The Prevailing Cure For The Puer and Puella Aeternus – Part V
Conquer The Puer Aeternus and Puella Aeterna V
20.01.25
This is the 5th part of my Conquer The Puer and Puella Aeternus Series.
Today, we’ll explore the final piece to heal the Puer Aeternus and practical steps to stop caring about what other people think and creating a meaningful life
Meaningful Work
Since I can remember, I have wanted to be good at something. I wanted to find that one thing I could feel was mine, something I could master and share with others. Not everyone has this void, but I certainly did. This longing made me start many different endeavors, but my belief in myself was so low that I could never stick with anything long enough to truly develop myself.
I remember this period, it must have been 5th or 6th grade, in which the whole school was extremely engaged with football. Every PE class felt like a championship and I was unexpectedly good at being a goalkeeper. People would fight for me and for a fat clumsy kid, this was surreal.
This was the first moment I remember feeling appreciated. In this same period, I asked my parents to enroll me in a proper football school. I remember being so excited but unfortunately, this only lasted a couple of months. Soon after I got in, I broke a toe and had to stop entirely.
I can’t say exactly why, but I never came back. Maybe I felt it wasn’t for me or my childish mind wasn’t strong enough to persist. At 32, I have a better understanding. I know I was after the feeling of being good at something rather than becoming an athlete.
I still love doing sports but my natural abilities aren’t in this area. I was always meant to understand the mysteries of the psyche and translate them into an accessible language to others, but this only became crystal clear to me about 4 years ago.
Before this, I was very indecisive. I studied business for a semester, which is honestly laughable. The mere thought of working in a company gives me crippling anxiety. Then I switched to marketing and I did that for a whole year.
It was better but still meaningless. What made my heart beat faster was music, but again, I was afraid to pursue it. Resistance took the best of me until in a surge of courage and inspiration, I decided to enroll in music school.
This was the first important decision I ever made in my life. Looking back, it represents the first step in my individuation journey and separation from my parents. With this decision, I experienced a new vitality that affected everything.
This was the moment I bought my precarious but invaluable home gym, and my depression and anxiety finally started fading. Music was the first thing I ever took seriously in my life and I was willing to do whatever it took to become good at it. I’d practice hours and hours every day and this brought meaning and direction to my life.
I didn’t know at the time, but these were my first experiences with the flow state, one of the keys to living a meaningful life and a powerful antidote to other people’s judgments and opinions. When you find something that demands skill and you can do it for hours regardless of external pressure, you may have found a gift.
You see, people think that achieving meaning is something static, like a final destination. This may have a philosophical value but in practice, I believe meaning lies in being fully immersed in something deeply valuable and putting it in service of other people. It’s internal and external and selfish and selfless at the same time.
In my experience as a therapist, 99% of people know exactly what they want to do with their lives. The problem is always fear. Maybe they’re afraid of disappointing their parents or facing the judgment of other people. Maybe they’re afraid of failure and don’t feel confident in their abilities. Or maybe, they’re afraid of being vulnerable and following their souls.
However, it’s only on this sacred path that you can feel truly fulfilled. That’s why the first key to living a meaningful life and unlocking the flow state is deeply caring about something. You must allow yourself to be fully affected by it. Most people feel lost and succumb to nihilism because they avoid this responsibility, after all once you care about something this immediately puts you in a vulnerable position.
Suddenly, the stakes are high, you have skin in the game, and you know that everything depends on you. The excuses you had are gone, either you act on it or you’ll continue to feel anxious and depressed. Being in this position is exactly what triggers the flow state, and this is the moment you feel truly alive and start being driven by purpose.
When you commit to exploring your potential and authentic desires you can tap into an endless source of motivation. When you’re guided by something greater than you, work doesn’t feel like work and you unlock an effortless state.
Instead of being guided by fear and avoiding mistakes, you suddenly find yourself being sustained by inspiration. This may sound a bit “woo-woo” but my poetic argumentation is backed by neuroscience and the positive psychology field.
Authentic Happiness – The Flow State
Martin Seligmann, in his book Authentic Happiness, explores three types of happiness. The first one is the Pleasant Life. It consists of maximizing pleasant bodily sensations like eating a great Italian pasta accompanied by a pretentious glass of Pinot Noir.
It’s undeniable that’s important to learn how to enjoy these moments. As they say in Argentina, “Disfrutar la buena comida”. But we also know that these moments are very fleeting and devoting a life to seeking pleasure quickly becomes poisonous to the body and soul.
The second kind of happiness is the Good Life or Engaged Life. This layer consists of exploring our potential and cultivating our virtues and strengths. It’s directly linked with experiencing the flow state or being “In the zone”.
This state allows you to be fully immersed in an activity that’s deeply pleasurable and rewarding. It is autotelic, in other words, the enjoyment of the activity itself is the payoff*.* That’s why flow is the secret to unleashing intrinsic motivation.
Finally, the third layer of happiness is the Meaningful Life. This last dimension evokes a sense of meaning and purpose. This happens the moment we put our talents in service of others and the higher good. This unlocks a new layer of the human experience and a deeper sense of lasting fulfillment.
Now, if you’ve been paying attention, the secret lies in learning to unlock the flow state as the third layer is dependent on that. Flow is a concept created by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and he describes it as a state of complete absorption in an autotelic activity, in which the challenges perfectly match the individual’s skill.
However, recent research discovered that true flow only occurs when the skills and the challenges are high. That’s why people who experience this state are constantly pushing their boundaries since the better you get the more you’re rewarded with flow.
Moreover, experiencing flow has incredible benefits, some even feel made up, such as boosting our productivity by 500% without feeling burnt out, and tremendously enhancing our creativity and learning capacities. Here’s a list of benefits from The Rise of Superman by Steven Kotler, the most respected researcher in the field:
- A heightened sense of engagement, enjoyment, and satisfaction.
- Improved emotional regulation and a reduction in negative emotions such as worry, self-doubt, and fear.
- Intense focus and concentration that helps prevent the intrusion of negative or distressing thoughts.
- A release of pent-up emotions, especially when engaging in activities that involve physical movement or creative expression.
- Steady levels of motivation.
- Boosted self-confidence and self-efficacy.
- An improved overall mood and sense of well-being.
These benefits alone are incredible but experiencing flow can be a lot more profound. In fact, flow used to be studied as religious experiences by the psychologist William James, as peak experiences by Abraham Maslow, and finally, as numinous experiences by Carl Jung.
We’ll cover that in the chapter about archetypes but the description of religious and flow experiences perfectly align with one another, such as experiencing time dilation, being fully present, and a sensation that you’re merging with external elements and even other people.
This happens especially in creative settings, in which we feel like a higher force is guiding us and we’re a channel translating the messages of the creative spirit. When you’re playing music, you suddenly feel one with your instrument, it’s as if your hands are moving by themselves and you’re transported to another plane.
When you’re doing sports, your senses are heightened, you’re more agile and can predict everybody’s movements. In flow, you’re more creative and always find new connections and unexpected answers. As Steven Kotler says, flow allows real magic to happen.
Every time you experience this state, you feel more alive and it unlocks a deeper layer of the human experience that fills our hearts with joy and inspiration. Moreover, flow can potentially give us a sense of meaning and purpose when shared with others.
As you can see, religious experiences aren’t limited to traditional religious settings, they happen especially when we’re fully committed to mastering a craft. That’s why the traditional advice of “follow your passions” is simultaneously great and terrible advice.
First, it’s great because our passions often uncover fields in which we’re more prone to experiencing flow. But it’s also terrible because experiencing flow is dependent on mastering a craft. In other words, a sense of enjoyment only comes when you devote time to developing an ability. The better you get at something, the more fulfillment and motivation you experience.
Creating Meaning
Now, I’ve encountered many people who claim to not have any talents and are disconnected from their true aspirations. In this case, I see two major tendencies. First, they’re judging themselves through the wrong set of values and cultural standards, remember the life-script? Second, they don’t want to bear any responsibilities and allow Resistance to win.
Once more, this conceals a passive childish attitude that expects everything to just fall on their laps, and the infantile desire to be magically good at something without putting any effort. That’s why it’s important to break all illusions regarding talents because the Puer often thinks that God blessed certain individuals who are magically good in their fields.
The truth is that having a talent simply means that you have the potential to excel in something but you still have to put in the work. Some people even defend that the concept of talent is completely irrelevant and only hard work counts. My position is somewhere in the middle. I do believe that people have certain aptitudes but without dedication they are useless.
For instance, I could apply all of my efforts to learning physics, but I’d never be as good as I am in psychology. That’s why we must commit to developing a craft that’s aligned with our natural tendencies and abilities. Once we do that, experiencing flow is simply a byproduct.
That’s why it’s important to challenge the unconscious scripts running our lives and uncover our true personalities. We do that by devoting time to exploring our true interests, giving life to our dormant abilities, and going our own way. We can only shift our values through concrete action.
The next step is understanding how our crafts can enrich other people’s lives and finally create meaning. To accomplish that, we have to explore what it truly means to be in service of other people because the Puer and Puella Aeternus have a great tendency to people-pleasing.
This gives them the illusion that they’re always selflessly living for others. However, they fail to recognize that every action has an ulterior motive. They’re “sacrificing” themselves because they always expect something in return. That’s why every relationship is inauthentic and a mere transaction.
But the harsh truth is that people-pleasing has a narcissistic core. An infantile ego makes you live in a realm of projections and makes you believe the world revolves around you and everyone must be at your disposal. However, to find meaning we must go beyond the ego, break free from selfish power pursuits, and be in service of the Self.
Now, this people-pleasing tendency has its roots in the external sense of self-worth we previously discussed, consequently, the Puer tends to be exclusively motivated by gaining the approval of others and external pressure. When it comes to his own projects, paralyzing perfectionism and procrastination usually win.
By now, you already know this is part of his desire to remain childish and by passively relying on what other people expect of him, he can avoid the responsibility of creating his own life and making his own decisions. That’s why the Puer must learn how to do things out of his own volition regardless of external pressure.
It’s important to be decisive about how you want to live your life, take a stance, and stop being a hostage to other people’s judgments and opinions. We already covered the first step which is reconnecting with the body and the practical aspects of life.
But we can take things to the next level with the flow state since in flow, there isn’t a final goal. We’re not concerned with how good we look for others, we’re doing it because it’s pleasurable, deeply rewarding, and exploring our gifts is inspiring.
I often experience this state when I’m playing music or writing, I get transported to another dimension and feel the creative spirit moving through me. However, we can only access the flow state when we deeply care about something and allow ourselves to be fully affected by it. When something has this level of importance in our lives suddenly, what other people think stops mattering so much.
It’s not that we stop caring completely nor should this be the goal, but we have access to something so potent that what other people think becomes irrelevant. We unlock intrinsic motivation and we’re fueled by the desire to excel and constantly achieve new heights.
We shift the external sense of self-worth to following what brings us joy, that’s why flow is a powerful antidote to perfectionism and people-pleasing. Moreover, we fall in love with challenges and doing hard things because they expand who we are.
As a client of mine once said, “Most people live comfortably miserable lives”. That’s why to find meaning, we must follow Resistance and put ourselves in situations that demand growth. We must give ourselves no other choice but to go all in. That’s how we earn self-confidence, by choosing to do the hard thing and building our “bank of evidence”.
Now, it’s important to realize that flow can be experienced completely alone, like when you’re grinding in the gym or running, or when you’re expressing your creative potential. When we enter this state, profound shifts can happen and we access powerful internal resources that can be transported to other areas.
Moreover, experiencing flow in one area primes you to experience this state in all other dimensions of your life. For instance, pushing your body to its limits or taking creative risks, allows you to do the same in your relationships or business.
That’s why you don’t necessarily have to turn your flow activity into a profession, but to experience true meaning, the expression of your talents must be attached to a vision and a bigger picture. Simply put, the more responsibility we accept, the more meaning we experience.
Interestingly, the values of the soul are often in direct opposition to the image of perfection we want to project on the world since following our hearts always demands vulnerability. But when we’re open to the Self, we feel like we’re at the service of something transcendent, and what we do matters.
When we’re thinking about giving up, powerful synchronicities allow us to rise above our fears and persevere. Truth always contains both the rational and the irrational but in tough moments, it’s usually the latter that sustains us. Jung says irrational means extra rational or beyond reason. In other words, it’s something that transcends pure logic, it’s an invaluable knowledge from the heart.
In reality, things aren’t easier because we’re following our authentic paths but by engaging with our souls, meaning is unraveled. But It’s not something static, meaning is experienced within the relationship with the soul. Meaning has to be created ever anew with each step we take.
“But I’m not ready!”, you might be thinking. Steven Pressfield says we become ready in the process and I couldn’t agree more. Each step we take prepares us for the next one. We’re not supposed to see the finished whole. In Joseph Campbell’s words: “If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it’s not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That’s why it’s your path”.
In conclusion, first, you need the courage to accept your authentic desires and gifts, once you find something valuable, you must commit to turning it into a craft. Finally, you put your talents in service of other people, in service of something greater than you, in service of the Self.
Rafael Krüger – Live an Audacious Life
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