Meaning-Making

[Introduction to, 9 Keys to Meaning-Making: Transpersonal Psychology , ?2023]

How do we create a life of meaning and purpose? What is the meaning of one’s life?

Religions have all aimed to answer this question since their inception, and for many, their religious beliefs are sufficient. Others don’t identify as religious but as ‘spiritual’ in pursuing a life of meaning and seeking a sense of the transpersonal: interconnection with all sentient beings, and at one with the cosmos, perhaps also seeing a ‘higher power’ – as the collective unconscious of humanity, or as their own superego, the most exalted aspects of the self (Sonnex et al., 2022; Vanhooren et al., 2022).

Still others, identifying neither as religious nor spiritual, may find meaning in a life philosophy, a sense of morals and ethics as they strive to be a good and decent human being concerned with the welfare of others and contributing to the greater good. Sources of meaning are also typically found in relationships – in the act of raising children, and in our social bonds with family and friends, intimate partners, and the greater society: colleagues, neighbors, fellow citizens, and interestingly, especially in shared positivity (Prinzing et al., 2023). We can find meaning in our creativity (Vanhooren et al., 2022), in our professional work, and in ways that we contribute: volunteerism and altruism, kindness and compassion, which we can further identify and emphasize through our gratitude and mindfulness (Lin et al., 2020). The natural world and our relationship to it provides yet another, often deeply felt, source of meaning.

Perhaps life itself, and the crafting of same, carries sufficient meaning (Schippers & Zeigler, 2019). The meaning of one’s existence may well be existence itself, both individually and en masse, and in the here and now – and the fully experienced enjoyment and celebration of it. Being in love with life may well be enough.

The benefits to our health that presence of meaning brings are clear. Presence of meaning contributes to wellbeing (Fischer et al., 2021), mental health (Li et al., 2019), resilience (Grossman, 2022; Ostafin & Proulx, 2020), and life satisfaction (Wolfram, 2022), and has been seen to promote healing (Grossman, 2022); it’s also critical to healthy aging, in both resilience (Mohseni et al., 2019) and in dealing with death anxiety (Brudek & Sekowski, 2021; Dursun et al., 2022). In times of extreme stress our presence of meaning can be shaken or even shattered; however, it can also serve as a buffer or protection of our mental health in such times, as evidenced during the recent pandemic (Arslan & Allen, 2022; de Jong et al., 2020; Humphrey & Vari, 2021).

One’s presence of meaning can be promoted in a number of ways. In a review of 33 studies on meaning-making conducted 2000-2020, Manco and Hamby (2021) identified interventions of mindfulness, narrative (life review; nonspiritual reminiscence), prosocial behavior (compassion, altruism, etc.), psychotherapy, psychoeducation, and spiritual reminiscence. Of these, mindfulness and narrative were noted especially useful for both discerning and constructing personal meaning.

The science regarding ‘life meaning’, an exceedingly subjective term, is far from clear. It’s been variously deemed an illusion and esoteric preoccupation, a rare quality achieved through morality, and a necessity of human existence (King & Hicks, 2021). When thought of not as the broader concept of ‘meaning of life’ but as one of personal meaning, our experience and mental state, it becomes more understandable – and measurable. Positive affect, social connection, religion and worldview, self-understanding, and mortality awareness have all been attributed to presence of meaning – as well as mental time travel, or the ability to project oneself into past, present, future, and even alternate realities (King & Hicks).

It’s also useful to differentiate between ‘presence of meaning’ and ‘search for meaning’, both of which are assessed by the Meaning in Life Questionnaire (Steger et al., 2006). These related constructs, relevant to both subjective and psychological forms of wellbeing, are not always present at the same time, however (Li et al., 2021). Presence of meaning is related more closely to trait or characteristic, a generally stable condition; the search for meaning is especially prevalent in times of tragedy or loss, when one’s sense of personal meaning has been shattered. We seek to make sense of and find meaning in catastrophe as a means of coping, in re-establishing a sense of stability or balance (Chu & Fung, 2021).

Transpersonal psychology, emerging more than a half-century ago from a backdrop of Jungian, humanistic, and depth psychologies, seeks to explore the spiritual realm of human experience – religion, metaphysics, mystical experience, states of consciousness, the unknown and the transcendent; vitally important to a majority of humans, this area of experience has been typically ignored in the larger field of psychology, as unscientific and therefore best left to theology and philosophy instead (Yakov, 2020). The transpersonal approach to psychology includes this spiritual realm as an essential part of what it means to be human – a vital component in both mental health and illness. As such, our search for and crafting of personal life meaning is a central focus of psychology’s transpersonal branch (Friedman, 2014).

We humans, having moved far from our instinctive animal natures of simple existence, seek congruence everywhere; we look for patterns and signs, we seek to understand our purpose in being, and without a sense that our life matters in some way, without that understanding of its meaning and purpose, tend to fall into despondency or worse. We have become a ‘meaning-making’ species, and along with other forms of intelligence, ‘spiritual intelligence’ as a schema has been recently explored (Skrzypińska, 2021; S?ylemez & Ko?, 2019; Watts & Dorobantu, 2023).

At the start of each new journal, in a practice spanning 40+ years thus far, I write on its first page just one phrase: “…remember who I am…”. We employ a variety of methods for self-awareness, and for me, journaling is one of many – but as both writer and psychologist, an important one. My understanding of identity is not only that of a careful crafting but also one of discovery; ideally, we develop the self throughout the lifespan, in a deliberate, handcrafted engagement, but there is a parallel process of largely spontaneous discovery, of our own unconscious.

Transpersonal psychology undertakes to explore the psyche in personal, interpersonal, and transpersonal aspects, the latter inclusive of self-transcendence. And how does this intersect with the construction of meaning? By including all factors that bring a sense of meaning and purpose, not only personal and social but spiritual as well – and by allowing for the transcendence of the self altogether, as our highest achievement and source of meaning, and one of advanced psychological development (Lin et al., 2020; Papaleontiou–Louca et al., 2022).

Transpersonal approaches to meaning-making fall into several categories: attentional (guided imagery, hypnosis, meditation, mindfulness, neurofeedback), biological (psychedelics / entheogens), depth psychotherapy (especially psychosynthesis), and somatic (e.g., holotropic breathwork, body therapies) (Friedman, 2014). In approaching the unconscious through various altered states, two qualities stand out: ineffability, experience which feels so profound that it cannot be put into words (Brockmeier, 2002; James, 1902), and noesis, an inner wisdom or direct knowing (Wahbeh, Fry, & Speirn, 2022).

Due to the transpersonal field’s emphasis on altered states of consciousness and mystical phenomena within the spiritual or metaphysical aspects of human experience, it has been inaccurately associated with the ‘New Age’ parapsychology movement, both having emerged around the same time. Transcendent states of consciousness have been biologically mapped (Church et al., 2022) and neurologically established (Rosmarin et al., 2022; Valverde, 2022). It was transpersonal psychology research that first introduced the Buddhist practice of mindfulness to western psychology, now applied across multiple disciplines. Transpersonal psychology also closely aligns with the current renaissance of psychedelic research, in alteration of consciousness and associated mystical phenomena, and its broad applications to mental health (Hearn, 2021).

It is of interest that the term ‘psychedelic’, though commonly used to refer to a class of drugs, is an adjective, and as such, can also be used to describe a wide array of transpersonal, mystical experiences (Hauskeller & Sj?stedt-Hughes, 2022). Breeksema and van Elk (2021) also point out that ‘mystical-type experience’ is a human phenomenon, scientifically based and thus able to be studied, as distinct from ‘mysticism’ which refers to the realm of the unknowable.

It is further important to note that, while too often used interchangeably, ‘mystical’ and ‘metaphysical’ are not synonymous; the former refers to specific events outside of ordinary understanding, while the latter is a defensible philosophical construct (Sj?stedt-Hughes, 2023). Both, however, relate to the field of transpersonal psychology in its quest to reintegrate the religious, spiritual, or metaphysical aspect of human experience into the study and understanding of the human psyche.

In this book, we will explore 9 keys for meaning-making that fall within the transpersonal psychology spectrum. We begin with authenticity which, in any discussion on presence of meaning, is an essential starting point; this is followed by noetic experience, or accessing inner wisdom, and then our 3rd key, somatic experience or the knowledge and wisdom of the body. We move next to mindfulness, and onward to our 5th key, altered states of consciousness and the associated mystical experience.

One of the hallmarks of the transpersonal framework is beyond-ego psychology, or self-transcendence. Our 6th key explores this concept in its form of ego attenuation, aka the ‘quiet ego’. From there we explore two primary phenomena of mystical experience, universal interconnectedness and the oceanic state or boundlessness. Our final key is self-transcendence and ego dissolution or ego death, arguably the ultimate in meaning construction.

We end with a bonus section: spiritual emergence vs emergency. As we take a transpersonal approach to meaning-making, we are deliberately engaging in altered states of consciousness including changes to the ego structure itself; while methods outlined have been widely used and are entirely safe, they aim toward a restructuring of the psyche which at times can feel unsettling – and we will explore this.

Let’s begin our journey, shall we?

9 Keys to Meaning-Making, by Anne Hilty, ?2023

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