Note: I originally made this short video as a compliment to the Embody Your Purpose Mini-Course, but then realized it might be nice to share with you just on it's own as well! What's written there on the whiteboard refers to a simple model/framework I utilize in the mini-course, but I think you can get the main message here just fine without it. 🙂
Oh - and what I wrote here below is not exactly what I say in the video above, but rather a summary with some additional thoughts.
Fixating on the WHY and WHAT questions of Purpose can bring you more clarity—or even more confusion...
When something in your life isn't going well or feeling good to you, it's easy and natural to start questioning WHY you're even doing it in the first place.
You start asking yourself "Is this really the right thing for me to be doing? Is this activity/job/mission truly aligned with my deeper purpose in life!? No? Well what should I really be doing then!?"
Before you know it, you find yourself (re)questioning everything (again)—feeling the conviction, focus and energy drain straight out of your bodymind. And then very little good work gets done that day, and/or what does happen feels unrewarding and inconsequential.
Sound familiar?
Now, I'm NOT saying that asking the deeper WHY-should-I-do-WHAT questions are not important—they are crucial! But if we don't want to become paralyzed by them, it's KEY we keep feeling into when to ask them intently and when to let them be more ongoing, emergent spaces of inquiry... (To "live into the questions", as Rilke so eloquently put it.)
But there's another crucial aspect of living a purpose-aligned and deeply satisfying life that so often goes often under-appreciated.
And, in my experience of working with many coaching clients on embodying their purpose more fully, this one is very often the key that gets everything flowing in the right direction again...
Exploring the HOW of Purpose grounds you in the Body and opens up a continual path through each situation.
Before you start over-questioning WHY you are with a certain person, group, or place, or WHAT you are doing in a certain career, job or task, and WHAT alternatives might be more "purpose-aligned" for you, I invite you to ask 'HOW'. How do you want to feel in the moment?
And what can you do to help cultivate that feeling? What quality of being & doing 'feels right' and most aligned for you in the moment?
Is it about being more relaxed, or connected? More tenacious, or creative? What embodied state of being do you desire?
Then HOW can you cultivate that state and find your grove right where you are? What practices and support will help you cultivate the capacity to bring those qualities into the activities in your current life that most want it right now?
Invest, again and again, in the quality of your HOW—not to just as a better way of getting TO some "Greater Purpose", but also very much AS a practice of enacting purpose itself. I'm talking about purpose-as-process here, and not just purpose-as-result.
So make yours a PROCESS of life-being-well-lived, and not just a hopefully meaningful RESULT of a life of hard work. Let your quality of experience and your quality of relating to others be the bedrock of your gift to yourself and to the world.
And it's through the body that this earthly current of purpose-in-the-flesh flows and manifests it's juicy goodness. Purpose is not merely something to be ACHIEVED through the body, but something to be sprouted, grown, harvested, and savored through your bodymind.
So say YES to finding a feeling of purposefulness in each new moment. Say YES to the already-purpose-drenched present in the same way your mouth would say YES to a ripe peach in late summer.
I promise you'll find it dripping with sweetness and well-worth the messiness.
Keep grounding your realization of purpose in and through your body. Purpose is also found in the HOW!
Key Takeaway
When you find yourself feeling not "purpose-aligned", and you start questioning WHY you're doing what you're doing, and if it's truly WHAT you should be doing, take a breath, relax your mind a bit, and sink your awareness more into your body in its present environment. Be here now.
Now ask yourself: HOW do I feel most inspired to relate to myself, my environment and my current task or activity? What way of engaging with what's right here right now would help me feel most aligned with myself, connected with others, and interested to keep going?
As you tune in and find the HOW that feels intuitively more purposeful for you in the moment, acknowledge what you discover—value it. Much of our so-called 'true purpose' is simply about finding an authentically resonant way to show up and connect in each moment.
Embody Your Purpose
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I love this so much. It reminds me that there are many ways to achieve my purpose, and so it’s not dependent on me finding the “exact right path.” Maybe it means I can’t NOT be on my right path. It’s very freeing. I’ll spend some time working with this. Thank you, Dylan!