The question of life purpose was in the air for the last several years. Now, in a recession, when people are questioning the hard push on careers that have stalled, or where already shaky loyalty to the company has been further damaged with drastic cost-cutting moves, purpose and meaning is still much in the air.
“Purposes reveal themselves in many ways, often showing up as an insult to our ego and the very thing that your soul needs.” WHERE TO PUT THIS…
Scan the bookshelves at Border’s or B&N and scan the shelves and you’ll find purpose, soul and meaning are everywhere in the titles. This is no wonder, as we are searching for balance to the frenetic pace of our lives and the automatic default within our culture that is so skewed toward performance and continually emphasizes that happiness is derived through consumption. (Not to mention that our goods remain earthbound at the end anyway, from all reports, as we move into whatever the ending mystery of our life entails.)
Yet all the good that high performance and material well-being bring fade when put against the eternal question of “What am and I here for, anyway?”
One key that I would offer to refreshing your purpose – one that I think can be overlooked if we are not careful – is your past. As you remember your lifeline exercise, with its crazy and unpredictable ups and downs, is full of memories, incidents and travails, “letting goes” and things coming together.
This collection of memories is a storehouse of images and messages that can unlock the door into deeper meaning and purpose in your current life. Reviewing them with skill and courage is part of the work of keeping yourself on purpose in the here and now.Let me give you one modern literary example: Tom Wingo, the main character of the popular novel of 20-plus years ago, Prince of Tides, at the beginning of the story is mightily stuck, enduring a stale marriage and joyless work. His only joyful role is fathering. Due to his sister’s attempted suicide, he courageously moves into a review of his and her life to see if he can help heal both of them from their ugly and beautiful past – ugly in its trauma and beautiful in its sibling love, art, and the tidal life of South Carolina shores and nature.
As he reviews his life he rediscovers the essence of his life. Eventually, he is able to re-enter his marriage with passion and his role as a teacher in a way that sustains him, his sister and his family. Here is the key summary of how he rediscovers his purpose, the process he used to set him free of the scripts and boulders that had invaded and constricted his life:
“I exploded the levees of memory and recorded the spillage as it flowed through the dry imagined streets of my life.”
A powerful image. The levees of memory. The blockage of the imaginative waters that had led him to a soul-less existence. It is my belief as a coach who has helped hundreds of people with purpose, that the levees of memory are what keep people from their truest imagination and purpose.
And the same can work for you:
- Review of your past, in dialogue with loved ones and significant others
- Journal in your daily internal dialogue on paper
- Rekindle in conversations with your coach.
All of these are a source of sourcing new ideas and old passions to re-vivify your life.
One caution, of course. If you have had enough trauma, review the painful ones with a good therapist. In Prince of Tides, the family was near crazy, so he did his work with a therapist. I have used a therapist for some of the deeper parts of this work to overcome wounds. But by far, the best and most substantive time I have spent with myself and with clients, is by myself, with a coach, or with my spouse as they help listen to what I am discovering about my past that energizes my purpose in the present.
The tie of purpose to imagination is a direct and powerful. Take your time with purpose and its issues. Laugh about how even the greatest purposes devolve into tasks like email and budgets. That is one of the Universe’s great jokes on humankind.
Mightily believe you have one, or several, and they will take various forms as you mature and encounter life. Purposes reveal themselves in many ways, often showing up as an insult to our ego and the very thing that your soul needs.