It may be a truth of the human condition that our understanding that our lives are fragile and finite comes with sadness, anxiety, and perhaps even fear.  The permanence, irreversibility and inevitability of death stand in such sharp contrast to the transient and ephemeral quality of our human lives, sometimes threatening to make them feel pointless and moot. From the perspective of meaning in life, death and the end of our lives represent just one of many important seasons of meaning. There are season for growing, reveling, communing, and renewing our engagement in life, and of course there is a season for endings. In this perspective it is not the concept of death that scares us as much as the notion that we might reach the end of our life and realize that we never truly lived. Meaning may give us an antidote for our fears of death and annihilation, not because it denies such realities, but because it sustains our desire and commitment to live, regardless of which season of meaning we experience. This workshop explores what research shows about the relations among meaning, attitudes toward death, and flourishing. Further, this workshop invites attendees to engage in experiential explorations of how meaning awareness may both benefit from meaning, and support it.

“The meaning of human existence is based upon its irreversible quality. An individual's responsibility in life must therefore be understood in terms of temporality and singularity" (Viktor Frankl).

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

• Understand how death has been discussed in psychology and meaning studies.

• Learn empirical findings regarding relations among death attitudes, meaning, and flourishing.

• Engage with our “Seasons of Meaning” approach as a way to contextualize death within the broader scope of a full life.

• Practice experiential activities that create insight regarding death attitudes and to utilize death as a potential source of meaning.

• Share personal views on death in a supportive environment to facilitate self-discovery and meaning-seeking.