Meet Joy Berkheimer, BetterHelp therapist for Becoming Us

Joy will facilitate the October sessions focused on purpose sessions on finding "purpose"

November is here and Becoming Us will be focused on "Purpose" for that month's sessions. Becoming Us, brought to you by BetterHelp, is a group session designed to help us articulate our emotions to better understand how to become better people as we navigate through this journey toward the new normal - whatever that even means - because every day is a new challenge. 

Group sessions are a great way to share stories about how we're dealing with certain struggles. Think about the success of AA.

REGISTER HERE: Becoming Us

For these sessions, a BetterHelp therapist will open up with an overview of the particular topic. A moderator will, mostly me, will ask people to share their stories that relate to the topic, or the group can ask questions, make comments, or just listen. This is about you sharing your stories as a cathartic way to understand your situation and as a way to help others as they can relate to your story, and maybe even be inspired by what you share. 

Q: How do you define purpose?

Purpose is when you know your gifts and strengths, you align them with your passion that affects change for others in a positive, and you give your time, your energy and love away in an intentional way.

Q: What is the best way to get people to think about purpose?

The best way to get people to think about purpose is to remind them of ripple effects. If part of our purpose is to show up as our best self each day, there by giving others permission to also be free to show up as themselves authentically (which is the best self), I like to encourage everyone that just in this small intention, we can impact others in a big way. You have no idea how your intention to connect, to compliment or really listened changed a person's whole outlook on the world or themselves, cultivating another person's awareness of existing, of being strong and of being able to impact another person with their own existence. 

Q: What are the struggles people contend with as they try to find purpose?

People contend with thinking they are supposed to be serving a specific purpose and if they are not, they feel they are someone how feeling. Also, people tend to feel like it has to be this big world-scale change they are making instead of seeing the importance of just their small acts, that do line up with their purpose. 

Q: What happens clinically, when a person is struggling to identify purpose?

When someone is struggling to identify with purpose, they can have what we might call an existential crisis or depression. They may feel there is no reason for them to connect with others, show their face, or even feel like they are a burden to others since they don't feel they are contributing. This can evolve into people self-excluding, exacerbating a depression or on the other hand, feeling so lost they will follow anyone else's mission blindly, which may not line up with their own values, causing a cognitive dissonance (confusion, self-hate, mistrust of one's own thoughts, resentment towards others, jealousy, etc). 

Q: What happens clinically, when that person finds purpose?

When one finds purpose, they have meaning for all of their actions. This helps in keeping you motivated, especially if you know your purpose affects something positive in someone else. You start to identify yourself by your gifts, and not by your faults. You seek out ways to self actualize which keeps you less focused on all that is going wrong. You look for opportunities as opposed to waiting for the other shoe to drop. You feel less depression as depression is a sense of powerlessness. When you explore your strengths and gifts to serve your purpose, you know your power, and therefore are more powerful/less depressed.