410: What's the Meaning of Life?

Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy

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What's the Meaning of Life?

Before we start today, I have a special shoutout to Max Kosma, our new colleague, friend and brilliant technical guru who helped make our new video studio possible! Next week, we’ll see if we can pipe him in to say hello to all of you. His spirit is joyous, infectious, incredibly generous and supportive.

Thanks, Max!

Rhonda opened today’s podcast with a vibrant and inspiring endorsement from Jeff, a podcast fan who was raving about the Feeling Great App. Thank you Jeff, and please check out our new app at FeelingGreat.com.

Important Announcement

Rhonda, along with a group of dedicated TEAM Therapists, including Amy Berner, Brandon Vance, Leigh Harrington, Mariusz Wirga, and Mark Noble, has just created a new non-profit organization called TEAMCBT International (TCI). TCI will provide seed money in the form of no-or-low-interest loans for groups around the world who want to offer TEAM-CBT intensives for therapists in your country. Rhonda has been instrumental in the organization of successful intensive workshops in India, Poland, Mexico, England and Ireland. They have been well received, but can be somewhat costly to produce, so Rhonda’s new group is ready to provide a helping hand.

I’ve had the honor of presenting keynote addresses, live therapy demos, and Q and A sessions in many of those programs, and have totally enjoyed them. A big hug and THANKS to Rhonda once again! To learn more, just go to TEAMCBT.International.

Today, Matt joins us for a discussion of the meaning of life, something young people often worry about, but people of any age can be concerned. So, today, you may finally find the answer to that lofty question!

But first, I (David) mentioned a little about one of last week’s questions, “Is the universe real?” I provided the type of answer the famed philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein, might have provided. Namely, that the question is nonsensical, it is language “out of gear.” So, we can dismiss the question, as opposed to trying to answer it.

HOWEVER, the question DOES make a ton of sense when we ask if human beings are “real.” And I am not referring to some metaphysical nonsense, but rather the tendency of many people to present a happy or confident false front, all the while feeling empty, lonely, anxious and ashamed inside.

Two of the now more-than-140 TEAM techniques include Self-Disclosure and the Survey Technique, where you take the chance of opening up about some of the secrets you’ve been hiding, and ask others what they think about you. Although this takes tremendous courage, it often results in tremendous warmth and connection to others.

I provide a description of a young man who disclosed a tremendous amount he’d been hiding in our recent Tuesday group at Stanford, and he was convinced the group would judge him and look down on him. But just the opposite happened. He encountered a flood of warmth, admiration, and respect from the people in our group.

A small miracle, perhaps, but a real and meaningful miracle at the moment when his universe suddenly became “real” and radically different from the dangerous and critical world he’d feared and imagined.

Then we tackled today’s philosophical question: “What’s the Meaning of Life?” As usual, our brilliant and beloved Matt May began with a description of an extraordinarily depressed patient he once treated who’d been hospitalized for 180 days with no improvement, including a very dangerous suicide attempt.

Matt was worried for the patient’s safety, so told the referring doctor that he’d been willing to talk with the patient while the patient was still in the safe environment of the hospital. The patient called Matt and, after some listening and empathy Matt said he would like to help and that there would be committed to helping the man and thought he could help him make a complete recovery, work with this man, and thought there was an excellent chance for significant progress, perhaps even complete recovery, but the patient probably wouldn’t want to work with him.as long as he’d be willing to give Matt what he needed in order to work together effectively. Matt suggested the patient give him a call.

On the call, Matt told him he might not be able to afford treatment, since part of the “cost” of therapy was that the patient had to make a commitment to life, and that he must agree never to attempt suicide no matter what, for the rest of his life.

After a couple days of reflection, the man convinced Matt that he WOULD make that commitment.

Then Matt described the man’s problem. Both of his parents were world famous, successful scientists, and during his upbringing, his parents emphasized how fantastic and rewarding a career as a scientist could be, and he was convinced that his parents expected him to follow in their footsteps. He had "learned that doing science was the "meaning of life" and would inevitably result in his feeling satisfied, joyful and proud.

So. sure enough, this young man, who was extremely bright, pursued a scientific career, and eventually one of his papers was accepted for publication in one the world’s most prestigious research journals.

There was a big party at his laboratory, and everyone congratulated him and sang his praises.

But there was one big problem. He felt nothing!

Of course, he smiled and didn’t let on that he felt nothing. He tried to act happy, but simply WASN’T. He said, “I faked it.”

He concluded that he must be defective, since he’d done what he was supposed to do, in order to feel joyful and happy, but he felt nothing, even though he had fulfilled his parents dreams and expectations for him. This plunged him into his severe depression, with the familiar theme of “I’m not good enough. In fact, I am deeply flawed and defective, incapable of feeling joy or happiness. There must be something terribly wrong with me!”

Sound familiar? Did you ever feel like YOU weren’t good enough?

During an early session, Matt asked his patient what he really enjoyed, what he’d really LIKE to do with his life.

The patient confessed, after much resistance, that he felt that his fantasies were totally ridiculous, but what he really loved were trains, photography, and painting. He said his dream job would be to be a conductor or engineer on a train where he could take pictures of the scenery and especially, the people on the train.

BUT, he said, that would be meaningless, since he wouldn’t be contributing to science and would be letting everyone down., etc. etc. etc.

I bet you can guess what followed! If you were his shrink, what would you say or do?

Put your ideas here, into the text box, and then I’ll tell you!

If you took a guess, thanks! If you didn’t, no problem.

Matt suggested he do those very things—take a train somewhere, start snapping photos, and do some painting. Predict how satisfying each thing will be (0 to 100) BEFORE you do it.

Then do it, and record how satisfying each activity actually was on the same scale of 0 to 100.

He exclaimed, “I’d LOVE to do that,” and started crying. His depression score immediately fell to zero.

The next week he brought a large cardboard box to his session. It was filled with books on ancient philosophy and how to find the “meaning of life.” He said, “I don’t need these anymore, so they’re a gift to you!”

Matt said, “I don’t need them either!”

Now you know about the “meaning of life.”

We discussed some of the many meanings in this story, including:

1. Rhonda pointed out what Kurt Vonnegut said on the meaning of life. He said, “We’re all here to fart around!”
2. David discussed the basic idea that it’s not what we’re doing, but our thoughts, that trigger ALL of our feelings. And at the moment you learn to turn off that critical voice in your brain, you will experience your own “enlightenment.
3. David has also said, over and over, that when you discover that you no longer need to be “special,” you can experience the “Great Death” of the “self,” but it’s not like a funeral. It’s more like a celebration, because when you lose your “self,” and discover you didn’t “need” the things you wrongly thought you needed (like love, achievement, perfection, etc.), at that moment you’ll experience enlightenment and you’ll inherit the world, and life, and deeper connections with the people you love.
4. There’s not one “meaning” to life. There are many meanings every day. And today, for Matt, Rhonda and David, it is VERY meaningful and joyful just to hang out with each other, and with you, so we can shoot the breeze together! Or, as Kurt Vonnegut said, so we can "fart around" together.

Please keep your wonderful questions and comments flowing, and be sure to catch us in our new video version on my feeling good YouTube channel.

Warmly,

Rhonda, Matt, and David