Since I lost all my previous blog posts, I’ve been having difficulty building the stock up. I’m stuck. They call this writers’ block, that’s the generic name anyway. The specific problem goes something like this:
I have a small idea, something that’s occurred to me during the day. I start to write about it and then I get to the part where I have to bring it all together and wrap it up with some kind of pithy observation. Then I dry up, banality getting the better of me. I save what I’ve done so far and move to another activity. Postless, again.
I have been thinking about meaning making recently and how drawn to it I am. Something happens, something trivial or something big, and I will spend a lot of time, plus intellectual and emotional effort, working out what’s going on, what the point is, what the lessons, what the meaning.
This isn’t how I work with clients. In fact, if I notice a client searching for meaning in the way I find myself doing, I might say something like:
I notice it’s important for you to make meaning from this. Can you tell me about that?
or (a little later in the conversation)
What would happen if you allowed this experience to just happen, without meaning?
We could question this question of meaning, and perhaps what lack of meaning … erm … means. We might begin, if the client wants to, to explore the downsides of meaning making and what their world might like if acceptance took its place.
So, from now on, or at least sometimes, I am going to offer observations without meaning. Try to, at least. That’s more reflective of life, in any case, isn’t it? Things happen, you hear something, you see something … oh no … I can’t get away from it. I’m making meaning of no meaning. Time to post.
