Feeling lost or disconnected from your life’s purpose? Therapy can help you uncover meaning, align with your values, and create a more fulfilling path forward.  I remember sitting in my therapist’s office for the third time, staring at the floor as I admitted, “I just don’t see the point anymore.” It wasn’t depression in the clinical sense, I wasn’t suicidal but life had started to feel like a series of tasks with no deeper significance. Work, bills, small talk, repeat. My therapist didn’t rush to reassure me or offer quick fixes. Instead, she asked a question that would change everything: “When was the last time you felt truly alive?” That session began my unexpected journey of using therapy not just to manage emotions, but to excavate my buried sense of purpose. I’d assumed therapy was for “fixing” problems, anxiety, trauma, relationship issues not for answering life’s biggest questions. But as we peeled back the layers, I discovered that purpose isn’t something you find like a lost set of keys. It’s something you uncover within yourself, often hidden beneath fear, societal expectations, and outdated self-narratives. 

Like many high achievers, I had mistaken external validation for purpose. Straight A’s led to a prestigious degree, which led to a respectable career. But the more “successful” I became by conventional standards, the more hollow it felt. My therapist helped me recognize this as existential dissonance, the disconnect between what we’re “supposed” to want and what truly resonates with our authentic selves. She challenged me to consider what my life would look like if no one was watching, judging, or applauding. Would I still choose this path? The question terrified me because I wasn’t sure of the answer. 

We began exploring my values through simple but profound exercises. One involved sorting cards labeled with different principles—creativity, security, community, independence, into piles of importance. I was shocked to see “status” near the top of my stack while “curiosity,” something I cherished as a child, had sunk to the bottom. Another exercise had me describe moments of flow, those times when I lost track of hours because I was so engaged. Patterns emerged that my resume would never show: I came alive when teaching others, solving complex puzzles, and being near water. My therapist called these “clues to your soul’s language.” 

The real breakthrough came when we examined my avoidance behaviors. I’d been filling every spare moment with podcasts, social media, and errands anything to avoid sitting with myself. In the silence of therapy sessions, long-buried yearnings surfaced: to write, to mentor young women in my field, to live somewhere with seasons instead of endless summer. I realized I wasn’t lacking purpose; I was drowning it out with noise and busyness. My therapist compared it to trying to hear a whisper at a rock concert, sometimes you need to create quiet to discern what matters. 

Childhood memories became unexpected treasure maps. We revisited my eight-year-old self who turned the backyard into elaborate fantasy worlds, my teenage self who wrote terrible poetry about justice, my college self who organized campus protests. These weren’t random phases but expressions of core drivers creativity, fairness, community that had gotten buried under adult “shoulds.” My therapist had me write letters to these younger versions, not with nostalgia but to identify threads of meaning that still wanted weaving into my present life. 

Relationships became mirrors reflecting my growth. My therapist noticed how my voice changed when discussing certain friends, the environmental lawyer who inspired me, the cousin whose artistic courage intimidated me. She had me track energy levels after social interactions: who left me feeling expanded versus drained? Gradually, I began reshaping my inner circle to include more people living purposeful lives in ways that resonated with my emerging self-understanding. 

Therapy also helped me distinguish between purpose and passion—they’re not the same. Passion burns hot but can flicker; purpose provides steady warmth. My therapist shared Viktor Frankl’s wisdom that meaning often comes not from what we want from life, but what life wants from us. This shifted my focus from “finding my purpose” to recognizing how purpose might already be expressing itself through my natural talents, recurring challenges, and even my pain points. 

Practical changes emerged organically from this deeper work. I negotiated a four-day workweek to volunteer with youth. Started waking early to write before the world demanded my attention. Said no to social obligations that left me depleted. None of these were on my original “fix my life” list when I first sought therapy, yet they’ve created more alignment than any productivity hack or vision board ever did. 

The most surprising outcome? My anxiety symptoms lessened as my sense of purpose grew. The late-night dread about “wasting my life” faded when I began living days that reflected my authentic values. My therapist explained this mind-body connection: when our outer life aligns with our inner truth, the nervous system often settles. It’s not that problems disappear, but they become challenges to navigate rather than existential threats. 

Now when I feel untethered, I return to a simple question my therapist taught me: “What feels meaningful right now?” The answer might be as small as making soup for a sick neighbor or as large as changing careers. Purpose isn’t one grand destination but daily choices that honor who we are at our core. Therapy gave me the tools to keep listening for that quiet, persistent voice beneath society’s shouts and my own fears, the one that always remembers the way home to myself. 

References

Fortems, C., Dezutter, J., Dewitte, L., & Vanhooren, S. (2022). The mediating role of meaning in life between the therapeutic relationship and therapy outcome in person-centered and experiential psychotherapies. *Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapies, 21*(1), 73–93. https://doi.org/10.1080/14779757.2021.1938184

National Institute of Mental Health. (2024, January 1). Caring for your mental health. https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/caring-for-your-mental-health

Eryilmaz, A. (2024). A journey to self-discovery: Assessing the 52-week rebirth program with positive psychotherapy. *The Global Psychotherapist, 4*(2), 23-36. https://www.positum.org/ppt_artticles/eryilmaz-a-2024-lkj230/

Schippers, M. C., & Ziegler, N. (2019, December 13). Life crafting as a way to find purpose and meaning in life. *Frontiers in Psychology, 10*, 2778. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6923189/