Many years ago I was at a workshop and the retreat leader asked us to go around the room and share what our purpose was. At the time, this type of exercise was my worst nightmare. I cringed and started to sweat. My face turned bright red and my thoughts started to race “What am I going to say? What if it’s not good enough? I don’t know what my purpose is yet… Maybe I don’t have one. I’m going to look stupid…”
Somehow I fumbled my way through that moment. I don’t recall what I said, but I do remember feeling ashamed. I didn’t know what my purpose was and I felt like I didn’t deserve to be in the room.
A few days after the workshop while out for a walk, I had a light-bulb moment.
Wasn’t me just being a person good enough? I would never assume that someone didn’t have a purpose no matter what their life looked like, so why was I putting all of this pressure on myself?
From that moment on I get annoyed when I hear your “life’s purpose” thrown around in the personal development world, and I think we need to be really intentional when having conversations around purpose. We have a responsibility as leaders to make sure everyone knows that you have a purpose…
and that purpose is to BE YOU!
It took me a long time to come to this realization. When I was a teenager, my brothers and I were left to our own devices in the afternoon as my mom finished up her school bus run. This was when I discovered the magical world of Oprah Winfrey!
She would interview amazing guests that would move me to tears with their powerful stories of how they were helping others around the world. Something deep inside me connected with this energy, and I knew I was here to do something… but I didn’t yet know what that was.
But who was I to have this dream? Who was I to think I could make an impact? That’s not what happened to people in my small town. At least that’s what it seemed like coming from a teenager’s perspective.
I had this burning desire to find my purpose and get out of that small town. But the more I watched people on TV making a big impact, the smaller I felt.
The message I picked up on subconsciously was that if we are not impacting hundreds or millions of people, then we don’t have a purpose.
Let’s play with this question: “Do you have to make a big impact to have a purpose?”
Of course not! Think about a new born baby or a toddler… would you ever question that they have a purpose other than to just be themselves?
Why then do so many of us feel like we have to go searching for our purpose?
I believe the answer to this question lies within a slight shift in language.
What we are looking for as we become adults is a connection to our soul and how your soul is calling you to live your life. Some people might call this meaning. We want our lives to mean something and we want to feel fufilled. If we are disconnected from our soul, it can leave us feeling empty inside causing us to go outside of ourselves searching for our purpose, when what we are actually looking for is right inside of us all along.
In order to feel connected to our purpose, we must be connected to our soul. And this is where the process of BodyMind has been so powerful for me. My soul knew what it was here to do: help people make positive changes in their lives so they could be happier and more fulfilled. But my mind had talked myself out of it for years. My mind-chatter was constantly telling me I wasn’t good enough or smart enough. It was through the process of reconnecting to my body’s deep internal wisdom and intuition that I allowed myself to express the fullest version of myself out in the world.
From a young age, we are told to be quiet, sit down, don’t make a scene, don’t be too loud or in my case, too shy. We quickly get put into boxes that we have not necessarily chosen. We might even start looking for the acceptable boxes to put ourselves in because they are the social norm. We begin to seek approval from others, which can create a separation from our soul and the true expression of ourselves.
For many people, the wake-up call to reconnect to their purpose comes in the form of a drastic life event like losing a job, or a loved one, or a difficult health challenge.
It’s often in those moments that we have slowed down enough to hear our soul calling, reconnecting to purpose — to be you.
If you’ve ever felt disconnected from your purpose, here are a few questions to ponder and help spark the reconnection:
What would it look like for you to be the fullest expressioon of yourself?
What would you change in your life to express yourself more authentically?
What would you say or do — or not do — anymore?
What might be possible if you took this concept and started living it to the fullest?
“Today I will live the fullest expression of myself.”
Write that down on a sticky note and put it on your bathroom mirror!
The process of fully expressing myself took a number of years and I do believe I am still in that process and may be for many years to come. There is more of my inner child that wants to come out and play and my adult self is still testing the waters to make sure it’s safe.
Our bodies are wise, so if you’ve had difficult experiences especially early on in life, the body does what it needs to in order to protect itself and feel safe. We may have had to build up a strong armor around the fullest expression of ourselves because there may have been a time in our life where it was not safe to be who we are.
As adults we can consciously bring in a ton of self-compassion for the little person we were, doing the very best we could in the situation we were in. Only then can we take small steps to heal and start to feel safe enough to express the full version of who we are now.
Decades later, I think back to the small town I grew up in and know that every single person in that town has a divine purpose — to be themselves. And to be the fullest expression of themselves whatever that might look like!
