Making Sense
Understanding ourselves, each other, and the experiences that shape us.
Books, reflections and frameworks for making sense of being human.
What is Making Sense?
Making Sense begins with a simple idea: our thoughts, feelings and behaviours make more sense when we understand what has shaped them.
Rather than reducing human experience to labels, quick fixes or simple answers, Making Sense explores the many influences that shape how we understand ourselves, relate to each other and move through the world.
Some of that exploration is written for adults. Some is told through stories for children. The subjects and forms may differ, but the philosophy beneath them remains the same:
Awareness and understanding create far more possibility than judgement, labels or comparison ever can.
Hi, I’m Nevenka
I'm a writer, counsellor, lifelong learner, mum, and someone who has spent a very long time trying to understand why we do the things we do.
My curiosity about people has taken me through more than two decades of study and professional practice across psychology, anthropology, suicidology and philosophy. I hold a Master's degree in Suicidology, alongside qualifications in psychology, counselling and management, with extensive training across a range of therapeutic modalities.
But Making Sense has been shaped by much more than formal education.
It grew from the intersection of what I've learned, what I've lived, and what I've discovered by looking at the things we often accept as “normal” with a little more curiosity. It also grew from something much more personal.
I wanted to create something for my children — a collection of stories, ideas and ways of looking at life that they could return to as they grow. Not answers telling them what to think, but a voice reminding them to stay curious, think for themselves, understand before they judge, and make sense of things in their own way.
That intention has since grown beyond my own children.
I write about the complicated parts of being human in ways that I hope make them a little easier to understand — through reflective books for adults, stories that help children find words for difficult things, or simply an idea that makes someone stop and think.
And when I'm not doing any of that, I'm being a mum, learning something completely unrelated, spending time with people I love, eating delicious food, or sitting up far too late in a dimly lit room with my dog snoring beside me — instead of getting sleep like “normal people.”