Is your purpose really something you need to keep searching for?
I share my thoughts openly on the blog this month because I believe are words do create connection and sometimes what feels most disconnected is the clarity that brings us closer together.
So here goes:)
How many times I have stopped to ask myself the question who am I? What do I want or desire? What is my purpose?
All of these questions come up often for me and maybe for you too. It seems like there are so many people out there on a spiritual quest. Trying to figure out what is next. Trying to live to a life of fulfillment and purpose. Trying to get it right.
I have spent time and money trying to get it right too and what I have noticed is that when I stop searching and when I give myself permission to simply be with what presents itself in front of me I feel myself drop into that purpose I crave.
So why is it so hard to be present or to drop into that space?
How do I give myself permission to just be?
It can seem impossible. When I am still I want to busy and when I am busy I say I don’t have enough time and want to be still, so where is the middle ground? Where can I land where I feel balanced for myself?
I don’t think this answer is always as easy as I want it to be.
I have come to discover for myself that my purpose and what I give meaning to can only happen when my heart is open. When I am connected to love. When love is present there is no space for judgment. Can I really see all things and all people as love.
Sounds good and to me also sounds like a spiritual bypass, so where is the middle ground.
To truly show up in this way from this space requires a deeper awareness to myself.
To challenge my own heart. To ask myself when I am closing down or staying open
Am in full trust with what is in front of me. When I trust myself to know what I need and to not question it because it is different than what someone else needs. Do I have judgment or am I am able to see another as myself?
These are the ways in which I can test myself and where I can honor my own integrity.
Meaning to me is a great way to put it all to the test. I want to believe that things have meaning because I just assume they do, but what if they didn’t hold as much meaning as I thought they did. What if I could determine what had meaning and what did not in each and every moment?
I want to share with you a little practice I tried to question this idea of meaning. For one month I kept a notebook where I would write down all the things I saw that had meaning. Maybe it was someone laughing or a couple holding hands or someone telling me their truth. I wanted to be really clear of what I found to be meaningful. And my list didn’t include, making lots of money, buying new clothes or what I did for work.
This practice allowed me to see in my heart what had meaning. What felt in deep alignment with my heart not what I thought had meaning or what others told me had meaning.
I share this because I think it is important. Without knowing what I find meaningful I could spend my whole life on a search for something that would never bring me the meaning I truly desire and where would that leave me?
There are so many places in my life that I have chosen to uncover these questions. To sit with myself long enough to see what arises. To make myself feel crazy and confused. And sometimes the questioning creates more overwhelm and so I must come back to the simplicity of what is front of me.
Some days that is a simple task and other days it feels like the weight of the world.
And yet I always find myself circling back to the deeper question of what is my purpose and how do I find it?
Maybe when I stop searching and when I stop expecting it to be grand. Just maybe it will just be.
Like…
Noticing the first star in the night sky.
Gazing off into the vastness of the ocean.
Connecting deeply to a loved one without saying a word but holding the soft gaze of their eye.
Watching a bird take flight.
Maybe there is no searching after all.