25 Sep MEANING MAKING

Hello All!

I was recently reminded of the importance of being a part of what I’ll call the “meaning making” process both personally and interpersonally.

We are designed to make and assign meaning to everything that happens in our lives. It is so potent and powerful in helping to create the belief structures that we use to navigate the world, that I believe it may form the basic foundation of our conditioning.

I have two scenarios for you to ponder. One is a scenario where a parent gets frustrated with their child’s behavior, so visibly frustrated that they need to walk away from the situation to prevent yelling at the child. The parent eventually calms down and comes back to apologize to the child, they hug and it gets left at that.

The second scenario involves two romantic partners. During the course of an evening out, they get into what starts as a friendly debate, but which quickly escalates and ends with each sleeping in different spaces. The next morning they apologize to one another and go about their weekend.

What do you think? Is it all good? Have the folks in these scenarios repaired and rectified these little ruptures? Perhaps. Perhaps there has truly been some repair and things are back to a “normal” that feels OK. However, I would argue that there wasn’t any attention paid to the meaning being assigned in everyone’s minds.

We have no idea how that child interpreted what happened, what their “meaning making mind” determined that experience to be. We don’t know if this will contribute to a narrative or story that the parent is unpredictable, or scary, or they could come to the conclusion that they are responsible for the parent’s reaction, helping to lay the groundwork for a co-dependent relational paradigm that they will begin to live by. We don’t know if the romantic partners conclude that the other person is “crazy”, or over-reacts, or that they are just plain in-sensitive to the other’s feelings and needs. Maybe the parent concludes that their child is too much, spoiled, or instead that they are a bad parent.

The truth is, unless part of the repair process includes a full examination of what the trigger was, what the interpretive thoughts were, what the feelings were, and what the needs were, we aren’t an active participant in the meaning making process and therefore have no say in the creation of the beliefs that we use to see and navigate the world.

Be an active participant in yours and other’s meaning making process. Shine the light of awareness on these little moments that actually shape who we become and determine how we perceive and act. The world needs people who are consciously involved in their own becoming and the becoming of others so that we can create the world we want to live in.

Yours in Warmth,

Tony