People walk around with a meaning-making system in their head and they’re seldom aware of how much it impacts everything about them. Much of what I do in therapy is help people become aware of their meaning-making system and how it’s causing them pain. A component of everyone’s meaning-making system is something philosophers call a worldview. A worldview is a set of beliefs about things like:
- What does it mean to be a human being?
- What is the nature of the world?
- What’s wrong with the world and why do things go wrong?
- How can what’s wrong with the world be fixed?
The beliefs you build around these questions guide you and your interactions with the world (and people) in an almost invisible way. You’re probably not even aware of how you feel about these things until your life gets turned upside down. For example, You may think human beings are nothing more than evolved animals with complex ways of thinking and behaving that allows them to get what they want in a complex social world. People can’t just take what they want (Although they would if they could) they need to develop the social skills to get what they want from people in a nuanced way. At some point in life, you find you need help with something and someone comes along and does just that. Unconsciously you believe this individual is helping you because they want something. You engage the world around you with suspicion because you know how people are and you need to protect yourself from their inherently selfish drives.
This belief may allow you to function in the world, but it may also keep you from being happy and enjoying healthy fulfilling relationships. The beliefs you have about the above subject areas will impact how you engage the world around you. Because of that, I want to encourage you to spend a little time exploring your meaning-making machine that guides your interactions with the world. What is a human being? Are they merely physical creatures, do they have souls, can they be good creatures or are they only evil creatures cloaked in kindness to get what they want? Is the world created with a design and purpose or is it a randomly evolved biosphere merely meant to nourish life? Why do bad things happen to good people? How can people live in the world in a way that limits the bad things that happen? All of these are good questions to explore.
It is my hope that by spending some time digging into the meaning-making system you have in your head you can see where some of these beliefs have handicapped your ability to thrive, live a fulfilling life, and enjoy other people. Much of what you carry around in your head are merely beliefs you’ve held on to in order to make sense of the world at a time when you were struggling. They may not be necessary beliefs but merely constructed lies that helped you when you needed them. Sometimes the world changes and therefore some of your fundamental belief propositions might need to change as well. I am not a relativist; I believe there are fundamental truths that human beings need to embrace and in doing so they can thrive. However, I do know people often carry around useless ideas they used to cope with in a bad situation from the past that no longer serves them well. Let’s see if you can get rid of some of those.
Dominick D. Hankle PhD 