What is a Life Purpose?
This is generally seen as the "meaning of life" or a way of bringing meaning into your activity, and having a point to what you are doing. Meaningful activity can give us a lot more confidence in life, and more drive to keep going with the things we are working on.
What is a Sacred Contract?
Depending on your culture and tradition, this is sometimes seen as the conversation we had with the Creator before we were born about the life lessons and connections we wish to experience, so we choose who our parents will be, and which hard lessons we will face and which other people we will come to know and love; sometimes it's the idea of the Moirae (Fates) spinning, weaving and cutting the strands of fate that we select out of the basket at the feet of the (Fates) before we drink from or swim in Lethe, the river of forgetfulness; sometimes it's this idea that life is a virtual reality which our spirit bodies are plugged into, giving us a temporary physical experience in the world of our choice. The point is, no matter what you believe about the origin of your incarnation, there is the idea of choice and agreement that perhaps we have contracts with our higher powers about our time on Earth, and it's our job to remember it and perform those tasks to achieve our purpose. Carolyn Myss has a book called Sacred Contracts, that I've been reading to find out more about how to help folks discover and actualize their life purpose.
What is True Will?
This is the concept of the Higher Self knowing what is in your best interest. The Higher Self is still you, it just has a bird's eye view of your life and trajectory and can, if you are listening, inform your choices and help you figure out your path. True Will is about the desire that remains when all other wants and needs are disregarded. It's an unshakeable yearning that sometimes feels like a void is within you, which, if you are not filling with the right things, it grows.
The benefits of seeking and finding your Life Purpose include: participating in meaningful activity, the possibility for what's sometimes called the "healer's sickness" or other obstacles to enjoying your mundane life, begin to fade when you find your true path, allowing you better health and access to other great blessings in the form of synchronicity and serendipity, etc. Other people can see you are inspired and dedicated when you have a Life Purpose, and they begin to admire your confidence. There are many boons and benefits to having purpose. Which benefits are you looking for?
- SEEKING -
What are the ways in which we can become aware that we even have a life purpose or a sacred contract or a true will?
- Breath work: T. Thorn Coyle has a book called Make Magic of Your Life: Passion, Purpose, and the Power of Desire, which is an excellent resource for this work, it has exercises, reflections, wisdom from elders and stories about real folks on the path to Life Purpose, among other things. In this book, there is mention of breath work as a way to tune in to yourself and create self awareness.
- Reflective journaling about past, present and future self & worksheets around values, aptitudes, learning styles, and interests can be spiritual activities if we remember that we are here in service to our higher power, to do good work in the world.
- Awareness of what is missing in our lives, or whether or not something is missing at the moment in one or more aspects of our lives is an essential piece. Looking at the void for what it is and examining what it is that would fit to fill our cup is part of the work.
- FINDING -
How can we grasp our Life Purpose, Sacred Contract or True Will, when presented with so many experiences that give us skills, abilities and inspiration, but none of them really spark something in our energy centers?
- The ADF meditation called Two Powers uses three cauldrons or energy centers, in which are located in the Head, Heart and Loins, and in the meditation the Earth power and Sky power fill the three with the primordial waters and light. This is one way to get in tune with how your body is feeling in terms of an intention.
- In a four elements meditation or seven chakras meditation etc. there is the same idea, you divide your body into meaningful sections and pay attention to how it is reacting to an intention in those areas. (If you need help figuring this out, I will happily explain and can lead you through it)
- And then, changing our inner barriers to inner builders is a huge application of reframing. Taking that inner critic voice and transforming it into an encouraging voice is essential to moving beyond the seeking phase and filling of the void.
- EXPLORING -
Once we are aware and in tune with our Life Purpose, Sacred Contract or True Will, how do we figure out our specific niche of specialization?
- Creative visualisations, where we build our dreams in our minds down to the very last detail.
- Experimentation with body awareness during conversation, planning, and visualisation, and while asking ourselves questions such as - what is your perfect day, and would that be a perfect day to your inner child before you had all the conditioning and programming to follow others' expectations?
- Opening a practice. (how do we "practice" or hone our craft? - drills, homework, creating samples for a portfolio, and just offering what you do to folks who are friends or family to get the word out and get experience)
- WORKING with -
What do we do when we have dabbled in our life purpose, sacred contract, or true will work, and wish to take it to the next level, or have no other option? How do we take the leap?
- There is the idea of becoming your own boss by removing distractions (cutting away the mundane - for example to Pagans and Wiccans, the Athame is a magical tool of Will power which is used to mark boundaries)
- Self-determination also manifests as fully committing to the Great Work which is your life purpose, and becoming disciplined in actualizing it.
- Parenting your Child of Promise - this is work that happens through embracing your work as spiritual. You can do this by allowing yourself to fully form the concept, incubating it with baby steps, and creating a container for it to be birthed from, or I other words, knowing exactly where it begins and ends, and working within those reasonable limits.
- Taking baby steps with your plans, which means, your steps don't have to be huge leaps, they just have to keep happening. It takes a village to raise any Child of Promise, but it takes a lot of primary responsibility and sacrifice on your own part, as well as bravery to continue and finally, trust in your higher power or destiny.
- VOCATION -
Ask yourself,
What are passions, and what are your passions?
What are talents, and what are your talents?
What are desires, and what are your desires?
What are skills and what are your skills?
What are callings. and what are your callings?
Through this questioning our life purpose can become more obvious and we can tune in to what we are made for. It becomes not just something we are passing the time with, but our vocational work.
If you have questions, feel free to run them by me.
♥ Jacki