Spiritual · Existential
Existential Givens Worksheet (Yalom)
Death, freedom, isolation, meaninglessness
Irvin Yalom names four existential givens: death, freedom, isolation, meaninglessness. This sheet lets you sit with the one that's loudest — and stop treating it as a personal failure.
Which given is loudest right now
- Death — my own, someone I love, mortality generally
- Freedom — the vertigo of authorship, the weight of choosing
- Isolation — the unbridgeable aloneness underneath even good relationships
- Meaninglessness — the ache of no given script
What it's stirring in me
What I'm choosing to do with it
Not solve — respond. Live more deliberately, love harder, make meaning, build something, sit still
These aren't your fault
Existential givens aren't symptoms. They're the terms of being human. Naming them often loosens their grip more than fixing ever could.