Crafting Meaning: How to Find Belonging through Craft

Meaning vs. happiness, feeling good vs. doing good, and how to embrace a crafty community to increase meaning in your life

This post originally appeared in 2018 on the PsychCentral blog Crafting to Heal.

Emily Esfahani Smith has authored a compelling book titled, “The Power of Meaning: Crafting a Life that Matters.” This book isn’t literally about hands-on crafting. Instead, it is a well-researched guide to finding meaning in life. However, her research can be combined with research into how crafting heals to help us in crafting meaning for our lives.

Mental Health: Meaning vs. Happiness

There is nothing wrong with wanting to be happy. However, happiness as an end goal doesn’t actually improve mental health. In fact, striving for happiness can lead to distress. Smith shares two important points.

Feeling Good vs. Doing Good

First, she looks back at history and defines two key terms: