yourself or someone else, but there's all these fun.
I mean, if you want to just look up like values clarification exercises on the Internet, there's from Acceptance and commitment therapy or DBT.
There's a lot of really cool exercises that help you like realize what's important to you.
40:07
I always like 1A meaningful moment.
So this one is.
This one's easier if someone is.
You know, like is connected to their memories or you know, feelings.
40:25
If someone has trouble with all that, that's this is not the the exercise for you.
But thinking about a moment in time, it could be recently, it could be in the past where life felt meaningful.
Like this feeling of this is what life is all about.
40:45
I don't just mean when you were having fun, when you're happy and excited, but like wow, like feeling of awe, sense of purposeness, purposefulness, whatever that means to you.
So bringing just the first memory that pops in your head and thinking about what were you doing?
41:05
Who were you with?
What about that moment felt so meaningful, right?
Was it what you were doing?
Is it what you were giving to someone?
Was it a turning point that led to other beautiful things in your life?
41:21
But what?
What was it about that moment that was so important?
And even picturing that moment, what does it feel like in your body?
What does the sense of purpose feel like in your body?
The sense of importance?
Notice if it isn't always something that was easy, maybe it was a hard moment like giving birth or being with a child, you know, something like that or something you did at work.
41:49
But what did that feel like in your body, right?
So that's a meaningful moment exercise that you could just reflect on on your own.
And then the other one that I like, and I call it different things when I have my patients or client or cool of mine, clients do this.
42:09
But if you're not so in touch with your memories or feelings, you know, someone who's really depressed, someone you know who's like really feeling blue, get out there.
Like I even make them go do it.
If you don't, if you feel lost, it feels like everything is Gray, Go do stuff.
42:28
So what I like to do is take a week, 7 days, and make this an experiment, an exploration of your values, right?
So you could think about what, what do you love, what feels good, what feels purposeful.
42:49
And then break it down to a small activity.
You can try different ones.
You can try the same one, but very tiny activity, right?
Whether it's connecting to family or whether it's being productive or discovering something new, traveling, learning about other people and other cultures, right?
43:10
Just something that you really care about that lights you up.
Maybe you haven't done it in a while and take it into something that you can do like in a few minutes or an hour and then plan it in your day.
And I really mean that.
43:26
Don't just like think about it.
Be like, oh, it's so cool.
Like I love discovery and I love thinking about like the trip.
I want to, you know, like if you love discovery or learning, you know, being in new environments, for example, then on your commute to work or on your way to your favorite coffee shop, take another route, right?
43:46
Like go go to another coffee shop or go on a path that you normally normally don't and really look around right?
If you value connection or community, can you send one text to someone?
44:02
Can you have a phone call with someone you haven't had in a while?
Can you offer to help someone with a connection or you know something about their career or whatever in some way?
Can you bring a little gift over to their house, little house warming gift of plant or something like that, right?
44:21
Something tiny, something tiny.
And then make note of how that felt.
Again, knowing that's not going to feel good in the beginning, but just noticing what that does, what that feels like, right?
44:36
And how it feels over time, how it feels over those seven days.
Does it feel easier?
Does it feel, does it feel like an obligation the whole time?
In which case you might want to be like, maybe this isn't something that I find important and meaningful, but it's something that I just thought was important and meaningful.
44:56
But take time to explore.
This is literally what we do when we're teenagers or when we're in our 20s.
We go and explore.
We try crappy jobs.
We date people who are not good for us.
We make, you know, we, we explore.
And I think that that is a really important thing that we naturally do to discover what is important to us.
45:18
But then when we're stuck or when our lives change, we need to kind of like bring that teenager, you know, like try anything kind of mentality again in small pieces.
So do a seven day purpose experiment and do one small thing every day for the seven days and track and really note to yourself what that was like, right?
45:41
What actually brought you, brought you feeling a purpose?
And if you don't know, if you're like, I really don't know what I care about, then your seven days are going to look very different, right?
One day you do something about connection.
One day you do something productive.
One day you do something about honesty, right?
45:57
Be honest with something.
So try different ones and see which one turns you on, sparks you a little bit more.
So those are the 212, my favorite values clarification exercises.
And again, the principle is it's not this grand ideal life.
46:20
It's these very tiny steps every day to living in line with these values, to contributing to a world outside of you, right?
With small actions, not huge transformations at first, drawing from the therapies and all of the science about finding purpose, how important it is, and what it takes to actually build a life worth living, right?
46:52
Small steps that feel purposeful, that might not always feel good, that might not always make all your symptoms disappear.
Right?
Let's, let's distill that and then figure out what can you do to help your loved ones find purpose in life?
47:10
How do you get, how do you get Stella's groove back?
So there are four major things.
I'll list them out and then I'll go into them in a little depth.
One is ask questions rather than give advice.
Two, help people reconnect with their strengths. 3 create opportunities for meaningful action and for support their autonomy and ownership of their own sense of purpose.
47:41
OK, so go one by one.
The first one is ask questions rather than giving advice or prescribing answers.
I think that I'm seeing a lot of loved ones make this mistake out of the best intentions.
Usually family members, usually parents do this, which is you need to get a job or you need to start dating, or you need to get your own income so that you can afford a place and move out of our house, right?
48:13
Why don't you do that?
I know that would make you feel good about yourself.
That is, again, with best intentions, we all do that, right?
Giving people advice about what I think is going to make you happy because it's made me happy, or, you know, this is what I think, but you got to be really careful with imposing your own values on someone else.
48:39
I do say that the one of the big differences between the younger generations and older generations, they're huge value differences, right?
The older generations, including mine, a little bit of the older millennials is self-sufficiency and hard work and building a long hard career and putting in your dues is something that we derive a lot of value from, right?
49:06
Like I've worked hard and I've afforded this tiny apartment in New York City like, wow, it, you know, feels good, right?
That's what makes me happy.
That's what makes me happy in the sense of like, I, I feel like my life is meaningful.
The younger generations don't feel that way.
49:24
They don't value self-sufficiency and like grit as much as the older generations.
They value, it's like comfort, but like they call it self-care or work life balance, right?
They want to, they want to feel good.
49:39
They so they might value, you know, having a nicer home that they don't pay for as much than a crappy place on their own.
Right.
So that's just one example, but I think it's really easy to try to prescribe your values and what you think brings someone purpose into someone else's life, right?
50:00
You might do it because you're like, hey, I know that you, this is something that meant a lot to you before, right?
Yours, you've always been a hard worker and I think you just need a job, right?
You might be doing it because you think, oh, this is something you value before, but try to ditch that.
50:18
Try to ditch any preconceived notions about what a purposeful life is for your loved one, right?
You might know what is what feels good to you, but take this as an opportunity to help that loved one discover what they care about.
Maybe maybe they didn't know what they valued, right?
50:37
Maybe they've like work their butt butts off or were an athlete or you know, like like to travel or date whatever.
Maybe they lived life according to certain values, but then now life is different and they want to either rediscover that in new ways or they might want to Recon like connect with something that they value that they haven't before.
50:58
So set up a mindset of like, let's explore together.
Let's I'm going to help you discover your own values and what a purposeful life means to you, right?
51:13
So instead of telling them what to do, ask them questions.
I mean, if they say I hate my life, I'm, you know, I'm so unhappy or I hate my relationship.
If they start to complain, which I hear a lot of loved ones do, they kind of like get lost in the complaints instead of saying, well, you just, you're going to be fine.
51:31
You just need to find, you know, ask be like, OK, well let's figure out what a what what you want life to look like.
When have you felt like most like yourself?
When was the last time you felt that way?
What did that feel like?
51:48
When you are bummed out about how your job or relationship or whatever has gone, what do you wish you had more of instead?
What would it look like if things all turned out the way you wanted to?
Right.
Even when things are hard, like, what do you care about?
52:07
What do you find makes life worth meaningful?
I mean, that's a kind of a big question.
But you could do those exercises with them.
Like, OK, well, let's say one exercise I really like asking people is imagine that you are at your 80th birthday celebrating with all your loved ones, your colleagues, your mentees, your kids, your partner, you know, like your friends.
52:31
And imagine they're going to give you a toast about your long, beautiful, meaningful life.
It wasn't always easy, but it was still like a full life.
What do you want them to say, right?
You can ask them those questions and just help really.
52:46
You're going to have to come in with no judgment, no preconceived notions and actually ask with the with the mindset of I want to discover something new about this person.
Even if this is your kid and you feel like you know everything about them.
But like, what if I weren't driving them to say a certain answer?
53:05
What if I would just literally like, I don't know what you care about in life.
I don't know what you would find purposeful that it would give you a sense of meaning.
Let's talk about it and inform me, right.
So asking questions number 2 is helping people connect with their strengths.
53:24
So I am a really big proponent of not just seeing mental illness as like a negative.
I'm actually, I actually really, I like to think about and, and talk about these quote negative emotions as a pathway and opening to discover what we care about.
53:49
So I'm, I'm not like, let's talk about our strengths and not talk about the bad feelings.
I'm not into that kind of positivity framing.
I'm more into, OK, what is something that that you find valuable in yourself, right?
54:10
And like what are things that you do or have done that are meaningful or, or, or something that that they are proud of or that that gives them capacity to build?
54:27
So what, you know, what this looks like with when I'm talking to patients is if they're like, oh, you know, I don't have a job and everything's terrible and blah.
But looking at not just the outcomes or the markers of success, but like, what did they do well each day?
54:52
What did they do to contribute to something going OK or better, right?
If it even if it's just like, you know, you're just so kind.
You know, you, you are very kind and thoughtful about other people or you know, yeah, you, you know, haven't found your perfect job.
55:13
And I've also watched you really think hard and practice how to interview and how to talk about yourself in an interesting way.
You're always such a great storyteller and someone who can look and connect to people, and it's really amazing to watch you learn how to do interviews right.
55:34
So when I talk about strengths, I'm talking about what are the like recognizing in other people and expressing appreciation and admiration for even these small steps, small skills, skills that they're building ways that they, they're learning.
55:50
Because honestly, when it comes to finding a purpose and building a purposeful life, as I was saying before, it shouldn't be attached to very specific things, right?
Like having a specific job as your one way of living a purposeful life is fragile because what if COVID happens and we can't do that job, right?
56:09
So instead focusing on ongoing skills, ongoing abilities, right, like capabilities that they're building.
And again, not like, oh, look at you making millions of dollars, but like, wow, you're really, I've noticed that you're really, you know, problem solving or pretty or, or using your problem solving skills and figuring out new ways to apply for jobs, for example.
56:35
So finding finding strengths and how how they're showing up each day and commenting on that and genuinely expressing appreciation for that and recognition 3 is create opportunities for meaningful action.
56:54
OK, so you cannot make a person live it, live a purposeful life, right?
You cannot build a good life for this person.
So I don't want you to rush off and be like, well, I got to find a job for my, you know, my loved winded horse.
57:12
But you can create opportunities for them to take meaningful action, right?
You can show them the forest and be like, look, there's some great paths here.
Let's, you know, let's walk down some of them if you're up for it, right, So you can help them break down and do it with them.
57:35
Or you knowing that doing things, engaging activities or projects or communities, learning something new, connecting to other people might open that opportunity for them to live in line with their values, so to speak.
57:54
So in very slow steps, without saying, hey, you know, in order for you to find a girlfriend or whatever, let's go, you know, let's join this club.
But instead just say, hey, like, do you want to cook together?
Do you want to cook together tonight?
58:10
Or do you want to go to this book reading or do you want to join this, this group or just doing something that take some a little bit out their comfort zone and presents opportunities?
58:27
The key with this too, is going back to #1 which is not be like, OK, now we're here.
You should make some friends or you should find a job.
But really just if knowing that if someone has mental illness or addiction or just as like isolated and lost, they don't have that capacity as much anymore, right?
58:48
They're they're a little bit like, you know, so it might just be like pushing the car a little bit until the engine goes.
It might be just like, let's go be active and do things and then maybe something will click.
59:03
Or maybe you could take a step.
Maybe that person could take a step in those in those settings.
So you are taking your capacity to like find that community group or do something weird or, you know, buy grocery so you can cook.
And you are using that capacity to take them to the forest and be like, do you want to go down a path, right.
59:25
So another thing that you can do, especially if you have a loved one who's struggling, is I think at least this was, this was what I did.
This was my mistake.
I hid my needs and acted like I could take on everything, hoping that one day they will be motivated and inspired enough to contribute to me.
59:53
Right.
I was like OK, let me not ask for anything.
Let me just, you know, give give, give, give and see if they, you know, have the wherewithal to give back.
But The thing is that you can do them a service by honestly telling them how you need them.
1:00:15
Right, as a parent, as a partner, a loved 1, you could say I need you, I need your help.
Can you come to the kids games with me?
Can you help me set up something in the yard?
1:00:30
Can you listen to my feelings and my problems and help me figure it out?
Right, You are giving them an opportunity to literally be significant to someone, right?
To give you value and don't do it in a way that's just like humoring them, but like doing it in a in a real way, like I've been hiding this or like keeping, you know, I didn't want to ask you because I didn't want to put too much pressure on you when you're, you know, struggling.
1:00:56
But I I really need your help with going Christmas shopping, right?
Or trick or treating, which is coming up right.
But so creating opportunities for meaningful action is like also asking them for help.
I was so stuck in doing everything, hoping that one day someone would like offer to help me, which is totally backwards that the the crazy benefit is like I when I got cancer and I was literally incapacitated, right?
1:01:33
Like I like was very sick for a long time.
I had to rely on my husband for help.
He had to be the main parent.
He had to do things around the house that I couldn't.
And I could see that that, you know, like you might not say this was probably pretty awful, but it gave him purpose.
1:01:50
It gave him something to do.
I literally was depending on him and having someone need you, as I said, you know, an episode or two ago.
So having someone need you actually does motivate you, right?
So don't be shy about your needs create meaningful action by opportunities for meaningful action by asking for help.
1:02:13
The 4th, which is really important, is supporting autonomy and ownership over creating this meaningful life.
They need to, they need to find their purpose, not yours, right?
And if we prescribe and tell them how to live a meaningful life and do things of value, then you're setting them up for failure because then they are instead of them discovering this is purposeful, they are like, what does this feel good purposeful to me?
1:02:46
They're just thinking I have to do this and make that person happy.
I have to make you happy, right?
I could fail.
I could I could either live up to your expectations or I don't, right.
And this is what a lot of kids really struggle with their parents.
They, you know, the parents want them to, I don't know, get an A or, you know, like get a job or go to prestigious college.
1:03:07
And it's no longer something that they're doing for themselves to enrich their life there.
It's like maybe sometimes that pressure does make them do something that they are like, I actually like this.
But most of the time it's like, I got to do this to make my parents happy, to make them think that I'm actually living a good life.
1:03:24
And that strips away the, the real core of what we're trying to do, which is helping them build a life worth living for them, not just making you happy, right?
So the weight, which is really difficult.
So the way to do this is to offer them choices.
1:03:40
You can say this like getting this job or, you know, volunteering in this way or giving to the community this way is how I found my purpose.
But, and this is how it feels and this is what it does for me that might work for you.
1:03:57
And what do you think?
What, what would bring that feeling for you, right?
What would make you happy and the happy and the deeper happy, happy meeting.
But offer them choices and let them decide for themselves, right?
1:04:12
As not an exercise in making you happy, but an exercise in connecting to that part of them that feels like I'm a value in a way that I find important.
Because if you just make them do something, it's even if it feels good, they're going to attribute it to you, right?
1:04:35
They're not going to attribute it to their own agency.
And like I decided to do this and I'm building a life.
It's like someone made me do this, right.
This is why mandated therapy or making someone go to therapy doesn't always work because yeah, sure, it's beneficial, but it doesn't have the same magic ingredient as when they go, OK, I'm doing this for me, right?
1:05:01
So this is, I say this all the time when it comes to getting someone help or getting, you know, having getting them sober or recover, you can provide the opportunities and say, hey, I'm here to help you, but you have to make the decision.
1:05:16
I'm not making this for you unless they're about to severely hurt themselves or someone else, in which case safety becomes a priority.
And that's a different conversation.
But when it comes to finding their own sense of purpose, you've got to let them do it for themselves.
1:05:32
You can give them options, you give them examples in your your own life, but you got to be open to them deciding something that you might not choose for yourself, right?
And that's hard.
That's really hard.
If if my kid found a sense of purpose by like living in my house, being like a weekend DJ and a drug dealer, I would be kind like, I would be kind of bummed, right?
1:05:58
Because that's different from my values.
And then I would have to choose whether I'm going to, you know, how much I'm going to fund that.
But if that's what brings him purpose and meaning, you know, sometimes letting someone find their life and what is important to them means deciding something that you don't agree with and that you're going to have to, you're going to have to accept that, right?
1:06:24
Because they could either find their own sense of purpose and be happy or do what they think you want and feel empty inside.
So I hope this was helpful.
Love you all little helpers.
1:06:40
I want to hear suggestions or questions or anything in the comments either on Spotify or YouTube and of course, you know, subscribe to either YouTube or Spotify so we can stay in touch and we can keep sharing.
I don't know your daily run, your daily, you know, working on the computer together.
1:07:00
I don't know, but I love that you guys are on the ride and I'm on the ride with you guys too, so.
See you next week.
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1:07:24
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1:08:01
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1:08:20
Thank you.