I had some deep thoughts about purpose this morning while standing in front of the mirror and applying mascara. It was a big moment.
I haven’t left the house in almost a week thanks to an inconvenient neck injury. A story for another day. Suffice to say, I had my tantrum, did some quiet reflecting, and got my message. Grateful as always for the forced pause.
Back to purpose…
Society – or rather, plenty of life coaches and self-help teachers – will have us believe that we’re placed on this spinning rock of a planet for a single purpose. (Hello pressure).
They’ll tell us they have the answers: they’ve achieved enlightenment, and now? They want to help us get total clarity on the ONE purpose that will miraculously transform our entire life.
Amazing.
Forgive me, I sound a little salty today.
Like I said, the walls have been closing in.
My thought this morning while mentally psyching myself up to rejoin civilization in person for a hot minute, was this: what if our purpose is seasonal? And what if it’s constantly changing?
I don’t believe we’re here for one reason. How limiting. Not to mention all that extra stress thrown onto our already overloaded shoulders. No thanks. I think we’re here to experience, explore, and enjoy all the physicalities and pleasures that life offers. I think we’re here to be a full expression of our light in human form.
Think about this...
Imagine if Linkin Park lead singer, Chester Bennington (no shade to Emily Armstrong) healed all his inner demons and worked through every drop of heaviness inside him. Do you think he could tap into the depths of his soul, transmute that avalanche of sorrow and rage, and save millions of lives with his emotive and highly evocative music?
I think not.
Sorry, Emily. Your voice is dynamite. But there was something so uniquely special about Chester’s ability to plunge into the dark spaces of his soul and shine that into his music.
Personally, that energetic frequency still meets me in occasional challenging moments. And I welcome that rawness because it invites me to feel without shame.
Read the comments on any of the hundreds of YouTube videos, and you’ll see how many lives this man touched with his gut-wrenching, emotional lyrics. He had that vibrational presence and generously poured his pain into creative expression.
His legacy lives on – pretty powerful, don’t you think?
It makes me think about myself and the way I write.
If I didn’t have this sadness or deep warrior rage that I allow to erupt through my words when I feel them, I wouldn’t be able to share the kind of poems and messages I do. Honestly? It would probably be quite vanilla and shallow.
Sadness is a big part of who I am.
And I’m no longer ashamed of it.
I’ve been called intense, melancholic, and deep. I’ve been told my eyes tell a story of sadness. Once, I was even told I had resting “sad face.” (You would too, if you had to pound out an entire article a day on the riveting topic of e-commerce logistics).
For a long time, I used to feel shame for not being super joyful or switched “on” every day. Because, I kept seeing messages all around me to transform (*ahem*, conform).
Look. I’ve lost two parents and I’ve been through a lot of heavy stuff. I’ve moved through most of it, but I’m empathic. So I feel a lot. From myself, others, animals, and the world around me. It’s just how I’m wired. It’s also why I’m so passionate about grounding our energy.
I feel it, transmute it, and express that rawness in my writing and my videos.
But I don’t stay there; I don’t get lost.
Purpose can be many things all at once.
It can be something we’re not even aware of for a particular season we’re wading through.
I’m sure Chester didn’t realise the millions of souls he’d reach and the lives he’d save just by singing about his pain and sharing from his heart.
So here’s my suggestion:
Can we try to move away from the regurgitated fluffy purpose allure?
Yes, it’s enticing.
Because we want answers. And we want things to make sense and we want to move forward with life and not have to worry and struggle. I get it. 2020 changed all that; that’s a fact.
The ground isn’t stable and there isn’t certainty anymore. Which is why I advocate for empowering ourselves and getting grounded in our bodies EVERY day – taking back our peace and energy.
We’ve got to stop throwing our power away to everyone else.
No one person, as wise as they appear to be, has the answers to your life.
Purpose isn’t a cookie-cutter solution and it’s not something we find.
It’s something that moves through us.
It’s an energy.
It is how we show up and express ourselves in the world.
You are the purpose.
Right where you are, here, today.
You’re it. It might change from season to season, and you might have more than one purpose at a time. But please know this: there is no magic solution.
Our purpose is personal; it can’t be copied or replicated.
And it definitely doesn’t need to be justified or understood by anyone else.
But it does need to be true.
It’s something we’ve got to unravel for ourselves – in our own way and time.
And maybe that just happens to take place during a mundane moment of carefully applying black mascara and hyping yourself up for something you really don’t feel like doing.
You never know when the whispers will meet you. The question is, are you open to hearing them?
