My upcoming book A Good Life Despite Everything wouldn’t exist had I not struggled a lot in my life. I was born with a hypersensitive nervous system that would be rewired further by complex trauma.
This has caused me issues with tolerating even normal stress throughout my life. In 2008 normal life — whatever that means — became fully impossible for me, after the death of my violent father.
I have ever since searched for ways to cope. I have given up my stressful yet moderately successful career in IT, I have been in therapy for over 15 years, and I have trained myself in different forms of therapeutic approaches on tens of courses.
Over time, I have started to understand how noetic or spiritual, psychological and somatic exercises all are something that require my attention, and none of them alone can create meaningful change in how I am able to cope with my life. I understood this by studying Finnish philosopher and psychologist Lauri Rauhala’s holistic conception of man. His philosophy is the foundation of the book.
From Rauhala’s work I have understood how our search for meaning following Viktor Frankl’s teachings, inner dialogue based on Internal Family Systems, and tending to the nervous system using Polyvagal Theory, all illuminate different sides of who we are. More importantly, they all imply practices we can take into everyday life to help us weather life’s inevitable storms. My book illuminates the holistic totality of who we are, why it matters, and how to work with it.
In this blog, I will write about themes similar to what I discuss in the book. Everyday struggles in life, and collective struggles in the world, looked at through the lenses utilised in the book: Rauhala’s existential phenomenology, Frankl’s philosophy, IFS and Polyvagal Theory.
Arcticmeaning.fi 