When Life Stops Making Sense

Elderly man in a suit and red tie wearing headphones, smiling with eyes closed, dancing with one arm raised against a plain background.

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.

Want a Better Life? Do Less, Be More

a person sitting on top of a cliff.

Take a moment to ask yourself the following questions:

  • When was the last time I jumped out of bed in the morning with the energy of a child, eager to face the day?  
  • When did I last take a moment to pause, look up at the sky, and marvel at its vastness? 
  • What was the last thing I did that made me feel completely and utterly in love with myself?
  • How long has it been since I had a meaningful interaction with another person?
  • When was the last time I felt fully satisfied with the life I’m living?

Chances are you had a difficult time answering a few, if not all, of those questions. Most people do.

In our increasingly fast-paced society, in which we glorify being busy and contend with countless demands on our time, life can often feel like a struggle to keep up. Emails flood our inboxes at a frenzied pace, and every issue in our lives seems to require our immediate attention. Our technology keeps us flooded with information that’s impossible to keep up with, and we’re in a constant state of sensory overload. It’s no wonder we often feel exhausted and (ironically) disconnected so much of the time.

Don’t get me wrong, much can be gained from working hard, seeking advancement, and making the most of the technology available to us. The problem is that it comes at quite a cost.

Here’s the thing. There’s a reason we’re called human beings and not human doings. Although we’re highly capable of doing, we were designed for being. And when we allow ourselves to slow down and just be, we discover how much we’re missing and overlooking when we’re zipping through life at lightning speed.

Shifting from doing mode to being mode can create a monumental shift in our experience of life. When we make this shift, we start to feel more centered, more balanced, more grounded, more connected. We start deliberately using our five senses to encounter the world around us. We start getting curious about our internal experience, noticing our thoughts and emotions as they arise. We start to get intentional about engaging with everything that surrounds us, including other human beings. We start discovering and enjoying the miraculous nature of being alive.

People who learn how to create the shift from doing to being tend to have a positive outlook on life. They tend to find their relationships meaningful and satisfying. Most importantly, they tend to experience deep love for themselves and their lives.

Are you interested in becoming one of those people? I’m happy to tell you that you can be. It’s only a matter of practice.

The best way to begin the practice of doing less and being more is to create small rituals and commit to carrying them out each day. You might start by doing something as simple as setting an alarm on your phone that goes off 5 times a day. Each time the alarm goes off, you stop whatever you’re doing and take 5 full, deep breaths, allowing yourself to rest your attention completely on the sensation of breathing. Another entry point to being mode is meditation. You might begin by searching YouTube for guided meditations, choosing one you feel comfortable with, and doing it 2 times a week.

When you commit to living more intentionally, you’re committing to a life of more vitality and deeper awareness. You’re giving yourself the gift of living life more fully, with a greater sense of purpose. I welcome you to explore some other ways you can engage your natural state of being, and I invite you to stay tuned for more posts here at Evergreen Therapy that will guide your journey toward slowing down and tuning in.