I read a post recently on Substack written by a gifted contributor I follow,
. It spoke to me in my ongoing quest to understand the nature of being human.The title of the post is, “Modern Emptiness and the Search for Meaning” and it highlights a significant contribution by Dr. Viktor Frankel who lived between 1905 and 1977. Dr. Frankel was the founder of Logotherapy – a model of psychotherapy that places humans’ search for meaning as their central motivational force.
Prior to reading this post, I hadn’t heard of Dr. Frankel nor his body of work. Today, I feel eternally grateful for this chance-encounter, courtesy of
, that draws me into a state of contemplation around “meaning” and the human life.A little background.
Dr. Frankel was an Austrian born man of Jewish faith who was kidnapped by the Nazi’s in 1942, along with his family, and sent to the concentration camps. While he miraculously survived, tragically his beloved family (including his pregnant wife), did not.
Dr. Frankel experienced and observed the horrors of the holocaust through the mind of a psychologist, and as a result, came to better understand a theory he’d been working on for awhile.
In Dr. Frankel’s own words:
The human being cannot live in a condition of emptiness for very long: if he is not growing toward something, he does not merely stagnate; the pent-up potentialities turn into morbidity and despair, and eventually into destructive activities.
Dr. Frankel observed that the people trapped in the camps who attached themselves to meaning (like returning to a family member, or helping others survive), were better able to survive the horrors, than those who did not. In the absence of meaning as motivational force, he observed that the risk of injury, disease, and death grew far greater.
Frankel’s theory of “meaning” is a radical departure from Dr. Sigmund Freud's precept that “pleasure seeking” is the primary motivator. Similarly, Frankel departs from another prominent psychologist of the 20th century, Dr. Alfred Adler, who held that human motivation is driven not by meaning, but by one’s thirst for power and social belonging.
Both Dr. Freud and Dr. Adler’s theories, while compelling, land as mere ‘coping mechanisms within Dr. Frankel’s model that pegs pleasure and power seeking as distractions from one’s own experience of emptiness.
Interesting! How prophetic these words are today!
When I look around at the vocal minority’s violent response to Covid, climate change, and culture shifts, I see distraught humans easily taken over by conspiracy theories and hate. Could this violence be their ultimate response to meaninglessness?
Dr. Frankel calls out the vast potential of the human psyche. He warns that if that potential is not tended to, it can turn on the host and drive a person mad.
Work~Life Doula
In my life’s work as Work~Life Doula (my own made-up title that seems to fit), I’ve spent over twenty years bearing witness to hundreds and hundreds of people locked in a search for meaning with work.
As such, I’ve witnessed both the highest highs and lowest lows, which includes, on one end, mourning the death of a client who was murdered during the great recession by his employee who feared being laid off, and on the other end, celebrating individuals for taking chances that ended up transforming their lives and every life they touched, for the better.
I’ve seen people turn their stable lives upside down and quit a “good job” in order to root out a creeping sense of stagnation. Their quest for meaning was so strong that it overrode their ego’s desperate need for safety. The bravery of such actions never fail to both surprise and inspire me.
Meaning = Soul Fire
Through my own experience as Doula, I have find myself today in agreement with Dr. Frankel’s theory. In fact, I’ll even add my own flourish – “the human drive for meaning is an extension of one’s own soul fire”. And I don’t mean soul in the religious context, but rather soul in the context of one’s Qi – of one’s own life force, or fire.
To live outside of connection to one’s soul is to wander the earth in a state of perpetual abandonment – cast out in the cold. The soul yearns for union. It yearns for beauty, love, meaning, creation. Why else do we celebrate and desperately need the artists who walk among us?
Because they channel soul.
Contemplation
Let’s not wait for a post script to draw the question of meaning up, out, and into our heart~minds. So, I’ll ask it right here, right now . . .
Where do you derive meaning in your life?
Is it in caring for your children?
Is it in cultivating your garden?
Is it in seeding unconditional love in the world?
Is it story telling, the healing arts, your cultivation of beauty?
What might it be, for you?
This may be the first time you’ve even asked yourself this penetrating question. But, isn’t it time?
You are more than your job.
You are more than your purpose.
You are more even than that which brings you meaning.
You are your Soul on Fire.
Homeopathic Stories
Another way to center on meaning and one’s soul is through the reading of stories and poems that surprise the mind and delight the soul.
Last week in my Thursday evening gathering of the Monarchs (see Way of the Monarch below), I cried. Actually, correct that, I more like wailed over the brilliance of life and its vast expressions of love.
The trigger that got me going was a flash story I read aloud for all called “The Gift Shop”, written by my friend and writing mentor,
.Bob shares his flash stories here on Substack in WordOrder, and these stories will get your blood moving!
Bob has added hashtags to his stories so you can find and drop into what ever you most crave, emotionally. He lists his available hashtags on his “about” page. Once you narrow in on one, just drop it into the search bar and choose from what surfaces.
Get ready for some fun, and some feels!
Way of the Monarch
And for anyone feeling the soulful ache to shed the trappings of an anxious world and finally feel, see, create, connect, love, and fly without limits – you’re invited to enter the ‘Way of the Monarch’ with me, anytime.
‘Way of the Monarch’ is a slow study into heart~mindfulness. It follows the hero’s journey of the Monarch Butterfly, which synchs with the beautiful drama of being human.
You can learn more here and join anytime you feel called.
These times! What a tender and tumultuous epoch we find ourselves in.
What a perfect time to finally set ourselves free!
As you describe Dr. Frankel's work, what jumps out, at least to me, is that the theories of Freud and Adler were essentially outward facing, grounded in what a person wants or expects from the world, whereas Frankel's work is inward facing, grounded in a connection to the soul and, ultimately (seems to me) what soul-seeking and personal growth can contribute to the world. It's a fundamental difference in theories that can radically impact how we experience life day-to-day, which is, after all, essentially how we live it, whether we like it or not. Thank you for the illumination!