Finding Your Ground

Finding Your Ground
A 12-Week Existential Therapy Workbook — grounded in the work of Irvin D. Yalom
Facing what is given — death, freedom, isolation, and meaning — and choosing how to live in its presence.
Reflexive Truths PLLCIndividual · Group · Facilitated Use
How to Use This Workbook
This workbook is a companion for a twelve-week journey through existential therapy, organized around Yalom's four "ultimate concerns" — the unavoidable facts of being human that, when faced honestly, become sources of clarity rather than dread: death, freedom, isolation, and meaning. Each concern is explored over three weeks, following a consistent rhythm: orientation, reflective questions, a guiding response, a weekly practice, and a check-in. No prior philosophical background is needed — only willingness to look at your life directly.
Individually
A structured self-reflection and journaling practice.
In Therapy
Between-session homework a clinician assigns and reviews.
In a Group / IOP
Weeks anchor discussion; members share at their own comfort level.
No wrong answers
Existential work values honesty over correctness.
Discomfort is data
It often signals you are near something important — not a reason to stop.
Go at your own pace
A week may take longer than seven days, and that is fine.
Safety note: Existential exploration can surface strong emotions. This workbook is a reflective tool, not a substitute for professional care. If you feel overwhelmed or unsafe, reach out to your therapist or call/text 988 (U.S. Suicide and Crisis Lifeline).
The Twelve Weeks
The Four Ultimate Concerns
Each part of this workbook invites you to face one of the inescapable facts of human existence — not to despair, but to live more honestly and deliberately in its presence.
Part One · Death
Awareness of mortality sharpens life. Weeks 1–3 move from facing finitude, to learning what death teaches, to living toward your values rather than away from your fears. "The physical fact of death destroys us, but the idea of death may save us." — Yalom
Part Two · Freedom
We are always choosing — even when we say we have no choice. Weeks 4–6 examine hidden choices, the responsibility we avoid, and what stands between wishing and deciding. "We are our choices." — Sartre
Part Three · Isolation
Each of us enters and leaves the world alone. Weeks 7–9 explore existential aloneness, the difference between using others and truly meeting them, and connection without losing yourself. "The sharing of that aloneness can be an act of love." — Yalom
Part Four · Meaning
Meaning is made, not found. Weeks 10–12 map your sources of meaning, deepen engagement with what matters, and close with an existential charter to carry forward. "The meaning of life is to give life meaning." — Frankl
Continuing the Work
Ways to Keep Going
Revisit any week that still feels unfinished — the questions deepen on return.
Keep a brief existential journal, even a line a day, to stay in contact with what matters.
Share this work with a therapist or trusted person; aloneness eases in the telling.
Re-read your Week 12 charter periodically and revise it as you change.
A Closing Reflection
Sooner or later, we have to give up the hope for a better past. And begin, instead, to author the future.
— In the spirit of existential therapy
Finishing these twelve weeks is a beginning, not a conclusion. The four ultimate concerns will keep arriving in new forms. The aim was never to resolve them — but to change your relationship to them, moving from avoidance toward honest, chosen engagement with being alive.
Reflexive Truths PLLCExistential · Depth-Oriented Psychotherapy