I’ve often heard said that nothing outside of you defines or has power over you or your experience. I might have even said it myself a few times.
I’d like to add that this includes your purpose. Your purpose is you. There’s no easier way to say it. It is not something you need to find, chase, define, or discover, it just is. And it is you.
We’re all given incredible opportunities to explore the human condition through this thing we call life, and as we do, we learn and grow. Good and bad, light and dark, our experiences and choices are what make us unique, and uniquely human.
When it’s viewed from that perspective, how can there be any urgency attached to finding your purpose (as if it’s something that exists without)?
As if the acts of being and loving and enjoying and failing were not in and of themselves already your purpose.
As if the experience of standing quietly on a wind-swept hill feeling the sea air on your face, breathing in the beauty of aliveness were not already your purpose.
As if sitting with a purring cat on your lap whilst getting lost in a good book were not already your purpose.
Once you stop seeking your purpose, it becomes clearer than you’d ever imagined possible: the purpose you’d been seeking has been with(in) you since the moment you were born. It’s the voice that has whispered sweet nothings in your ear, leading you on adventures that lit your heart, offering you opportunities for expansion and growth, and gently, gently encouraging you to embrace each moment. It is more than just a small part of you, or what you do, it is ALL of you, the multidimensional, creative, powerful, beautiful, dynamic, incredible you that exists as a reflection of life itself.
Your purpose is in the way you express your passion for life, and the way you hold your head when you speak to someone you love. The seemingly small acts of self-care after a long day, the way you water a neighbour’s plants when they’re on holiday. It is in the way you cry when you see acts of kindness, and in the clothes you choose for your body. The sound of your voice, and the frustration you feel in traffic jams. It is in your heart, your soul, your spirit and your body. You are not seeking it, you are it.
There is so much external ‘chatter’ in this world, telling us what makes a person good or how we can become better, which is so often different to how we are, right now. There are so many ways we could shame and judge ourselves (or each other) for making poor choices or wrong decisions. Why spend so much time thinking about these things when we could be expressing our hearts and souls in ways that align with our own inner knowing?
The externals are distractions from your purpose. They lull you into a false sense of connection and security that only exists in a fear-based reality sold to us by those who benefit from our powerlessness. Turn your brilliant mind instead to the knowledge that true security exists in you being your purpose. True connection exists in claiming your ‘youness’ and living it out loud.
The idea that a normal way of being exists is a fallacy, designed to keep us from this inherent knowledge of ourselves as whole. As we detach and release from these ingrained ideas of right and wrong, good and bad, we can simply be, and in doing so, find the way to the joy, freedom and peace that are the endowment of our humanity and our divinity.
The search for purpose can distract us from the finding of it, if we continue to believe it can be defined or bestowed from without. A purpose does not have to be lofty and ambitious, or even designed to move us from here to there. A purpose does not have to be rooted in altruism or philanthropy or have a goal to heal the world.
A purpose is at its root a reason for being.
There is no better reason for being, than you.
~ Jenny
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Jenny Griffin is co-founder of Pilgrimages of the Heart with Catriona Murray. She is an intuitive transformation coach, pilgrim, writer and yoga teacher bringing her diverse experiences and wisdom together through the structure of pilgrimage.
N.B. An earlier version of this post was written for and published on a blog that no longer exists (written by me, as Jenny Griffin The Power of Change, in late 2015/early 2016). It kept calling to me, so I have posted it here in case it also calls to you. ~ Jenny
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