Course Index
Conclusion Index
Purpose

LIFE PURPOSE

Dr. Bach was right-on when he narrowed down the major causes of disease to two areas. The first was not following your path    (life purpose - Wild oat). The second was harming others (love - Holly). 

Since this area cuts to the heart of health and well being I recommend the two following books. The first is "How to Find your Mission in Life" by R.N. Bolles. In it he emphasizes your uniqueness as crucial if you are ever to find meaningful work. Finding your life mission is a search of the heart as well as the mind. It is a deep mystery that needs time to unfold. The search is a learning process. It will involve making the world a better place. In Ellen White's mythology, the Creator did the best job He could but He needs our constant feedback to improve creation. We need to find our unique mission that uses our peculiar gifts, that we delight in using, in the place(s) or setting(s) that appeal to us most. I find the clue of place and setting helpful. 

You may get involved in a career like herbalism because you love to be in nature and then find yourself working downtown in a store. I have loved nature all my life and I like to spend as much time outside as I can. In fact, I need to, to maintain normal functioning of my pituitary gland. After considering the above we then need to look for the work that most needs doing.

It is an unlearning process as well as a learning process. We need to unlearn the idea that our purpose is to keep busy doing something. Re-learn to spend time BEING something. Vervain Bach flower remedy is good for this state. Let go of the notion that everything about our work must be unique to us. Learn that some portion of our mission we share with all life. We need to change our notion that our unique mission must consist of some achievement that all the world will see. That what we have accomplished is our doing, and ours alone. We all stand on the backs of each other.

At some point you may experience some grand mountain top experience. You say to yourself "This, this, is why I came into the world. I know it." Until then, your mission is here in the valley and the fog. The little callings, that happen moment to moment and day to day. The work that fulfills us, is where our deep-seated joy and the world's buried hunger meet.

The second book I found helpful in this area is, "Do What you Love and the Money will Follow." by M. Sinetar. She believes that people can fulfill themselves as authentic, unique

Work needs to fit your personality just as shoes fit your feet. Otherwise you are destined for discomfort. Right work is just as important to personal health and growth as the right nutrients are for our bodies. People who are successful enjoy their work. They enjoy it in part because they are good at it. Any talent that we are born with eventually surfaces as a need. Turning our lives around is usually the beginning of maturity since it means correcting choices made unconsciously, without deliberation or thought. Once we see and accept that our talents are also our blueprint for a satisfying vocational life, then we can stop looking to others for approval and direction.

Our enjoyment predisposes us to create more and better works and enables others to see value in them. They value us with the trust, respect and money that support our efforts. Almost anyone who devotes herself to a given vocation by pouring her love and energy into that activity, develops a certain genius in that field. The vocation opens itself up to her in terms of its truths and principles. It bends itself to her imagery and ideas. It becomes her friend and most able co-creator. As she invests herself in the work she grows. She works because she is in love with what she does. 

She senses in an intuitive, strange way that the work loves her too and opens itself up to her. It shows her its special rules, secrets and requirements. She grows to see that her work is more than something by which to "earn a living".  It is that which helps her build a life.

Do This!

Exercise 88 • Exploring Your Life Purpose

Reflect on and answer the following questions. Be gentle with yourself as this is a large undertaking. One study showed improved immune response by those attempting to find their life purpose even if they failed to achieve it. Trying was healthier than not trying. Some statistics report that 95% of the North American population do not enjoy what they are doing. I think that is a little to high! 

• What is unique about yourself and your skills?
  
  
• What do you enjoy doing?
  
  
• What is your favourite place or setting?
  
  
• What do you see as something that needs to be done that someone else is not doing or they are not able to do it all or do it well enough?
  
  
• Who do you envy and what are they doing that you might want to
  be doing?
  
  
• Have you had any strong dreams that may point to a certain direction?

When you get some ideas of the sort of work you would like to do, then invite it into your heart and see how it feels. Begin taking small steps toward it, e.g. Go to the library and take out some books on the subject.

• Record your life purpose experience.