Feeling emotionally flat or disconnected from your life often goes unrecognized for years.

Philosopher Søren Kierkegaard described this condition as despair—a quiet drifting from your own experience.

Reconnecting with yourself is less about finding answers than learning to ask better questions.

“The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all.” —Soren Kierkegaard

When was the last time you looked around? I don’t mean surveying your environment; I mean really looking around at life and, importantly, your place in it.

Self-evaluation is a large part of human existence, so I imagine most people would say “all the time." But what are you looking at, specifically? And what metrics are you using to reach a conclusion?

For many of us, a major way we assess our lives is by comparison with others, especially in competitive environments, be they large urban centers, the workplace, school, or anywhere there is another person to evaluate ourselves against.

Occasionally, in my practice, I see people who live on autopilot, using societal milestones and comparisons as measures of success and self-worth. Those metrics are only part of the picture. Looking around also includes an understanding of yourself, your behavior, motivations, defenses, and family of origin issues, to name a few.

Søren Kierkegaard was a 19th-century Danish philosopher, widely considered the father of existentialism. He was less interested in abstract ideas than in interior life — what it actually feels like to be a person moving through the world. What he noticed was that most of us drift, gradually and without realizing it, from our own experience. We get good at performing a life without necessarily living one.

Michael came to treatment because his wife suggested it. There was nothing wrong, exactly. He reported a successful career, a healthy kid, and a marriage that worked. He wasn't unhappy. He just felt like he was watching his own life from somewhere slightly outside of........

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