Meaning Making: Becoming the Creative Artist of Your Life
Lucia Brizzi
Empowering networks of connected leaders with Success Circles. Owner of Next Level / Leadership. Coach, trainer, speaker, writer.
Last weekend, I celebrated my birthday alone in the woods processing a loss. It was one of the best birthdays of my life.
I've been an actor since childhood. As an actor, you lack many aspects of creative control, from the words your character says to the clothing they wear. Many actors are typecast—stuck in the same limited kind of role—their entire career. So what creative control does an actor have? Their choice and artistry lies in the meaning they make of the script they're handed, or "script interpretation."
In our real lives, we often feel similarly lacking in choice. We may feel like the actor, not liking the script we feel stuck in or the role we feel cast in. Like the actor, our control and artistry lies in our meaning-making. This is the truth of the idea that we "create our own reality."
Thankfully, we are not actors in our lives. We are not stuck in a prewritten story. As we consciously grow through our present moment, we can become co-writers of our futures. This is why my tearful, all-alone birthday in the woods was so... wonderful. I was accessing my power to consciously evolve. I was being a creative artist in my life.
The switch from playing a role in our lives to becoming dynamic co-creators lies in our ability to see challenge as growth opportunity. Transforming challenges into catalysts for growth is all about the meaning we ascribe to the script we're handed.
Our personal narratives profoundly affect the impact life's events have on us. Through COVID-19, meaning-making predicted less psychological distress during and after. Meaning-making is linked to post-traumatic growth—the resilience people can gain after recovering from trauma.
After losing her husband, former Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg became a student of post-traumatic growth. The main practice she used and recommends for it is simple but far from easy—gratitude. As she says, "It is the irony of all ironies to experience tragedy and come out of it feeling more fortunate than ever. While I would give anything to go back to the moment before Dave died, I'm also grateful for the ability to appreciate each day more fully."
Becoming the Creative Artist of Your Life
Creativity is accessed when we are relaxed and slightly happy. To see anew, think lightly.
Consider a challenge you're going through.
Now ask yourself the question: What if this were perfect?
We are not saying this is perfect. It is blatantly, perhaps intolerably, not perfect.
And what if this challenge is setting you up for something greater? What if there's a lesson, a strength, or a stretch on the other side?
To play with this idea in your journal, complete the sentence stem: "This is perfect because..."
Whatever comes up add, "Yes, and this is perfect because..."
Go as far as you can. Then further. Stop when you hit on the core of it. It might be...
Any good script is a setup to take the character on a ride that changes them. That's why we watch. Will Walter White soften into a loving father or harden into a ruthless criminal? Will Dorothy discover her power within or get lost in the madness of Oz?
Remarkable people have emerged from deep hardship. Others collapse. The difference? Their meaning-making capabilities—the stories they choose to tell themselves about their experiences.
To examine the meaning you are currently making, listen to the stories you are telling about your current challenge:
The beauty of meaning-making is that you can rewrite these stories. You don't have to believe the new narrative. Just play with it.
In a journal or with a coach, explore these questions:
We naturally make meaning in the rear view. Looking back, we can see how lows led to highs. The great challenge and opportunity is to make meaning as we go, experiencing the blessing of conscious evolution in real time. I drove home from my birthday weekend grateful, looking forward, with strength. The show, as they say, must go on.
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