Living with Purpose

We have all been hearing the buzz about “Life Purpose” for years now. It has become an increasingly important topic in the self-improvement and spiritual communities. I find that many people have the wrong idea about what a “Life Purpose” actually is, so I thought it might be helpful if I offered my point of view. I hope it may offer a sense of clarity, or at least not add to the confusion. 😉

Questions such as “Who am I?” and “What is the purpose of life?” have been on the lips of human beings throughout time. People seeking the answers to these types of questions are generally spiritual seekers of one sort or another in search of themselves. In the past, even when people did get some sort of legitimate answer to these questions, their minds had a difficult time comprehending those answers. I feel that today we are on the verge of people knowing their purpose and having the spiritual capacity to accept the answers with a sense of clarity that is previously unheard of. Seek and ye shall find. Ask and it will be given. People are realizing that the only way to truly know their life purpose is to go within, ask the question and listen for the answer.

The answer cannot be found within your head. This is the most common mistake people make. The brain cannot contemplate or rationalize the answer, no, the brain will most assuredly only add to the confusion. If you employ the mind, the ego will jump in and happily create some comfortable solution for you, but it will be a false direction meant to keep you in the comfort zone of the cycle you are currently experiencing. No, the mind will not help, the ego will take you by the hand like a dear friend and make you feel warm and fuzzy, all the while it is taking you farther than ever from that which you seek. You can ask others, but if they are unable to have a sense of awareness for their own purpose, how are they supposed to know someone else’s?

The answer resides within your heart, as it always has. Your spirit has been attempting to guide you from the heart since your were born, but when the heart is closed it cannot be heard, and when the ego speaks so loudly and constantly, it drowns out the gentle whisper of the divine. The key to finding your life purpose is to ask your higher-self (your Spirit or true Self) and then silence the mind in order to hear the answer which comes in the form of a divine whisper. This divine whisper may come in the “form” of a voice or it may be a feeling. The answer will come, I assure you. It always does. Being given the answer is not the challenge – hearing the answer is! Often times the voice of the ego gets in the way and starts screaming its false answer which is always what you think and believe you want to do. But what we want to do is not always our purpose in life. Life is known for taking some strange turns and this is the reason why. One thing that helps is to stop questioning it and simply allow yourself to be guided. “Let go and let God.” The meaning of this is often lost on those attempting to grasp it with the thinking mind. This is the meaning; let go of your ego, of the thinking mind and allow yourself to be guided by your own divine spirit.

My personal definition of a Life Purpose is something like this… “A Life Purpose is that one single most act you are meant to undertake in this ever-changing moment in order to place yourself in the service of others while experiencing your life lesson, following the divine direction offered by your spirit, and acting in your own higher and greater good while bringing value to the world.”

I say “something like this” because as my own comprehension deepens, my definition will change and adapt, this is why I develop no beliefs around such things, I allow them to simply be what they are as I know them at any given point in time. My definition of what a life purpose is must change, because life purposes can change as well. See, people are getting it all backwards; in this life time there is but ONE soul-mate for each of us. That’s right – there is only one. A life purpose may last for your entire life. However, our life purpose can change, and they do change, resulting in multiple life purposes within one lifetime. Just not at the same time. The reason for this is that while you are acting in service of your life purpose, you are also experiencing a great life lesson (or lessons) which, if learned, will cause your spirit to expand and your soul to soar. The problem with this is that most people are unable to recognize their life lesson and learn from it, trapped in the cycle they are stuck in until they break free. At this point their life purpose becomes tedious because they are stuck. Sometimes this is experienced as boredom, being in a rut, lacking direction or enthusiasm for life, and so on. They have served the life purpose, yet cannot move forward, to expand, because they have yet to learn the lesson(s).

Much of the confusion today surrounding one’s life purpose comes from so-called experts who have no clue and are trying to make a buck from selling some silly fluffy notion. Today people are attempting to sell the idea that whatever you are doing is your purpose and your life is unfolding the way it should – but this too is simply a way to sell more by making people feel good about doing nothing. The ego likes it, so they buy it. But the spirit weeps. Here is the simple truth – Conscious awareness for your life purpose requires you to open your heart and be in tune with the voice of your spirit, your true voice, as it guides you in what you should best be doing. Some people can do this naturally, but for others it requires effort. When you are living your life purpose, you will experience a joy that is unsurpassed. This doesn’t mean that there will not be challenges involved, oh there will certainly be challenges, remember that there are life lessons to be learned while living your purpose. One thing that is for certain; people always experience the greatest sense of inner peace, outer tranquility, and sheer happiness for life when they are living their purpose. I see it all around me as I choose to surround myself with others who are awakened in this manner, to one degree or another, and living their purpose. I can see it in their eyes, I can feel in their hearts. It is unmistakable.

It also helps to understand what a life purpose is by knowing what it is not. A life purpose is not a pre-destined path that you agreed to take before entering this physical world. Nor is it a “soul-contract” you entered into before being born or other such complete non-sense. Likewise, it isn’t simply something you are deciding to do right now. It is becoming all too common to believe that whatever you may be doing is your life purpose, but this is not so. If you are controlled by the egoic mind, you cannot live from essence. Living from essence or spirit is the only way to walk in harmony with your life purpose. When you live this way, you may be unconsciously guided toward your purpose, but you will know it when you find it. I have experienced though, once you begin to consciously align and take action toward your life purpose, the universe will start moving things around to allow you to fulfill it. How dramatically things get moved around is in direct proportion to the impact your purpose will have on the world.

Let’s take a closer look at an outstanding example of someone following their life purpose. I admire and respect Deepak Chopra a great deal. In my opinion, he is one of the great spiritual leaders of our time. This is someone who had an amazing career as a medical doctor, becoming the Chief of Staff at the New England Memorial Hospital, teaching at Harvard University and more. He left that profession in order to pursue his life purpose and help people in a bigger (and better) way. There is very little to argue in regards to whether or not Deepak is living his life purpose. He has been able to offer scientific and medical explanations for many spiritual ideas and holistic health concepts offering us all clarity and the ability to better understand them. Can you imagine the strength and conviction it must have taken for him to leave a lucrative career that he obviously spent years preparing and training for, in order to follow the gentle whisper of the voice of his spirit!? Now he has positively impacted the lives and well-being of hundreds of thousands of people or more. I am grateful for him sharing his wonderful wisdom so openly with us.

Making a massive change in life is what frightens most people to veer away from their purpose. They pretend that it’s not calling to them. They don’t want anything to have to change. The degree of change required to step onto the path of walking your life purpose is different for everyone. I have found that it is determined by just how far you have wandered from it. Helping others gain clarity for their life purpose, helping them establish a direction action plan, and getting in tune with the voice of their higher-self, is part of my own purpose now. By guiding my coaching clients, I help them to find the answer within themselves so they know it as truth, and then I help them to chart this exciting course of change. For those I have been working with, I have found that in many cases it doesn’t require life-shattering changes at all. There is nothing better than to hear the change in their voice when they are filled with a renewed sense of excitement and enthusiasm for living their life, or to see the brightness and depth in their eyes as they achieve clarity and connection within themselves.

Many people fear that they will have to leave their families, and yes some of us did have to do exactly that, but for many it is just that they will have to make a subtle change, like being away a bit more or work in a different way in order to serve others. Occasionally, people think that they will have to give up everything and start completely over. Sometimes this is true – I know because I did. But this is certainly not the common case. For most, it simply results in a lifestyle and/or career direction change. It is a strange paradox indeed, to see the fear and confusion in the eyes of those desiring to find their purpose only to see that fear transform to overflowing delight and excitement once they discover the very things they feared.

For those looking to my example – Yes, my case is a bit extreme, but I was pretty messed up. 🙂 You can read about it in my book, if you don’t know my story. I had worn out my previous life purpose and my spirit was desperately trying to keep me on track and guide me toward my next purpose. Yet I remained stuck in the dramatic downward spiral of unlearned life lessons such as the need to overcome the control issues and anger of the egoic mind, of not being my authentic self, and living a life that was not what I was meant to be living. I was trapped in that downward spiral of poor life habits, taking on responsibilities that weren’t mine, and I managed to stray far from my path. I had a lot of work to do on myself in order to set my life right.

Making the transformation from someone who had a controlling nature, so filled with anger that I never smiled and rarely ever laughed; into someone who just last Saturday was called a “very nice man who knows how to smile” was not easy, but so worth the effort. The wonderful lady at our local Farmer’s Market paid me a bigger compliment than she knows, which I appreciated so much. I also allowed life to happen to me as I just sat back and watched things happen as I began to get drawn into a life I didn’t consciously choose or even want. Changing into someone completely authentic, who lived their life of purpose was the most difficult and severely traumatic of all. My wife tells me that I have continued to change greatly within just the past 2 years. I feel that we both have.

It was helpful that I developed the ability to hear the voice of my own spirit and I was being warned that I didn’t have much time to get with the program. That my next near-death experience would not be so much “near” as it would just be “death.” For me, the fact of the matter is that it was a matter of survival, and many know just how true that is. I am finding that most people do not have such a traumatic experience, for some this self-exploration is actually fun and exciting.

While it is human nature to resist or even fear change, change is the very thing we must learn to embrace in order to grow – personally and spiritually. This is a paradox of the human condition. The very thing we need the most is what we fear and resist the most. This is why I teach people the keys to being a Spiritual Warrior, so that they may succeed where so many fail.

We are most fortunate to be living in a time when spiritual growth is becoming commonplace and so many have so much potential. It has never been easier to know the truth of age-old questions and to align yourself with your spirit. These are exciting times my friends, especially for those who are conscious, aware, awakened, and who have shifted from ego to essence. It is time to know your purpose and to live it fully. It is your time to know the satisfaction of learning a life lesson and to experience the deep sense of joy that comes with the awareness of living your life purpose. Your life purpose is the greatest adventure you will ever live!