Can I Be Here? Längle's First Fundamental Motivation

Before we ask ourselves whether we enjoy life, whether we can be ourselves, or what we are here for, there is a more basic and quieter question that holds up all the others: can I be here? It is the first of the four fundamental motivations of Existential Analysis, and it concerns our relationship with the world. Its guiding question, as Alfried Längle formulates it, is at once simple and unsettling: I am here, but can I be? Can I, under the concrete conditions of my life, truly exist in this world?

This article goes deeper into that first motivation: what it needs in order to develop, why the body is its ground, what happens when it fails, and how to begin strengthening it in everyday life.

The greatest event: “I am”

Längle starts from an observation we tend to overlook precisely because it is so obvious: the greatest event is having come into the world, simply being here. “I am! Under all the circumstances of life, I am. I exist.” That is, for Existential Analysis, the ontological basis of our life, the starting point for everything else. But knowing it i

ntellectually is not enough; it has to be experienced, felt in the body and in contact with the world.

Precisely because being here seems so obvious to us, we stop paying attention to it, and so we can lose access to that ground. Längle describes it with an everyday image: children play with this basic structure of existence when they hide and let themselves be found, when suddenly they are “not there” and then “are there again”. Recovering the wonder that one exists at all, that “it fell to me to be, to me of all people, here, in this world and in this time”, is a way of reconnecting with that foundation of being that is always available.

The three conditions: protection, space, and support

In order to answer yes to the question “can I be here?”, a human being needs three things in every situation: protection, space, and support. Längle explains it with the metaphor of a house: the walls and the roof protect us from the rain and the cold; the interior creates a living space in which to dwell; and the floor gives us the support on which we can stand.

When a person feels continuously protected, supported, and safe, they develop what Längle calls fundamental trust: a serene certainty that being itself holds them, which stands against underlying anxiety. Only then can they, at last, be here. It is worth pausing on each of these three conditions, because each has its own texture and its own way of being strengthened.

Protection: feeling in good hands

Protection answers the question of what constitutes the “walls” of the house of our existence. It has a physical side and a psychological and spiritual one. Physically, we need protection from the threats of nature and of other people: safety from violence, stable social conditions, a reliable environment. But the best psychological protection we receive is when we are accepted: in a conversation where we are listened to attentively, in a relationship, at work, in faith. When someone is accepted, they feel that all is well, as though they were “in good hands”.

Each person's biography weighs heavily here: how much acceptance they received throughout their life from the people who mattered to them, or how much insecurity they carry in relation to close bonds. The person also needs protection on the spiritual level, and receives it above all through the recognition and respect of others. When this protection is missing, insecurity and mistrust develop, and sometimes wounds tied to experiences such as betrayal, an accident, an illness, violence, or the death of loved ones.

Space: having room to breathe

Space is the most forgotten of the three conditions, and yet it is indispensable for being-here. Längle distinguishes several levels: physical space, a place where one can be and that others also grant us; psychological space in relationships, in the family, at work, in one's own life story; space in the face of one's own problems, thoughts, and feelings; and spiritual space for thinking, feeling, experiencing, and developing.

But it is not enough simply to have the space of existence: it has to be cared for, inhabited from within and, when necessary, defended too. Längle uses a beautiful image: to “colonize” one's own space, a word that comes from the Latin colere, “to cultivate, to care for”. A space that is inhabited and protected becomes a home and, in a wider perspective, a homeland. And there is a detail that gives this idea great force: the first space we have in this world is our own body, and the most elemental experience of having enough space is breathing, “having air”. The lungs are, Längle says, the bodily representation of this first fundamental motivation.

Support: what holds us in life

Support is the firm ground on which we can lean. We find it, first of all, in the world: in everything that stands against us and offers us resistance by being something solid and stable, such as the earth beneath our feet, the laws of nature, everything that happens with regularity. But we also find support within ourselves. The first is a healthy body, with its stability and that quality of always being there with me, unchanging, despite the constant fluctuations of psychic life and outer changes.

From there, many other factors give support: the experience of one's own abilities, the firmness of one's own positions and convictions, the clarity of what one knows, the reliability of one's own feelings and, finally, the ultimate and all-gathering support that many people find in faith or in a worldview. Thanks to all of this, the sense arises that something holds you in this life, and it is that sense which awakens the courage needed to live. When someone leans on what gives them support, they are trusting; and precisely because they trust in their supports, they can also renounce something, let go, release.

Taking your own space: not being a tenant in your own life

There is a nuance of this first motivation that often goes unnoticed: space is not only

received, it also has to be taken. Längle speaks of a kind of charge, coming from the body and from the world, addressed to the person: “Create your space, occupy it, fill it, be fully there, decide to be present, do not let yourself be displaced. Settle in wherever you are, because that is where your world is, that is where you can be at home.”

Other people giving us space, accepting us, makes this “taking possession” of our own existence enormously easier; it is easier to inhabit one's own life when we are invited to do so. But if one does not then take up that ground oneself, one remains a tenant in one's own life and never comes to own it. And that breeds dependence: whoever cannot accept their own strengths and weaknesses, whoever rejects their life conditions, ends up begging all the more for the acceptance of others, asking them to do what they cannot manage to do for themselves: accept themselves.

An important reciprocity appears here. We can hardly accept ourselves fully if no one else accepts us; both are needed, in a back and forth. That is why, when the people close to us deny us space, when they reject our ideas, needs, or longings, it is worth fighting for it. And when the other does not give it to us, there always remains the possibility of taking it ourselves, because we need space in order to live. A life that has no space to develop withers and slowly dies.

The body as the ground of “being able to be”

Existential Analysis considers the body to be the very ground of our capacity to be, because the three conditions (protection, space, and support) are experienced, first of all, bodily. The sense of being able to exist is something physical: feeling the support of the ground beneath our feet, being able to breathe freely, feeling at ease in our own skin. Längle takes it even to the most elemental experience: filling the lungs is inhabiting our “inner space”; to breathe is, literally, to take space.

The body is our first space, our most immediate protection, and our most constant support: the one thing that remains reliably there through every emotional storm and every outer change. Most of the time it provides us with support, protection, and space without our noticing. This is why reconnecting with the body (resting, moving, breathing, listening to what it tells us) is not a minor act of self-care but a direct path toward that fundamental trust of feeling that, whatever happens, we can be here.

Accepting what is, even what hurts

The hardest part of this motivation appears when what has to be “let be” is a form of suffering: a pain, an anxiety, a depression. We do not want it, and we try to get rid of it by every means: distraction, alcohol, medication, arguments, outbursts. The underlying fear is: “I cannot live with this anxiety, it leaves me no space”. But Längle invites us to look at it differently. Sometimes it is we ourselves who take away our own space, because we do not accept life as it is, but cling instead to an idea of how it ought to be in order to be a good life.

Everything we do not want to accept, we first have to accept in order to then be able to transform it. “Accept it, because it is there. What is there cannot not be there. Certainly, it does not have to stay that way. But right now this anxiety is here, and it is your anxiety; this sadness is yours. As long as you do not want to have it, it robs you of your basis for existing. If you accept it, if you take it into your hands, perhaps you can transform it.” Accepting is not resigning oneself: it is the precondition for being able to change anything.

When it fails: anxiety

The pathology proper to the first motivation is anxiety. In it, the lack of protection, space, and support makes itself painfully felt, and as a consequence the capacity to endure and the capacity to accept both fail. Anxiety, Längle says, is the feeling of not being able to “be safe” under the given conditions. When contact with that “ground of being” is missing, life becomes shot through with fear: every small setback, every deviation from the usual becomes a threat, and even joy becomes suspect.

Chronic worry, a sense of insecurity, or the fear that the ground might give way at any moment are signs that this first motivation needs attention. Interestingly, Längle also observes that aggression has its roots here: whoever becomes aggressive usually feels cornered, backed against the wall, without living space. And conversely, where there is enough space, peace can reign.

From “I can be here” to what comes next

The first motivation is the foundation on which the other three rest. It is hard to enjoy life,

to be oneself, or to find meaning if underneath it all the basic certainty is missing that one can, simply, be here. That is why, when something feels out of place, it usually helps to return to this ground: to recover protection, to take one's own space, and to find support again, often beginning with the body.

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References

This article is based on the work of Alfried Längle, Existenzanalyse und Logotherapie (Existential Analysis and Logotherapy), Stuttgart: Verlag W. Kohlhammer, 2021, and Lehrbuch zur Existenzanalyse: Grundlagen (Textbook of Existential Analysis: Foundations), Vienna: Facultas, 2013. Längle developed Existential Analysis from the work of Viktor Frankl and is the founder of the International Society for Existential Analysis and Logotherapy (GLE-International).