"Did I look at the blackness, or did I look at the stars?" Meaning making in stories of spirituality, mental health and recovery.

This qualitative narrative study explores how adults with lived experience of mental health difficulties draw on spirituality to make meaning and support recovery. Thirty participants were interviewed and asked to share their stories of spirituality, mental health and recovery. A narrative thematic analysis approach was developed to explore the superordinate theme of meaning making which comprised three interrelated themes: (1) Reframing, where spirituality enabled participants to adopt a bigger-picture perspective, evolve interpretations over time, and validate experiences; (2) Navigating mythos and logos, describing how symbolic, intuitive and experiential modes of understanding (mythos) were juxtaposed with rational, logical or scientific modes (logos) to support functional sense-making; and (3) Discerning spiritual guidance, in which intuition, synchronicity, dreams, visions and signs informed decisions, identity and coping as part of an evolving process of meaning making. Findings align with Meaning Making Framework theory, highlighting the integration of situational stressors into broader global meaning systems and the value of positive reappraisal. Mythos and logos were typically held in dynamic relationship to support coherence, agency and wellbeing, with mythos emerging as a powerful, often overlooked resource for meaning making via experiences of spiritual guidance. Drawing on findings across all three themes, the VALID (Validate, Attend, Lightly hold, Internal frameworks, Discern collaboratively) Framework for Spiritually Informed Practice is proposed. These are five evidence-derived principles offering practical orientations for engaging with spirituality at the intersection of mental health and recovery. The study offers novel, practice-relevant insights into spirituality as an intrinsic dimension of meaning-making in mental health recovery, highlighting the need to validate diverse spiritual experiences in mental health contexts.