I’d love to offer you something to consider: I don’t think you were “meant” to be a coach or a teacher or actress or painter. You weren’t meant to guide psychedelic journeys or catch babies. Or be a mom or dad or any kind of parent. You weren’t meant to do any specific career or type of work.
I know this can seem counter to what you may hear about “life purpose.” And a lot of people’s raison dêtre (their most important reason or purpose for existing) focuses on their career. This is especially common in modern industrialized societies.
However, this focus on career or work as our purpose can cause a lot of problems, especially existential ones.
This is particularly true when that career doesn’t go as we hoped, and even if everything is going really well, it can still create a problem because we are putting our Soul Purpose into the hands of external circumstances. And last I checked – we don’t have control over those things.
As you know, at Rebel Buddhist we are all about freedom. If we think we’re meant to be here for a specific career, we end up putting our purpose into something outside of us, dependent on other people, or the economy, or whether people will pay us or agree that they need what we think they do.
That’s really freaking stressful – and while we have our moments where we have to disappoint others to stay true to ourselves, our Soul Purpose is not supposed to be stressful to embody all the time.
And trust me, your soul purpose for landing on this planet Earth in this body at this time was not so you could DO something that was stressful as heck to figure out how to embody for the rest of your life.
I DO believe that we are all here in this life for a very specific reason. And I DO think work is love in action. AND I also feel that work is just one delivery system of many through which we can express our gifts to people.
So maybe you weren’t “meant” to be a coach… perhaps you were meant to help people move through grief, or realize their potential, or finally see their inherent worthiness and loveability.
You weren’t “meant” to be a parent…perhaps you were meant to do that thing you do when you drop your kids off at school that makes your heart sing; or that je ne sais quoi when you walk into a room and it lights up with your presence.
You weren’t “meant” to be a filmmaker… perhaps you were meant to move people, or take them to other realities, so they could intimately know the range of human experience.
You weren’t “meant” to be a nun or a monk … perhaps you were meant to explore consciousness or faith or devotion and inspire others.
You weren’t “meant” to be a nurse or a herbalist or a doctor…perhaps you were meant to know what was needed in a situation that would facilitate healing
So, what I believe is that all of those things I described (and beyond) can be done in many different ways.
I remember Bill Plotkin telling us that he realized he embodied his gift when he could do it even when playing poker with a bunch of men that were drinking beer, which was a situation he felt really awkward in since he was used to doing it in the wilderness in sacred contexts. But it still worked – he could stll do his magic…as can YOU, no matter the delivery system.
In this way, we can actually find a sense of peace and freedom when we realize what our gift is outside of the confines of a career path, and outside of external circumstances needing to be a certain way in order for us to embody it.
Remember, careers can come and go, depending on the year, the economy, technology, fads, and trends.
Your place in the ecosystem of the Universe has nothing to do with any of those mundane, worldly things. Your cosmic miracle of a life is meant for something that tanscends all that.
Here are some questions we can ask ourselves to help us find out what gift we’re meant to bring to the world:
// What do friends say after spending time with us?
// How do we think we impact others when we spend time with people or other non-humans?
// What has come so easily and naturally since you were a child?
// What urge do you have that you just can’t ignore?
For me, one way I phrase my gifts is I serve as a guide for people as they journey into scary places, places that could potentially be traumatic, but instead, are transformed to be healing, empowering, and freeing.
This has been true in all the phases of my life: as a kid running my Double Dare club, challenging friends to sneak into a mean neighbor’s yard; as a climbing guide in the Himalayan peaks; as an emergency nurse who was bedside trying to hold sacred space as we ran a code or quietly whispering blessings when people died; as a midwife that looked into a woman’s eyes as we did a cesarean section without anesthesia or when I delivered a stillborn.
And now, I guide people into the depths of their psyche and their soul and their wounds to heal them and their gifts to finally manifest them… as a Soul Midwife.
You may be reading this and thinking, “well dang, I don’t have anything that obvious.” Well, it wasn’t obvious to me until relatively recently. When I was in it, I used to think about all those careers and wonder if I would ever find “my thing,” only to see, in hindsight, that I was doing “my thing” all along.
So, if you can’t immediately identify something that feels right to you, don’t worry. It’s not because you don’t have a purpose or gift.
Odds are it got shut down when you were very young. Your brilliance probably scared the fuck out of people. And that’s OK because now you get to uncover what that is, and let me tell you – it is a wild ride of a journey.
You will learn:
// What we weren’t meant to be… and what we WERE meant to be
// How you can use your career to deliver your soul purpose
// How to find the gift we’re meant to bring to the world
// Why finding out purpose can be hard
Resources:
// Want to take things to the next level in a 6-month immersion program? Apply at AdventureMastermind.com. Enter into the adventure of your life in a container where you’ll feel safe enough to explore your true self with altered states and adventures during this one precious life we have. We only take a small group of people every cohort, so apply now! There will only be ONE cohort in 2023 – the time is now.
// Episode 71: How to Find Your Purpose
// Episode 99: Rebel Purpose
// Want to dive into this work on a deeper level? To study it and practice it together? Check out Freedom School – the community for ALL things related to freedom, inside and out.
It’s also where you can get individual help applying the concepts to your own life. It’s where you can learn new coaching tools not shared on the podcast that will blow your mind even more, and it’s where you can connect over all things freedom with other freedom junkies just like you and me. It’s my favorite place on earth and it will change your life, I guarantee it. Come join us at JoinFreedomSchool.com. I can’t wait to see you there.
// If you’re new to the squad, grab the Rebel Buddhist Toolkit I created at RebelBuddhist.com. It has all you need to start creating a life of more freedom, adventure, and purpose. You’ll also get access to the Rebel Buddhist private group, and tune in every Wednesday at 11:30am PST as I go live with new inspiration and topics.