he Limitations of Trying to find your Purpose
I’m not sure ANYONE has not felt the yearning for discovering their purpose in life. There are many multimillion dollar revenue books on the market for just such a mission. I feel the angst and longing t o”know what you’re really here for”. It seems the age-old question of “what’s this life for” is still one of the top questions in a person’s mind as we barrel through life waiting for the clear direction that defines us.
While I believe you must have a seeker’s heart, just in general, to be open to the opportunities life has all around you, I believe that often times we get STUCK in the SEEKING. While we start out feeling our hearts open and become more expansive when we are ready to step out of conventional norms and start finding ourselves, it may be that we get stuck in a new rut: the rut of “trying”.
Trying is a tricky word. You either CAN do something or you CAN’T. For example, TRY to get off your chair right now. You either did or did not get off your chair, but you did not stay “trying”.
And yet, in our lives when we seek our purpose, I believe it is in the “trying” that limits us. When you “try”, you never find. Even worse, we get paralyzed by trying to do "what we're meant to", or being fearful that it's what we're "supposed" to do and so we have difficulty making decisions. The fear of "not doing it right" is downright paralyzing and keeps us even more stuck!
Secondly, we may have great expectations of what our purpose should look like. We can’t seem to accept that we are already fulfilling our purpose just by BEING HERE!
Which leads me to my current beliefs about purpose.
The law of attraction, and manifestation, imaging, dream boards, intending…. All of these are also popular topics right not. Go to Facebook, youtube, articles in magazine; you’ll find a multitude of online sessions, courses, webinars, articles, speeches, videos, all about the above mentioned subjects.
We’ve been told to manfiest your dreams and goals, you first have to envision them. You have to image them into existence. Here is a thought I was pondering recently.
We know that when we ask for something, the universe aligns with our image to give us what we truly want. However, how the universe sees it playing out may be very different than how we see it playing out. For example, a woman can image for a flat belly, she puts images on her dream board, and reads them to herself, believing it will happen. Couldn’t it be entirely possible for the universe to align with her image, but that it may come differently than expected? For example, and being very exaggerated here, couldn’t she be infected with a tapeworm which makes her very ill and weeks later, bammo! Flat belly! Obviously this is not the way we would like the image of the flat belly to occur. It makes me feel very cautious about intending anything at all. When it comes down to it, we are asking for this “things”, these little details, but we don’t look at the big picture of “why” we want those detailed things. If you follow it down, don’t you want the flat belly for happiness? Or a relationship? Etc? So why don’t we just ask for those things right away?
I looked over my images over the past few years and realized when I got to the bottom of them ALL, ALL of them could come down to the basic things I want in my life:
To be happy and enjoy my life
To be of service to the Divine
To feel part of something, to be connected
To have all my needs met
To be able to give back and be part of my world in a positive way
Now, looking at them, I realize, I already have every one of those. I already AM all of that. I NEED for nothing. That should put us at a sense of ease that if we already have and ARE what we want, then the rest doesn’t matter, it is simply whatever experience we would like to enjoy, and know that it exists.
So when it comes down to purpose, I believe this: We already ARE our purpose. There isn’t some great Nobel prize that we should be seeking, no big mountain we NEED to move in order to “get in the purpose club”, we simply need to feel good about the fact that we are who we are, and continue growing more expansive and light by BEING in our everyday the kind of person we can be proud of being.
By continuing to “try” to find your purpose, you’ll forever be “trying”. Now that you have discovered what your purpose already IS and that you already are IT, the pressure is off to find the great thing you are “supposed” to accomplish. What’s left is enjoying what you choose to do while you’re here. Want to save the animals? Great, go DO it and enjoy, it’s something you CHOSE not SUPPOSED TO. Want to earn your master’s? Great, go DO it and enjoy, it’s something you CHOSE not SUPPOSED TO.
I think we succumb to the “supposed to” thinking because we’ve conditioned with expectations ever since our youth. Either that, or we innately know there is an ORDER to things, however, we mistakenly perceive that order as something we’re “supposed” to do that we have to “figure out”, rather than knowing that the universal order already has it in process.
When it comes down to it, choose your experiences, do them to the best of your being, and be grateful. The doors will always be open to you. LIFE HAS AN OPEN DOOR POLICY. And you don’t have to permanently choose only one. Enjoy and live!
