A well-known psychologist, Gordon Wheeler, maintains that we are natural meaning-makers. It’s in our nature to make meaning of everything we encounter. As he puts it “We cannot NOT do this.”
We can’t help ourselves. Making meaning, for us, is essential to who we are.

I see this as how we are hopeful, and that hope – that feeling deep inside us that wells up when we wonder about what we might encounter and connect with as we begin to walk through a path in the forest, or prepare to meet someone we care about, or get into doing something we love to do.
Hope keeps us moving.

Sometimes, when we lose a loved one, when a loved one leaves us, when we lose some capacity to do what we love, we also lose that hopefulness, for a while.

When that time happens, and it happens to us all, it’s so important to keep in mind – and in our heart – that hope and meaning will return. We only need to stay for that moment, and the next after that.

I sometimes wonder how I will measure my life at the end.
Some say that plants teach us to keep growing, no matter what crosses our path or what twists and turns we need to take, always growing towards the light. That’s how I want to measure my life at the end.

Feeling a bit out of balance and trying to find your way back to a life of meaning? Click here to learn about the Restoring Your Balance Online Course, created by Registered Psychotherapist, Maryanne Nicholls.

 

Turning surviving into thriving through hope