Someone seeking therapy recently phoned me and as soon as I mentioned Viktor Frankl and his book Man’s Search for Meaning she tuned out. She didn’t have anything against Frankl. In fact she said she has lots of meaning in her life but she didn’t see how meaning had anything to do with her issue of not following through with her goals.
What is “meaning?”
Meaning has four aspects. To borrow the framework of four levels of meaning in Jewish textual analysis – pshat (simple/plain/direct meaning), remez (literally “hint” or implied/hidden/deeper/symbolic meaning), drash (literally “inquiry” or allegorical meaning) and sod (mystery, or esoteric meaning) – meaning in life similarly includes a) Simple meaning, b) Meaning-resonance, c) Inquiry and d) Lifeline, spelling the acronym “SMILE.”
The first aspect of meaning is the simple meaning of what we see. As Frankl says, “The therapist should enable the patient to see the world as it is…” (Psychotherapy and Existentialism p. 57)
Getting to the simple meaning consists of a three parts:
a) Paying attention to what you see
b) Hearing its message (what it’s saying to you)
c) Focusing on the important information
Although the meaning presents itself to us simply, our ability to see it is not simple. Our perceptions are influenced by our projections, misperceptions and self-interest which can involve, among other things defensiveness, anxiety, jealousy and resentment. I won’t be able to perceive the meaning as long as I am looking through the distorted lens of my bias.
I can only do my best to put any projections, assumptions and judgments aside and simply see what is. What is going on in the situation? What are other people doing? What am I feeling? If I am as objective as possible, what am I observing?
A five-year-old angrily throws a toy across the room. A woman smiles with tears in her eyes. A shopper’s cart falls over while pushing it to her car. What are these situations saying to us? What is the message? Frankl defines meaning as “what is meant.” People mean something by what they say and situations also imply a meaning. (Will to Meaning, p. 62)
“Situations” don’t “speak” the way a person can speak to us. Nonetheless, the situation clearly has a message in it for me. The message does not necessarily have to be verbal. Seeing the child’s angry reaction I can ascertain that something has not gone his way. I can also see that he’s acting out in the only way he knows how, since he has not yet learned how to verbalize feelings of anger and frustration and needs someone to teach him that. The woman who is smiling through her tears is perhaps struggling with contradictory emotions or trying to conceal her feelings. I can know a little bit from what I’ve observed and I will also know that I am missing information that would give me a fuller picture. The shopper doesn’t have to say a word. The “situation” “speaks,” as if to say, “This woman needs help with her groceries.”
A meaning-message is a message that’s giving us important information – beneficial, life-enhancing, valuable information. The “importance” clause is critical. Focusing on what is significant about what’s happening and not what is insignificant makes a difference to whether you get the message or not.
Situations are jam-packed with messages. We’re constantly getting “messages” about our own and other’s feelings, beliefs, values, struggles, misperceptions, open-ness to hear a different perspective and readiness to change. Even inanimate objects have a message for us. A magnificent sunset of puffy clouds changing hues from orange to blue to purple comes with a message attached: “What a wonderful world!”
One of my clients came to the realization that it wasn’t worth focusing on an annoying habit of one of her relatives, seeing that her negative focus was blocking her from appreciating the person’s compassionate side. “If it has nothing meaningful and positive to say,” she confided, ” it’s not a message for me!”
The “important information” I got from my prospective client was the understanding that there is a problem with the word “meaning.” It sounds too abstract. Therefore I would like to suggest the four aspects mentioned above to make meaning into a more useful (and meaningful!) concept. This will be the first in a series of four blog/newsletter posts on the subject.