Beginning to Live

Transform your life with existentialist psychology -- deepen your sense of identity, find new meaning in your interests and relationships, and discover how awakening to freedom helps you get better with age. How can we find our own direction and purpose? When life feels too much, is it possible to free ourselves from the concerns that weigh us down? Whether you’re in therapy or prefer to find your own way through life’s struggles, pioneering therapist Emmy van Deurzen offers a lifeline for rebuilding trust in the world. Beginning to Live is a practical invitation to step back and discover what really matters by considering each of the four key aspects of our experience in turn: physical, social, personal, and spiritual. Harnessing over fifty years' experience, this book is filled with wisdom and moving stories that show how to deal with dilemmas and difficulties of every kind, so that even when survival takes all you have, you can rekindle confidence in your own abilities and revitalize your capacity to relate to others. It is not about a quality of personality or character, which you either have or don’t have, van Deurzen shows. It is about a way of being, which is available to each of us – enabling us all to find a more engaged way of living that is purposeful, deliberate and buoyant. Your future is a work of art in progress. And it starts here.