The Path To Purpose

You only have to ask several people in your immediate circle about work and there will at least one who will tell you they are unhappy, bored or unfulfilled. According to Gallop Poll, there are a lot of these unhappy people in the world – 85% don’t like what they do for a living.

We have all been there at some point or perhaps you are living it now?

Why do we stay? Reasons abound – perceived limited opportunities, fear of change, feeling trapped by responsibilities –  bills to pay, children to feed and a conditioned life of continuing to “do” driven by habit.

Whatever the reason, the story of why it’s safer to stay than to jump, begins in the mind – the internalised jail, resisting change. Yet there is always a pioneer within, who is ready to explore unchartered territory.

The story of resistance can comprise of negative thoughts so convincing and contracting…here a few, offering resistance to change.

No one at work ever listens to my opinion

What a waste of time commuting every day

I’m not appreciated

Work makes me depressed

I don’t know what to do with my life

I’m too old to start again

I need an income to live, there are limited jobs available

Once this begins, It’s easy to be swept up into a fast moving current where the clarity is drowned by emotional overload, setting off a negative landslide and excessive emphasis on an uneventful future that hasn’t turned up yet.

With moving forward into anything unknown, it is natural to feel fear of failure now and projecting it into the future. It’s also easy to extract past negative experiences into the present moment.

It is possible to disentangle oneself from this false identity.

Through creating some non thinking space away from work and doing, there is freedom from the mental concepts trying to micro manage life into more security. Permission to be still and receive from a deeper place within, can guide your next steps.

Acceptance of what is gives the space to put some distance between the negative thoughts surfacing and the true inner self, knowing and clarity.

Acceptance does not mean the intolerable job will be shackled to you for the rest of your life but it will allow for opportunities to enter because there is a different focus and point of attraction. Your radio dial is tuned elsewhere even for a short burst of time.

Acceptance opens up awareness through the contrast of what isn’t wanted.

Here are some suggestions to create a new perspective to look beyond the familiar thinking landscape.

1. Stilling the mind through meditation, taking a bath or sweeping the floor, promotes receptivity to heighten the inner guidance – perhaps in the form of an inspired impulse sweeping through, knowingness or even a strong metal thought unrelated to all others. No matter the delivery vehicle, the answer already resides within you.
2. No one can tell you what the next idea or step is with any certainty, they are not walking your path. It is your experience coming from within, although finding resonance or being inspired by the actions or teachings of another can awaken the sleeping in you.
3. See this situation as an opportunity for transformation. Something different is being asked to appear in your life – to be expressed through you.  Through the confusion and inner conflict, the old is giving way to the new. The confusion can act as a fertile ground to birth creativity and clarity.
4. It doesn’t matter whether you fail or you succeed, this experience is inviting you to organically evolve, where there is no conceptual plan in sight. Discovering your purpose is not a thinking process to solve a problem.
5. If you cannot let go of the resistance that comes with the prospect of maintaining the brain numbing job or failing business, then stop what you are doing for a little while at least. The relief can give rise to create space for something else to open up in your life.
6. Recall your childhood. What did you find yourself drawn to? Remember who or what made your heart sing or hobbies you loved exploring and doing. Recognise past passions. 

I remember always being drawn to the mysteries of the world. The unknown and intangible – it couldn’t be seen and explained. Spiritual Teachers like the Dalia Lama, Ghandi, Tibetan monastics from a young age. Innovators and change makers.

Be aware not to get too attached or identify with the past to fill an uncomfortable void. A void can be necessary to birth the new. Be with what is surfacing – uncomfortable or joyful, allow it to reveal itself to you.