Reach a person now if nothing feels real or worth doing
If nothing feels real or worth doing, and you think about not being here, call or text a person now rather than trying to rebuild meaning alone.
Warum es wirkt
A loss of meaning that reaches the point of not wanting to be here is more than an intellectual question, and it needs a person who can hear all of it. Trained help can look at what is going on for you as a whole, which a reading about developmental orders cannot. Reaching out is the step this moment calls for, not something to earn once the ideas are sorted.
So gehst du vor
- Stop the developmental reading and the mapping for now. Nothing about your worldview needs to be sorted tonight.
- Tell one person you trust that nothing feels real or worth doing, in your own words, and ask them to be with you today.
- If you have thoughts of ending your life or harming yourself, or a part of you says you would be better off not here, call or text 988 in the US (the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline), or find a line in your country at findahelpline.com.
- If you are in immediate danger, call your local emergency number.
- See a therapist or clinician soon, and tell them that nothing feels real or worth doing and how long that has been true.
- Do not return to this worldview work alone until a person has helped you feel steady again.
Evidenz
988 and the Find A Helpline directory are established crisis and support services. They are not studies of developmental or meaning-focused work, and they are included here so a person in distress knows where to turn. (clinical)
Crisis lines are support services rather than tested interventions for this exercise, and their hours and availability vary by country. If one line is busy, try another listed line, or call your local emergency number.
Quellen
- 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (United States): call or text 988.
- Find A Helpline: international directory of crisis and support lines.
Häufiger Fehler
Assuming a sense of meaninglessness is only a stage that will pass by itself, and waiting it out alone. It can be a reason to reach a person.
Übe das mit IX Coach
Weitere Übungen für The Self-Transforming Mind: Kegan’s Fifth Order, Made Practical
- Come back to something real right now, not a worldview
Stop mapping your own mind and let the floor, your breath and one ordinary task tell you what is real today.
- Ask what your own system leaves out
Take the framework you live by and look at it as one partial system: what does it see well, and what is it built not to see?
- Treat a contradiction as information, not a problem to close
When two frameworks you trust contradict each other, study the contradiction before choosing a side.
- Catch yourself owning one side of an opposite completely
Notice when you have put all the good qualities on your side of a split and all the bad ones on the other.
- Talk across whole ways of seeing, not just positions
In a deep disagreement, try to understand the other person’s whole framework and let it question yours.
- Notice when the self you authored starts defending itself
Watch for the moment a challenge to your principles lands as an attack on you, and name it.
- Hold the developmental map — and your place on it — lightly
Notice when knowing about later stages has become another way to feel ahead of other people.
- Laugh at how seriously you take your own growth
Practice light-heartedness about the effort to get yourself right, as a way of loosening the grip of the self you are building.
- Stay with the unsettled stretch between selves
When the identity you authored stops holding, expect an in-between period and get support rather than rushing to rebuild.
Verwandte Konzepte
- Kegans Subjekt-Objekt-Theorie, praktisch erklärt
Vom Beherrschtwerden durch die eigenen Annahmen zur Fähigkeit, sie zu untersuchen
- Selbst-Autorschaft: Vom sozialisierten zum selbst-autorisierten Verstand
Kegans Stufen, Subjekt-Objekt-Bewegungen und das Autorisieren deines eigenen Lebens
- Terri O’Fallon’s STAGES Model, Made Practical
Twelve stages built from three repeating questions, and how to work with the one you are in
- Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory (AQAL), Made Practical
Five elements for catching what your view of a situation leaves out, held as a map rather than a truth
- The Immunity to Change Process, Step by Step
Why a change you truly want keeps not happening, and the step-by-step way Kegan and Lahey take it apart
- Torbert’s Seven Action Logics of Leadership
Seven ways leaders make sense of pressure, how common each is, and how to work with your own