How are you with you? When all the distractions don’t distract you from yourself, then what? Here is normally where the universal questions start to rush forward: Who am I? Why am I alive? Where am I going? What happens when we die? Is there a purpose for this life, or am I just living a death sentence? We call these existential questions because we do exist for now, but this existence has an expiration date.

I tried to avoid all the above questions, but the key word is “tried.” Then I’d wake up in the middle of the night, fearing death and panicking. I had to face these universal questions. The distractions I had been using only delayed my healing. In psychology, we don’t run away from our problems; we run toward them in order to process through them and move forward.

We talked about this in our group this week. Instead of avoiding the problems of the past and burying them, we dug them up and created a conversation with the fearful part within. In your boredom, what comes to mind? This would be an excellent topic of exploration. Soon the mind gets flooded—“You should be doing this… You should be doing that… Why didn’t you finish your degree?” This is all fantastic because as you learn to communicate with yourself, you improve—well, given the proper structure. Look, we cannot beat ourselves up enough to improve. This is not how to learn and grow. When talking to yourself, be kind—especially when you realize you have made a mistake. What builds a good internal relationship is being gentle on yourself when the going gets rough. It is easy to treat yourself kindly when you have done something great, but when you are at your lowest and you are able to treat yourself with kindness, that’s when you heal.

We exist. Okay, now what? Do you keep distracting yourself, or do you face the issues in life that you have tried to avoid? If you are comfortable in your life right now, keep doing what you are doing. If you want more, it is time to clean up the shop. Focusing on other people doesn’t help because it distracts you from yourself. If you want others to rescue you, they can’t—because that is your job. Using substances just buries the pain, and eventually, the substances no longer work that well. Complaining with other people is, again, another distraction. The constant focus on others needs to be shifted to a constant focus on improving yourself. The good news is people heal—sometimes profoundly.

I’ve been thinking about the time I worked at a luxury residential treatment program in Malibu, and one of my new clients came up to me and told me he was bored and having severe cravings. Between sessions, I had an hour and decided to take him to the beach. (By the way, this client later became the subject of my doctoral dissertation because he had multiple personalities.)

So, there we were, walking along the shore, and he asked if he could go for a swim. Two days before, he had attempted suicide, so I was concerned but decided to allow him to go out in the surf. Well, he swam like a fish. He mentioned afterward that he had been a commercial diver and that some of the best moments in his life happened in the water—so to him, he felt like he was back home. The utter peace on his face that day really impacted me and is something I will never forget. Was he bored then? Of course not. We sat on the sand and talked about life, about his dreams. I found out that in his mid-40s, he had never had a girlfriend. He wanted to improve himself so he could experience a functional relationship—not like the one he saw between his parents, where they always fought and tended to take out their frustration on him, and this had been going on since his birth!

Okay, so how can you heal a person who has had a horrible childhood, almost 60 suicide attempts, a severe substance addiction, and absolutely no self-worth? By showing them love

I worked with this man for a year and showed him how to re-parent himself. He showed amazing growth, and after completing our treatment, he moved back home a changed man. I got a phone call from him three months later, and he informed me that he had just moved in with his girlfriend. Pretty remarkable, but true.

I learned a year later that he died from lung cancer. He had been in remission but kept smoking. I want to think that, at least for a couple of years, he found peace. From time to time, I think about taking him to the beach, to baseball games, and playing catch with him at the park. Sometimes, using unconventional methods is more important than face-to-face talking.

So, buddy—thank you for your love and trust. Thank you for letting me in. I will always remember the first day we met, when two participants brought you into my office saying, “This is the guy we were talking about. He is really going to help you,” and you met me with a hug and cried. I hope I fit that bill.