I often have clients ask me how they can become more interesting.
What is usually underneath this type of question is the bigger existential contemplation of…who am I and why am I here?
I start by asking them what is important to them and what makes them feel fully alive. What usually happens is they tell me the answer that sounds good or the one they have been used to telling themselves and others for a long time.
Some people have no clue how to answer these questions.
This is often the result of following what others think we should be doing or following what others are doing. We end up not knowing ourselves and becoming lost.
Ultimately, we want to belong. We want to feel connected to something.
But when we conform to what others are doing rather than following our own desires, we often end up feeling alone, isolated, anxious, or depressed. The reason for this is that we aren’t wired to want the same things as everyone else. We are all complex humans with unique needs, desires, fears, and longings.
And we are not capable of understanding what it is we truly want if we have been following someone else’s idea of what we should want.
The beauty of depth psychotherapy is that we can slowly start to peel the layers back that have kept us stuck. In this process, we start to look more closely at ourselves in a way that we haven’t before. Eventually, we contemplate what life could be on our own terms.
We look closer at our internal world and in places we never imagined we could go–the dreams, memories, and body sensations. And we start to understand how and why we have shown up in relationship to others the way we have.
Curiosity has always been at the heart of self-understanding. It allows us to open to the pain of our experience and also the beauty of our wounds.
And once we get curious about our own stories, we can open to others and learn about theirs. It’s in this process that we become clear about our internal experiences and who we are.
Our unique stories are ulitmiately what makes us more interesting. It’s a matter of how brave we are to tap into them and share with others.