Our bodies are conditioned for the demands of life, but what about the deeper challenges of life — loss, uncertainty, meaninglessness and mortality? Existential fitness means strengthening our mental, emotional and spiritual physicality to confront the inherent challenges of living a human life. It’s like working out — it takes consistent effort, slow and steady exposure to aches and pains, and the desire to play through the pain. This phenomenological approach to resilience considers that real strength comes from unification of body, mind, and meaning in advance of the predictable battles that will surely confront us.
Contents
The Philosophy of Resilience Training
Philosophers such as Camus, Sartre and Kierkegaard knew that human life is about confronting fear, absurdity and liberty. Instead of sugarcoating these truths, existential exercises are about enhancing our ability to confront them productively. Viktor Frankl’s life in a concentration camp showed that the capacity to find meaning, rather than one’s power or positive thinking determines one’s psychological well-being in dire conditions.
This differs from positive psychology’s emphasis on happiness and well-being. Tragic optimism, in contrast, puts the emphasis on the development of being able to find meaning and purpose — despite or even because of life’s inherent struggle, loss and limitation.
Physical Foundations of Existential Resilience
The body is the crucible or wellspring of existential fitness, not an instrument for getting things done but a repository to uncover life’s most elementary lessons:
- Pain Tolerance: Building physical pain tolerance allows for emotional and existential pain tolerance
- Acceptance of Limitation: Through the specific limitations of oneworking with physical limitation instead of denial and magical thinking.
- Awareness of Mortality: Physical aging and fragility connect us with our finite selves, enhancing our experience of life
- Embodied Courage: Confronting physical fear in controlled environments (intense workouts, cold exposure, breath work) creates confidence in facing psychological fears
Mental and Emotional Training
If physical fitness entails progressive overload, existential fitness consists in gradually exposing ourselves to life’s fundamental questions and anxieties in manageable doses. Meditation practices and other contemplative techniques help cultivate the ability to be with uncertainty and impermanence. Philosophy cultivates the capacity to question beliefs and assumptions without instantly reaching for ease or closure.
As a point of fact, grief work itself needs to be seen as training at the outset, simply because loss is absolutely inevitable and learning how to process it proficiently forestalls emotional rigidity. Key Principles Values clarification serves as an internal compass for coping with challenging decisions in the absence of available or mixed messages.
Practical Existential Training
- Morning Pages: Daily writing practice for processing thoughts and emotions without judgment
- Mortality Meditation: Regular contemplation of death to increase appreciation for life and clarify priorities
- Meaning-Making Exercises: Regularly asking “What matters most?” and “How can I contribute?” rather than just “What do I want?”
- Solitude Practice: Comfortable time alone to develop self-reliance and inner resources
Even leisure can be a training ground for existential fitness. For example, participating in games of chance such as a live casino serves to remind us that uncertainty, risk and coming to terms with the results are reflections of broader challenges in life.
Wrapping Up
Existential fitness accepts that life’s most difficult challenges aren’t avoidable with efficiency, positive thoughts or accomplishments. Rather, it needs to be continually exercised (much like physical fitness) to build resilience, meaning-making skills and the courage to step into uncertainty with your true self. By learning to train mind and body together for these basic challenges of life, we do not develop invincibility but rather something deeper: the resilience that comes from accepting our humanity while still being willing to engage in its demands, deeply.