The Examined Life
A written inquiry
workbook
Chartered Psychologist · Existential Psychotherapist
Before anything can change, we need to see clearly what has been running our choices. Not how we think we operate, or how we would like to. But how we actually have been. This territory begins that process.
Look at your calendar from the past month. What filled it? Note three to five things that took the most time.
For each one: how much was chosen, and how much accumulated without a real decision being made?
When pressure came, what did you keep, and what did you let go first? Think in specifics: a friendship, sleep, creative work, a habit.
Is this the life you want to be choosing? What here reflects a genuine choice? What does not?
Research on human flourishing identifies five elements of a genuinely good life. For each, mark how much space it takes in yours.
Genuine joy, pleasure, gratitude, contentment. Not performed happiness. Actually felt.
Does it matter to you?
Activities that absorb you fully. Where time disappears. Where you are entirely present.
What does this mean to you, and does it matter?
Genuine connection with people who matter to you. Not managed relationships. Real ones.
What does this mean to you, and does it matter?
A sense that what you are doing matters beyond yourself. That it connects to something larger.
Pursuing goals that are genuinely yours. Not inherited definitions of success. Your own.
Looking across all five together, is there a gap between what this reveals and how you say you want to live? What does it ask of you?
Thirty pages. A complete examination, returned to as often as it asks.
Available December 7, 2026
Purchase · $95 →© 2026 Dr. Irem Gunay. All rights reserved.
