The Magic Key to Making Sense of Your Life
Wherever you go, there you are. —Unknown
Every great story has a central question. The same is true for you; you are a story of the universe’s writing, and thus, your life has its own central question.
This is what I call your existential question.
I remember the moment I first grappled with my own existential question. I was eleven years old, sitting cross-legged on my bedroom floor, burning nag champa incense that was blowing smoke directly into my face. Surrounded by books like The Celestine Prophecy and The Power of Now, I thought to myself, "What is my place in all of this?" Little did I know, that innocent question would become the compass that charted my course through the oceans of life.
Just as Polaris has guided sailors across oceans for centuries, our central question beckons us in the direction of our becoming. If the universe is deterministic, it’s the thread that weaves through the fabric of our existence, connecting past, present, and future.
In this blog, we'll explore the power of the existential question—the driving force behind every decision we make, every dream we pursue, and every obstacle we overcome. So, sweet people, I invite you to join me on this journey of self-discovery, as we unravel the mysteries of our own unique paths in this vast, unfolding universe.
What is an Existential Question?
With varying degrees of awareness, all of us are psychologically working out different things over the course of our lives. Many people consider this from a spiritual standpoint—for example, that we come to the earth endowed with karma to work through—but based on biology alone, it’s clear that some combination of DNA, childhood development, trauma, and life experiences imprints on our psychology enough to create the things we must work out and work through. Your existential question is at the core of this, usually developed in early childhood, not just from your wounding, but also from your sense of becoming.
Everyone has a different existential question: Why am I here? What is truth? What is the root of suffering? Bringing it to light frees us to be creative agents in your own evolution and helps you live a more intentional, meaningful, and fulfilling existence. It stops you from getting caught up in it in dysfunctional ways, repeating patterns time and time again only to be dissatisfied by the same results. If you leave your existential question unconscious and unaddressed, it can sabotage your attempts at happiness, but if you work with it, the opposite becomes true—it can actually point you in the direction of your truth and authentic becoming.
It’s Equal Feeling and Thought.
More than the highly reductive question I am making it out to be, your existential question is also the tone of feeling or state of being that comes with the thought. It’s not something you can nail completely, as in, you will never hit the bullseye on the target of figuring it out because the target itself is constantly evolving, but you can get close enough to reap the benefits. The three most common existential questions include:
What is my purpose? This classic existential inquiry revolves around understanding your role in the world. It includes work, passions, creativity and contribution and the feeling-tone associated with it is usually about feeling fulfilled.
What is the meaning of life? This age-old question seeks to uncover the purpose behind human existence. It contemplates the nature of reality, happiness, and fulfillment. The feeling behind this has a lot to do with significance.
Who am I? This question dives into the depths of identity, reflecting on values, beliefs, and experiences that shape one's sense of self. I think the feeling-tone associated with this has a lot to do with individuality.
Why are we here? This existential question grapples with the unknown, exploring beliefs and philosophies surrounding mortality, spirituality and the nature of consciousness. The feeling tone behind it I think has a lot to do with security.
Ok, so now you are a little clearer on what it is, the question is, where do we begin to figure it out?
Start With Your Life Story
I instinctively understood in my early teens that I did not belong in Australia and that I wasn’t meant to stay there forever. I wanted to experience and understand the full spectrum of humanity and so I had a hunger for the world and different cultures. Now, it’s a little weird, especially at such a young age, to want to exit your country and feel a belonging to humanity. But this is the first key — the things that made you odd as a child are the starting point for understanding your existential question, because you are culturally unhindered and more true.
Drawn to stories of humanitarian aid, I studied International Relations at university, with a peace and conflict studies major and a philosophy minor. For years I was immersed in lectures where I would leave feeling crushed at the state of humanity and the human condition, and hopeless about the international institutions we’d set up to solve our enduring global problems. This was my second key — a desire to make sense of the world.
After finishing my degree and realizing that the answers could not be found there, I set out into the world to find them for myself, and began 15 years of global exploration. At 20, I was in Varanasi, India, staring down from a roof at the ghats where people had been coming to die for centuries. At 24, I was living in Thailand, working in Mae Sot at the Thai/Burma border to transcribe human rights violations of Burmese refugees. At 25, I was in the Philippines working in disaster relief in a fishing community after Typhoon Yolanda. At 27, I was working in a harm-reduction homeless women’s shelter in Seattle, Washington. This was my third key — an insatiable desire for exploration; a love of the act of seeking itself.
From Seeking to Living to Giving Your Question
“Be patient towards all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will find them gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” Rainer Rilke
When I look back at my life, it’s easy to see I was being compelled or driven by something: I was desperately trying to figure out why I was here, and I needed an answer to why I was here in order to feel like I could live my life. For a long time, I felt that if I couldn’t find an answer, I couldn’t see the point in being alive. My existential question was and is: why am I here?
Thai people are notorious for saying “same same, but different” and it means how it sounds —that something is essentially the same, but a little different. The first epiphany I had around my existential question was a same, same but different moment—it was the same question, but I realized I was getting at it from the wrong direction entirely. Instead of operating from a place of finding an answer to why I was here which I had been doing in life to that point, I needed to operate from a place of living the question of why am I here. The point was to let the question be the context through which I existed in my life and that through it, my personal becoming would be revealed. So I have lived my question for more than a dade now, and I still live it every day and I can tell you it’s true—my life has gotten exponentially better through consicoulsy living and partnering with this question.
The second major epiphany I had around my existential question was to move from living it, to giving it. There’s a common saying in the psychological world, your wound is your gift, and at least in the people I work with, it rings very true. Whether they’re consciously aware of it or not, all of them have taken what wounded them, which often is what created their existential question, and turned it into a gift. Inherent in this process is maturation—as in, in order to give your question, you have to have matured through it. Some signs of maturation into your question include:
You move from feeling a victim of your question to feeling agency and empowerment and working with it
Your question is positively generative in your life, as in, it creates energy, excitement and inspiration, rather than negatively detracting from you, ie. taking your energy, causing you anxiety, depression, etc.
Discovering Your Question
Ok, so now you have an idea of what it is, I invite you sweet people, to do some introspection and discovery. Take a moment to pause, breathe, and reflect on the following questions and how they might tell you what your existential question could be:
What questions do you find yourself asking in your quiet moments of contemplation?
Think back to your childhood. What experiences or curiosities shaped your understanding of the world around you?
Consider your young adulthood experiences. What themes or passions drew you in?
Reflect on your core values and beliefs. What principles guide your decision-making and shape your sense of purpose?
Take inventory of your current life. Where do you invest your time, energy, and resources?
Journal, meditate, and get into meaningful dialogues with your loved ones (or book a call with me!) These questions are not only an invitation to deepen your understanding of your own existential inquiry but also an opportunity to connect more deeply with yourself and the world around you.
Solving Your Life For Your Question
The counter-intuitive trick to solving the question is that it’s not about getting an answer, but solving your life for your question, as in—create a life where your question lives freely. Freeing your question is freeing yourself.
When you discover your existential question, your life gets clear and purposeful. You learn what’s noise and what’s essential and this helps you live free and true. Your question becomes a steadfast companion, guiding you toward increasingly deeper meaning and fulfillment. This leads to a more satisfying life, decreases feelings of emptiness or uncertainty, and empowers you to become an agent in your own evolution and create a life aligned with your authentic self.