What’s Your Calling?

Are you struggling to find your calling?

Mark Twain famously wrote: “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”  For many though, that day has failed to come and given rise to the belief that finding one’s purpose is a lottery. A game of luck that favours only the few.

Your purpose is right there amongst the debris
of your past… Mine was.

If you’re searching for your purpose, it’s perhaps closer than you might think. It is in fact, there, hidden within the debris of your personal history, as was mine.

My Own Early Calling

When I was barely 7 years old, a neighbour, looking rather distressed, dashed from her house and made a b-line for me as I played in her backyard. Her troubled face startled me and as she closed in on me. I wasn’t sure what would happen next.

With a sense of urgency, she nudged me away from her children and toward a corner of her yard. Then, in a cautiously hushed tone, she said: “Can I tell you a secret?”

I nodded reluctantly.

She leaned closer and whispered: “I’ve lost my purse”.  Her eyes filled with emotion as she looked helplessly across at her children “Their father’s going to kill me”.

Despite my young age, I understood the gravity of her situation. We were from a poor neighbourhood. Losing her purse with the weekly housekeeping was a devastating blow. I also knew her husband had a temper that shot from zero-to-10 in a heartbeat and so, losing her purse was now the least of her concerns.

…a deep, inner knowing rose up in me

Out of nowhere though, a deep, inner knowing rose up in me and despite the absurdity of an adult burden in the hands of a mere child, a response just rolled off my tongue.

Placing my hand on her arm I said: “Everything’s going to be ok… I promise.  Just tell him the truth and it will all be ok”.

She looked at me a little bemused but also with a look of relief. I meant what I said and she felt it.

The next day, she saw me again and called me over, but this time, with an air of excitement. “You were right” she said… Everything was ok!”

Apparently, her husband was so taken aback by her honesty, all he could manage was a grunt and a roll of his eyes.  

…I was tapping into my Soul’s calling
to be of service to humanity

This was my first taste of holding space for another’s problem and offering a soothing response of healing and hope and my earliest memory of my purpose calling out to me.

My neighbour somehow knew I had what she needed, even though I clearly didn’t know it for myself. That’s quite often how our calling emerges. People reach out to us time and again for something they instinctively feel we have, until the proverbial penny drops within us, and we have that divine aha moment; this is clearly my calling!

My calling started knocking at the door of my consciousness that day and would do so for many years to come in various forms and more loudly with each passing year. That is, until I finally stopped to take stock of my life, acknowledge who I really was and became the healer I am today.

Do we all have a calling?

The answer is yes. Absolutely! We all have a calling because we all have a purpose and that purpose is to share our uniqueness with the world. To share our ‘inner light’.

Our Inner Light

Each and every one of us is here to share our unique inner light. The only thing that ever separates us is how we choose to do that.

We might be here to bring more light into the world through our work as a school teacher; teaching the next generation respect for environment, community and self. We might be the film-maker destined to change the consciousness of humanity one thought-provoking scene at a time. Or the gardener, keeping the delicate ecosystem of the planet in divine order.

What gets in the way of us getting on purpose and sharing our inner light?

When it comes to getting on purpose, people invariably face one of 3 key points of tension:

  1. Firstly, some people assume that if they are experiencing provocation in the form of feelings of overwhelm, anxiety and disconnect doing what they are currently doing, then, what they are doing must not be part of their purpose. This is an illusion. In fact, quite often those who come to see me to gain insights as to their true purpose are quite often, in it. The issue isn’t the work they are doing, but rather, the approach they are taking to do doing their work and it is merely the approach that needs healing.
  2. Secondly, there are those who are provoked by the absence of any clarity as to a clearly defined purpose in their life and the ensuing deficit of any meaning in their life which this creates.
  3. Thirdly, some are provoked by the knowledge that their true purpose is something other than what they’re currently doing and they’re crippled by a state of self-doubt about taking the leap of faith to it.

When it comes to identifying the source of each of these tensions, the culprit is nearly always the same; a lack of any spiritual practice to bring them back to their centre, connect them to the highest aspects of themselves for guidance; their Soul, Higher Self and Spirit, which could undoubtedly hold them and guide the way.

Our lives cannot be divorced
from Spiritual Practice if we want to thrive

Our lives simply must be anchored in Spiritual Practice if we want to be on purpose and thrive. Spiritual practice though is quite often one of the first areas of our lives that slips when life gets heavy and hectic. But our lives simply cannot be divorced from any spiritual practice if we want a whole life, not just a half-life and most definitely, if we want to claim that highly coveted prize of purpose and thrive.

What is spiritual practice?

You might ask though, what is spiritual practice? Is it meditation? Prayer? Sitting under a tree with a book? Taking a swim in the ocean? Well, the short answer is, yes. It’s all of those things, if that’s what connects you back to you. That’s all that’s important.

If such activities bring you into a state of connection with your own being, your own feelings and your own thoughts, then yes, they equate to spiritual practice.

“Listen to the wind, it talks, listen to the silence
it speaks, listen to your heart it knows.”

An old Native American proverb says:  “Listen to the wind, it talks, listen to the silence it speaks, listen to your heart it knows.”  Spiritual practice therefore, can be any activity that creates enough space for you to embrace quiet, breathe, connect into your heart and commune with your Soul, your Higher Self and the Universe at large.

Spiritual practice is all about connecting into those parts of you that know why you’re here… so they can tell you why you’re here!

Why does the heart get so much focus when it comes to purpose?

The heart is the front door to the Soul…
contemplation is a key

The heart is the front door to the Soul and the portal to the higher levels of your being, which is why we are so often advised to get out of our heads and connect into our hearts when pondering the bigger topics of life.

The Soul holds the blueprint for your life and therefore, it must be accessed to gain the answers that will guide you on your life’s journey. No matter whether the question you’re asking or the answer you’re seeking relates to a need for help to make an important decision, getting on purpose, or to overcome a struggle of some kind. Those higher aspects of you sit behind the doorway of your heart and contemplation is a powerful spiritual process that will act as the key to let you in and to bring them out.

When you go into quiet contemplative space with your own thoughts, feelings, and centre yourself into your heart, you’re in communion with those highest aspects of your being. You can then begin to ask those all-important questions and receive some all-important answers. You can then remove yourself from the noise of your ego and finally hear the quiet calls of your Soul.

But what if you just hear crickets when pondering on your purpose?

Sometimes we have to look backward, to be able to move forward

Sometimes it’s just a matter of looking backward to be able to move forward and so, if you tend to hear crickets when pondering on your purpose, stop for a moment and take stock of who you were, who you are and who you might now become.

Often, all that’s needed is that we review our past, take stock of who we are and reflect just a little, on who we might become.

Looking to the Past as a way forward – A Life Review

I often help people who are blocked off from their purpose suddenly find it by doing a simple life review in the form of a timeline exercise. In fact, many people who reach out to me for clarity on what their true purpose is, have in most cases, been staring at it their whole life. All that’s been missing is some positive self-inquiry under the right conditions to bring it through; a life review in communion with their Soul.

5 Steps To Knowing Your Purpose – Life Review Timeline Exercise:

Doing a life review to witness your purpose is as simple as putting pen to paper in this way:

  1. Take a moment to consciously connect to your heart and call on the support of your Soul, Higher Self and High Level Guides; your Spirit Team.

  2. Get a big piece of paper and draw a line across the page that represents the length of your life.

  3. Populate the line with the jobs you’ve held, the careers, if any, you’ve entered, the genre of books you’ve been pulled to and the courses, studies and hobbies you’ve leaned into.

  4. Then, note down when and where on your timeline you felt most ‘alive’ and where, you remember being complimented for a particular strength; ie where people might have identified “You’re really good at that”.

  5. When you’re finished, sit back from your timeline and really absorb the details of your past and then ask yourself this: 
    “If all this was trying to tell me something about who I am at a Soul level and what my Soul is calling me to do, what might it be saying?

     

 Notice what words come into your mind as you review the timeline and what feelings, if any, come into your gut. They will be coming from your Spirit Team, trying to guide you.

Will The Answers Come?

Yes. The answers will come. Our unique purpose will always call out to us. It always has and it always will, until we finally stop, take stock of who we’ve become and connect into the part of us that knows why we’re really here; our Soul.

The moment we ask the Soul a question to do with our purpose, our Soul will immediately respond. Hands down every time. It will respond through your intuition, through synchronistic events, signs and symbolism, such as repetitive numbers, as well as through, chance meetings and nightly dreams.

All that’s required of us, is to act on the answer so that we can begin answering our Soul’s call.

Do you want to move beyond hearing crickets when you ponder on your purpose?

If you hear crickets when you ponder on your purpose, join my wait list for the “Embracing Your Light” 8 week journey to awaken to the truth of who you are and begin sharing your unique light with the world. You can also subscribe to receive ‘Spiritual Insights’, ‘Healing Tips’ and ‘Free Meditations’ like the one below, which is my gift to you.

Download my free Gift – a gentle yet, powerful healing meditation and energy activation to begin aligning your energy and bringing the balance and clarity back through for you to begin transforming your life.

Activate Your Energy Meditation

* You can learn more about listening to the calls of your Soul and getting on purpose in part two of this blog series.