There are times in life when the ground beneath us shifts, and the things that once felt steady or certain suddenly stop making sense. When the certainties we once trusted in no longer apply, and the familiar meanings we’ve built our lives around begin to unravel, we find ourselves in a space that can feel both empty and full of possibility.
This is what I think of as a crisis of meaning—the crossroads where I so often meet the people I have the privilege to walk with in therapy.
Crises of meaning test the strength of the frameworks that help us understand who we are and why we’re here. They ask: What can you still hold onto when everything else feels uncertain? Sometimes, the answer is: nothing. Sometimes, bouncing back and rejoining life as usual is no longer an option.
At their most useful, crises of meaning are portals. They break us open so we can grow into new, more expansive versions of ourselves. At their most damaging, they can cause us to collapse inward, disengaging from others, losing interest in what once mattered, or losing trust in life itself.
These crises don’t only emerge from catastrophe. They often arise through life’s natural turning points: aging, parenthood, loss, illness, or major decisions that alter our path. They can also appear quietly, when the life we’ve built no longer feels like our own.
I’ve lived through one myself. When I battled cancer a decade ago, while first building my practice, the meaning I’d built my life around began to crumble. I realized that I was being pressed to reexamine what I valued, how I worked, and what I gave my energy to. That experience reshaped the foundation of how I live and work today. Because of that crisis of meaning, I envisioned and then designed a more grounded, spacious, and integrated life.
Over the years, I’ve gotten to walk with many people through their own similar transformations. There was the new mom who realized her high-paying executive job, once a marker of success, had begun to feel completely soulless. Her crisis of meaning pushed her to walk away from her career and build a life centered on what she found truly nourishing: her creative passions and her family.
There was also the middle-aged man, haunted for decades by his fear of dying, who had a near-death experience and emerged from it with a newfound peace. His crisis led him to get certified as a death doula, accompanying others at the end of life with compassion and grace.
Creating meaning is one of our most defining human capacities. We can’t help but interpret our experiences, weaving stories that help us understand who we are and what our lives are about. When the meaning that once steadied us no longer fits, we’re given a chance to look again—to revise the story with greater honesty and intention. That’s what makes these moments so profoundly transformative.
A crisis of meaning can be a rupture, yes; but it can also be a rebirth. It can serve as a reminder that meaning isn’t something we find out there; it’s something we continually create. We can learn to meet life’s unexpected turns with curiosity rather than resistance. And we can recognize that when things stop making sense, it may be life’s way of calling us closer to what’s real.
