Connecting with Your Sense of Meaning and Purpose During COVID-19
Birch Cooper, MHC
The coronavirus has disrupted the rhythm of our daily lives. With this disruption, several of the activities we find meaningful have been sidelined, constrained or altered. For instance, if you find meaning through relationships you may be struggling with a loss of your sense of community as well as limited or changed experiences where you can connect socially. Although important, social distancing can contribute to this. We are wired for community and we cannot feel fully nurtured when our social needs are not met. Those who find meaning through their family may be concerned about members they are physically distant from or they may be having a difficult time with the fact that they are experiencing additionally frequent disagreements and tension with those closest to them. Feelings of intimacy may also be impacted as you spend unprecedented amounts of time with loved ones. Finally, those who enjoy giving back may have seen the organizations they volunteer at temporarily shuttered or the specific skills and supplies of the pandemic may leave them feeling like they are unable to make a difference.
We are all adapting to our new circumstances. As we settle into our new routines it is important to be mindful of meaning and purpose. Meaning is essential for maintaining hope and happiness in the face of adversity. As clinical psychologist Dr. Paul Wong (1998) noted it is also a catalyst for behavior, being a primary motivation second only to survival.
Everyone’s sense of meaning and purpose is different, varied and is a complex combination of personal significance intertwined with what we value. I found reflecting on it particularly relevant because although my experiences have changed as a result of the coronavirus my values have remained the same. To help get you started on reflecting on what is meaningful to you below is a list of potential sources of meaning compiled by clinical psychologist Dr. Paul Wong (1998). Each item may be important to you to varying degrees. Although it can be useful to prioritize the list it may also be helpful to think about items as possessing importance to different degrees or having a relative weight compared to one another:
Achievement and goal striving (agency)
Fair treatment (justice and morality)
Intimacy and family (love)
Relationships (community)
Religion (spirituality)
Self-acceptance (maturity)
Self-transcendence (working toward a larger cause)
As Dr. Viktor Frankl (1984) famously noted, “meaning is discovered not created.” The good news is that we are meaning-making creatures. While I was reflecting on my sense of meaning and purpose I created some questions that I hope will help you connect with yours. Thinking about them can be useful, but I recommend reflecting on each question, then creating a journal entry by putting your answers down on paper.
What aspects of my life do I find grounding?
What are some things that I would like to experience on a daily basis during quarantine?
What would “living my best life” during shelter-in-place look like?
How will I or did I take care of myself today?
What am I passionate about?
What did I find meaningful before social distancing and shelter-in-place and what are some ways I can keep them alive?
In what way do I like to help other people?
Do I know anyone who I can help this week?
As I mentioned the answers to these questions helped me connect with my sense of meaning and purpose in my life. I hope you will also find them useful. Insight into what provides you with a sense of purpose and identify experiences that you find meaningful is useful, but taking action to create, nurture and maintain these aspects is also important. To help you follow through and “live it” setting some goals to strive for can be beneficial. Connecting with your sense of purpose and pursuing things that you find meaningful is a lifelong process for what you find meaningful and important can change over time. To illustrate this point I leave you with a quote by psychiatrist Dr. Viktor Frankl.
“For the meaning of life differs from person to person, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person's life at a given moment.”
Frankl, V. E. (1984). Man’s search for meaning: An introduction to logotherapy. Riverside, NJ: Simon & Schuster.
Wong, P. T. P., & Fry, P. S. (Eds.). (1998). The human quest for meaning: A handbook of psychological research and clinical applications. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.