And while I truly hope that 2016 brings greater ease and peace in the course of world events, as a psychotherapist I also want to go on record by saying that no matter what’s going on at a global level, the daily stuff of our own individual lives – the adulting and humaning we’re all called upon to do each and every waking day – will likely still feel very hard at times in 2016. Because, Life.

I say this not to be a downer, but instead to offer up a big, fat slice of compassion and perspective if you’ve felt alone in your daily struggles of being an adult and being a human.

Everyday in my work, I see people shame and blame themselves for struggling with the daily, inevitable stuff of life, and this — the added layer of shaming and blaming on top of an already tough time — can cause so much additional and unnecessary pain and suffering.

So in today’s blog post I want to share with you my perspective as a psychotherapist about just how hard adulting and humaning can actually be sometimes and share some encouragement if you’ve ever shamed or blamed yourself for struggling with it all, too.

Pour yourself a mug of something warm, and keep reading…

So What Exactly is Adulting? What’s Humaning?

Confession: I love Buzzfeed. In addition to appreciating their news coverage, mental health advocacy and awareness campaigns, and – of course! – quizzes, Buzzfeed helps me (for better or for worse) stay plugged into the Millenial cultural lexicon. It’s where I first heard the terms Adulting and Humaning, life verbs I’ve since really come to appreciate and use in my work with clients.

So what exactly do these terms mean?

Adulting, according to Urban Dictionary, is:

Adulting (v): to do grown up things and hold responsibilities such as, a 9-5 job, a mortgage/rent, a car payment, or anything else that makes one think of grown ups.

Adulting then, in my opinion, is the verb for navigating All The Things most of us inherit in our Western society once we join the work-a-day world that can often feel small but challenging when they’re stacked up. Paying the bills and chipping away at retirement. Keeping the house stocked in toilet paper. Remembering trash and recycling day, finding the time and energy to nurture your relationship with your honey, your friends, your folks, your co-workers, all the while juggling your job, tolerating the commute, scheduling doctor and dentist appointments, etc.

Adulting is a wonderful verb for capturing the external, logistical, daily parts of our adult lives.

Humaning, on the other hand, while it gets tossed around on Buzzfeed, blogs, and social media often, doesn’t exactly have an official or unofficial definition yet.

Urban Dictionary doesn’t yet have an entry, and while Merriam-Webster only lists “Human” versus “Humaning”, one part of their “Human” definition feels appropriate and interesting to me.