To any observer, Sue Hobson led a fulfilling life. A 48-year-old wife and mother of two, she met professional deadlines with aplomb in her fast-paced job as a legal assistant for one of Alberta's top law firms and she was active in her community -- a driving force behind an annual fund-raiser for the University of Alberta Hospital Foundation in Edmonton. In her admittedly rare spare time, Sue played bridge with friends, cross-stitched and cheered with her husband at the hockey games that comprised their regular outings.
A nagging emptiness
But to Sue, life was far from satisfying. Although she loved her work and family and was committed to her volunteer projects and hobbies, she felt dogged by an unaccountable hollowness. As she rushed from activity to activity without really immersing herself in -- or enjoying -- any of them, Sue's mind constantly raced ahead to the next task or deadline. "I was just doing things, going through the motions, operating on autopilot," she recalls.
Sue's situation might sound like a straightforward case of too much to do. But psychologists, who are starting to fully understand hurried-woman syndrome (a term coined for overworked and stressed-out women experiencing fatigue and lack of interest in life's pleasures) would say that Sue had disengaged.
A missing element
More and more of us feel that way these days, says Richard Earle, a psychologist and managing director of the Canadian Institute of Stress in Toronto (visit their website at stresscanada.org). Like some others in his profession, Earle believes that the traditional definition of mental health -- the absence of disorders such as depression and anxiety, along with the presence of effective coping skills -- doesn't explain why so many people with outwardly happy lives, like Sue, are not happy. What's missing, they say, is engagement: an active, conscious embracing of life that ultimately creates contentment and joy.
"A person is living an engaged lifestyle if it nourishes her psychologically, socially and physically," says Earle. An engaged woman has a fantastic feeling of being alive, a sense of satisfaction with all -- or most -- areas of her life and a sense that her time and energy are well spent. She is able to live in the moment, as opposed to dwelling on the past or what lies ahead, and feels alert and energetic more frequently than she does agitated, forgetful or numb. If the latter description is par for the course for you, there's a good chance that life now is simply something that you're letting happen to you, instead of a journey that you are consciously choosing to lead.
The silver lining is that you can become re-engaged in life, says Earle. He maintains that almost all women, using a process he terms "active satisfaction," can increase their enjoyment of any given area of life by 30 per cent. Who could turn down a guarantee like that?
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