Embody your Purpose
Your purpose is who you are. It is a part of you that longs to be expressed
and embodied. That’s what you are here for, so get to it!
Are you stuffing your days with a “quick succession of busy nothings?” Jane Austen had it right when she had her protagonist speak these words. Some people feel happy with working in a reasonably decent environment to earn a living, spending time with their loved ones and watching TV or practicing a hobby on their spare time. That’s a good life for them. But there are others ~are you among them?~ to whom this routine spells death. If you are one these people, understand this:
Your Soul is older.
You are called to another order.
Just survival is ~for you~ torture.
You were made for a vaster purpose.
Nothing will do for you except to understand, embody and practice the purpose for which you were created. You came here to serve a larger scope.
I’m always amazed at people who feel totally satisfied to work doing “whatever.” This may be something they “fell into” or a craft or field that they learned when they got their first job. They’ve continued with it because they know about it so they keep getting jobs about it. They are not particularly passionate about this. But it allows them to earn a living. So as long as the work environment is half-way decent, they feel satisfied.
This truly mystifies me. It took me a long time to realize that I could not be like that, and there was nothing wrong with them or me. I came to realize that we had been built for different roads and comparing ourselves would be like comparing a BMW to a bus. It would make no sense.
If just working in whatever to make a buck ~no matter how good a buck~ feels like they are degutting you; if just taking care of the family and ignoring what is going on in the world shrinks you and if considering dying without leaving a legacy to the next generations makes you whimper, welcome to my tribe of purpose-driven women.
Not sure yet if you have been blessed (or cursed) with a BIG why? Here are some questions that may get you clear. See how many you can answer with a resonant Yes.
- When you think of dying, you want to make sure that you’ve left a meaningful legacy to the next generations; beyond what your children may inherit. Otherwise, you’d feel like you did not fully complete your life cycle.
- Being comfortable in a life routine does NOT bring you satisfaction if you are ignoring your Soul’s calling… and your Soul is calling you to something deeper, more expansive.
- Your Comfort Zone is often very uncomfortable because you long to stretch, expand and transform.
- You have a message that you must deliver to humanity. It may be a book you must write, a movement you want to create or a new way of looking at something that you want to share.
- You have overcome serious challenges. Your story reads like a novel. And you have extracted rich wisdom, skills, systems, philosophies that you simply MUST share with those who are going through similar stuff. Your heart goes out to them. You MUST help them.
- By definition your gifts demand that you share them with an audience. You are an artist, healer, teacher, transformation agent, author, performer, inventor, explorer, leader, thinker, seeker or spiritual worker. In other words, you can’t just work to earn a living, regardless of the meaning and effect of your work.
If you said YES to any of these… welcome AGAIN to my tribe of purpose-based women.
What now?
To lead a meaningful life and achieve a success that truly fills your heart, you need to be crystal clear on your life purpose.
If you want to leave a legacy, create a business, bring cohesion to your professional practice or choose how you will enrich the world, your compass is your Life Purpose.
But most people don’t know or are not sure what that is or how to define it. Here are some reasons why people may not know their purpose:
- They don’t want to know. Knowing your purpose demands that you fulfill it. Turning a blind eye is easier… until your Soul starts yelling and you get sick. This is an archetypal situation for healers and spiritual workers who refuse to follow their call. They get sick. In fact, the Shaman’s Illness is a common initiation path.
- They are trying to figure it out with their logical mind. Your purpose is not logical. It is not about what you think or know. Your purpose is soul-based. You need to follow the wisdom of your Sacred Heart to find it.
- They are trying to follow a purpose like you follow a career path, getting credentials, training, positioning yourself, etc. That’s not how it works! You follow your purpose by looking at your whole life ~mistakes and all~ as your Purpose Blueprint.
- They think that they need to be intellectually clear about their purpose. That’s not enough. You need to be emotionally clear. You may have a clear idea of what you came here to do. But if it has not settled in your heart, with an emotional clearance that allows, accepts, cherishes and embraces it; your knowledge will feel scattered, unreal or erratic.
How do you know your purpose?
Here are some questions that help you to clarify, believe, own and embody your Life Purpose.
- What do I contribute to the people around me? This may not be easy to spot, so observe how things change when you are around.
- Show don’t tell: I bring a sense of magic, a quest for meaning and an expansion beyond limitations to reach for possibilities and the freedom inherent in us.
- How do I make a difference? How do you enrich your environment and community by the way you are, speak, act, write, draw, dance, think, do or communicate?
- Show don’t tell: I bring the Goddess’ wisdom into circles of women, often helping them validate the secret knowing in their soul. I also inspire and ignite transformation.
- If I look at my key life choices, what picture emerges? Your choices are like brushes that paint the canvas of your life with a clear picture that is your unique Life Purpose Blueprint. When you look at the benchmarks that took you into certain directions, your life lessons, your big take-aways from tragedy or disasters; what is it all pointing to? In other words, there is method in your mindness. LOL!
- Show don’t tell: I dropped off academia because the environment felt wrong for me. I stopped going to auditions because I understood that my craft was not just a talent. It was the message, and I wanted to use it to deliver a message that was congruent with me. I stopped writing how-to books because I knew that change does not happen with the mind, but through heart-wisdom, changing choices and practice. All this designed the blueprint that I now use of storytelling as alchemy to change one’s old story of limitations and create a new story of one’s brilliance illuminating the world.
- How can I combine all my gifts, talents and skills around a central theme, a theme that is essential to me, that I am passionate about? What service results from this combination?
- Show don’t tell: I am passionate about the Sacred Feminine. I have many gifts and talents: storytelling, performer, artist, shaman, transformation artist. I use all these gifts to communicate the wisdom of the Sacred Feminine. I do this through books, blogs, this magazine, performing stories and experiences that are shamanic journeys or transformation and through my trademark ARTchemytm ~arts and crafts as alchemy.
Now is your turn.
Take out pen and pencil and use these points to clarify what your purpose is and how you can embody it.
Our Future Calls for a Purpose
Knowing the answer to these questions is increasingly important in a world that wants to dictate to you what you should do for a living and how your success should look.
Today most people spend their time working to make someone else rich, often in jobs that are meaningless —if not downright destructive to others and to our planet.
Even when you are doing something you like, you may know that your employer is polluting the planet, devastating the local economy and could fire you at any moment as a downsizing policy to raise its stocks.
In this work climate, the Soul cries out for:
- Ownership of your time, which is your most valuable resource.
- To embody your purpose and the pleasure of leaving deep beautiful prints along your life path; leaving a legacy that matters,
- Becoming part of the solution instead of feeling helpless and trapped in the mess we’ve created at a financial, educational, human and environmental level, and for
- A work that brings you delight and truly fills your heart with deep-seated satisfaction.
In order to design such work or lifestyle, you need to know your Life Purpose in a clear way that is useful.
Here are some things you want to know:
- The Essential Qualities that you bring into any environment with your Presence. (Mine are magic, creativity and freedom).
- How your talents, skills, passions and causes create a unique synergy that is your Signature Ecstatic Service to the world, and
- How your entire life weaves a blueprint that serves as a Sacred Map towards your Life Purpose.
Unless you can see the Sacred Journey that brought you to where you are, you won’t have the entire picture and the confirmation that you are on the right track.
But when this whole picture comes together, then your Life Purpose is clear in your mind and heart. At this point:
- Your choices at any given time are perfectly clear,
- Your Personal Compass (your Sacred Heart) leads you in the right direction and
- You have the unique spiritual measure to value your success without being a slave to standard measures of success.
This path helps you get mental, emotional and spiritual clarity on how to bring who you are, what you are good at, what you know and what you have lived into the Sacred Map that charts your Life Purpose.
You are perfect for your purpose right now, just as you are.
When you have this clear, you BECOME the Goddess dancing inside you.
Resource to apply this knowledge:
- What is Butterfly Woman? - August 24, 2015
- Are you Ready to Fly? - August 22, 2015
- Embody your Purpose - August 16, 2015
