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Existence precedes essence -- Jean-Paul Sartre

Writer's picture: Rjurik DavidsonRjurik Davidson

Updated: Jan 12, 2024




Like most people, at the start of each year I write a series of goals – New

Years’ Resolutions – if you like. The new year marks a convenient point for reassessment of our lives, our directions, our choices, our priorities.


This newsletter has talked quite a bit about values because it’s from this that our goals or resolutions tend to stem. If I value family, then a goal might be to dedicate an entire day to simply connecting with my partner or children. If I value career, then I might resolve to priorities the long-term goals there which usually get pushed aside for immediate and reactive ones, if I value health and well-being, I might decide to enrol in a regular exercise class.


Most of us set goals around New Years – and then fail to achieve them.


Why?


We know these are priorities that emerge from our values. Why can’t we live up to our own promises? If you’re like most people, here you introduce a painful, self-critical, narrative: “I’m hopeless”; “I’m just not disciplined”; “It’s too hard”; “I’m just not….”


Beating ourselves up never helps. In fact, a colleague of mine has built an entire method and business aimed at helping people overcome this trend, called “Compassionate Productivity.” You can find him here: https://www.subscribepage.com/d6d1w3


Here I want to look at the question from a particular perspective: the conflict between our conscious and our unconscious minds. Whenever there’s a conflict here, the unconscious will ultimately win out.


See, we can consciously decide our goals or resolutions, but unless our conscious and unconscious minds are in alignment, the unconscious is going to undermine us. A classic example here is a habit or addiction. We can consciously decide to give up smoking, or drinking, or eating chocolate, or pornography, or whatever the case may be. And while we “focus” on it, we can do that – for a few days or weeks. The problem arises when we take our mind off the task: then we just find ourselves without having made the conscious decision, going back to our old ways. And now we have more evidence for those painful stories we make up to rationalise our behaviour. The things we do tell us who we are, or as Jean Paul-Sartre famously theorised: existence precedes essence. We are what we do.

Sartre’s problem was that he – like most existentialists – was very hostile to the idea of an unconscious. You could always choose, in his view. This attitude is a useful one when we want to affirm our personal power and responsibility. It can also be really judgemental when we are trying desperately to behave in another way, but just can’t seem to do it. On the question of the unconscious, Sartre was wrong.


So how do you get the conscious and the unconscious in alignment. There are many ways. There is the question of building habits, slow, small and incremental. You’ll find this in books like Atomic Habits. There’s therapy, where you begin a holistic examination of who you are, of what it is like to be you, here and now. There’s coaching, where you have a supporter to keep you accountable and to re-orient you when you’re drifting off-track. There’s hypnotherapy, which in some cases can help you change a behaviour in a one-off session (this is the fastest change-work I’ve ever witnessed).


Usually though each of us needs to do something different. Setting the same old goals the way we did last year usually doesn’t work.


This goes for me as much as it does for anyone. Which reminds me: what am I going to do differently this year?


Next week, I’ll let you know.


If you’d like to work with a compassionate therapist, coach and hypnotherapist on your goals and aligning your conscious and unconscious minds, for a free 15 minute consultation, or to book in a session, email me at rjurik@me.com or find me on my website at primetherapy.net

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© 2022 by Rjurik Davidson, Ph.D. Opening Date May 2023.

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