If You're Struggling, Remember: Adulting’s Not Always Easy, Humaning Can Be Hard.

As a psychotherapist I want to go on record by saying that life can feel hard. Really hard sometimes.

The daily stuff of our own individual lives — the Adulting and Humaning we’re all called upon to do each and every waking day — isn’t always fun, glamorous or easy. Not at all. I say this not to be a downer, but instead to offer up a big, fat slice of compassion and perspective if you’ve felt alone in your daily struggles of being an adult and being a human.

Every day in my work, I see people shame and blame themselves for struggling with the daily, inevitable stuff of life, and this — the added layer of shaming and blaming on top of an already tough time — can cause so much additional and unnecessary pain and suffering.

So in today’s post I want to share with you my perspective as a psychotherapist about just how hard adulting and humaning can actually be sometimes and share some encouragement if you’ve ever shamed or blamed yourself for struggling with it all, too.

So what exactly is Adulting? What is Humaing?

Adulting, according to Urban Dictionary, is:

Adulting (v): to do grown up things and hold responsibilities such as, a 9-5 job, a mortgage/rent, a car payment, or anything else that makes one think of grown ups.

Adulting then, in my opinion, is the verb for navigating All The Things most of us inherit in our Western society once we join the work-a-day world that can often feel small but challenging when they’re stacked up: Paying the bills and chipping away at retirement, keeping the house stocked in toilet paper, remembering trash and recycling day, finding the time and energy to nurture your relationship with your honey, your friends, your folks, your co-workers, all the while juggling your job, tolerating the commute, scheduling doctor and dentist appointments, etc. etc. etc..

Adulting is a wonderful verb for capturing the external, logistical, daily parts of our adult lives.

Humaning, on the other hand, while it gets tossed around on Buzzfeed, blogs and social media often, doesn’t exactly have an official or unofficial definition yet.

Urban Dictionary doesn’t yet have an entry, and while Merriam-Webster only lists “Human” versus “Humaning,” one part of their “Human” definition feels appropriate and interesting to me:

Human: a: having human form or attributes b: susceptible to or representative of the sympathies and frailties of human nature.

“Susceptible to or representative of the sympathies and frailties of human nature.” Yes.

And what are the frailties of human nature? I’m reminded of what famed psychotherapist Irvin Yalom, MD in his book “Existential Psychotherapy“ said were the four ultimate concerns of a human life, the existential givens of our existence:

Death. Death is inevitable for we are all mortal and this inherently causes some anxiety for all of us.
Freedom and Responsibility. We have freedom in our lives and are responsible for our choices and actions. And coming up against this can cause anxiety.
Isolation. We long to be connected and yet are ultimately fundamentally separate and isolated from one another. And this can cause anxiety.
Meaninglessness. It is ultimately our responsibility to construct the meaning of our lives given life is inherently meaningless. And facing this can cause anxiety.

Humaning then, in my opinion, can be used to describe what happens when we experience the frailties of human nature in our daily lives: Death, sickness, grief, loss, aging, isolation, longing, despair, meaninglessness, etc.

It can also include all the beauty and wonder of our human experience, too: Love, connection, empathy, friendship, purpose and so much more.

Humaning is a perfect verb for capturing the paradoxical challenge and joy of life as a human.

And bottom line: Adulting and Humaning are not always easy.

In fact, much of the time they aren’t. And yet so many of us believe we’re the only ones who are having a challenging time with it all. That sense of shame and isolation that comes from thinking, “I’m the only this is hard for!” is often incredibly painful.

So what follows is some encouragement if you’ve felt challenged by all the Adulting and Humaning your life demands. Come back to it any time you’re feeling alone in the whole being overwhelmed with Life thing. You’re not the only one. Trust me.

When you have to show up to a job you don’t always like every day while still not knowing what you want to be when you grow up and you’re feeling lost and confused, just remember…