Meditation and Meaning Making in Coping With Spiritual Struggles: A Phenomenological Study

Spiritual struggles are a cause of considerable distress, and the outcomes can be both negative and positive. However, the current literature offers very little about the spiritual beliefs that form individuals' meaning systems. The purpose of this qualitative, phenomenological research study was to investigate the meaning making experiences of people who have effectively coped with a spiritual struggle using meditation. Meaning was analyzed using a theory of global meaning where the meaning system is made up of three aspects: beliefs, goals, and feelings (Park, 2013). The primary question investigated was: What are participants' lived experiences of meditation on the sense of meaning in life with regards to beliefs, goals, and feelings and how can this be used to understand effective coping of spiritual struggles? Using a purposive, criterion-based sample, eight meditators who have previously experienced a spiritual struggle were interviewed using a hermeneutic phenomenological approach to data analysis. Results found that meditation was used by the participants to construct meaning in all three areas of global meaning. Data collected from this study suggest that mental health professionals should become familiar with meaning-based coping and integrate meditation into treatment to support recovery and resolution of spiritual struggles.