Meaning-making is the process through which an event, feeling, memory or image comes to signify something to you.
A delay becomes rejection. A compliment becomes proof that you must remain the capable one. A new interest becomes a question about the life you want.
Meaning is not an optional decoration added after experience. It can influence what you feel and do next.
What did this come to mean about you?
Someone doesn’t answer your invitation. The missing reply is one fact. "I shouldn’t have asked" is another step.
How did the first become the second? What expectation, memory or relationship makes that connection feel natural?
The Hidden Hero’s Journey explores this through six domains, giving identity, perception, emotion, instinct, culture and awareness different places on its map. You can follow a connection without requiring one explanation to account for the whole experience.
A fuller meaning isn’t necessarily a happier story. It is one that makes room for more of what happened and more of what you can now choose.
Interpretation examines a particular account. Narrative identity looks at the larger stories into which one event can be recruited.
Noba’s Self and Identity, by Dan P. McAdams, explores how life stories contribute to identity. It offers background for the movement from a particular event to an account of who you are.