With the release of my latest podcast episode (Why You Can’t Sell Your Way To Purpose), I wanted to give you - reader of my newsletter (!) - a little insight into the meaning of this for me. Perhaps you can relate, too, or perhaps it is a foreign concept, maybe you’ve been feeling a similar way but have not seen it articulated yet, or seen others relate.
I have been feeling a dissonance with the online coaching world recently - or rather, I’ve come to see, the echo chamber in which I, once again, find myself. Rather than ranting about why the space has been bothering me and what I find wrong with it, I want to talk about what I’ve done to come back to me, how it’s actually enabled me to anchor deeper into my own values and belief systems, and how this trigger-turned-lesson has brought me back to my centre and, in turn, my own purpose.
You see, we could talk all day about the things that we find wrong with the spaces we associate with; as a Yoga teacher you will find endless things to dislike about the online and IRL Yoga space; as a psychologist I’m sure you will find an equal amount of things that just do not align with your way of doing things as we enter into a world where we are encouraged to seek psychological help, therapy and mentoring more than ever before. In fact, I’m sure that with any profession you are going to encounter countless things in your space that don’t resonate for one second with you.
And guess what?
That is A-fucking-OK.
I entered into the online space to get out of this black-and-white thinking; to leave the constraints of the 4-sided box in which I found myself, harbouring opinions that weren’t even my own, that simply fitted with the narrative at the time, the most popular or “just” way of thinking.
And, guess what?
I found myself right back there in that online space that I had so seamlessly curated and woven around my own belief and value systems.
But, the thing is, when you create a world within a world, one wherein you surround yourself with views and perspectives that align with your own, you are almost guaranteed to find yourself, once more, in the echo chamber that you initially sought to disassociate from. And you begin to witness yourself developing less and less nuance, going more single-mindedly down a narrow road that you call your “beliefs”, that have really just been shaped by the views and narratives of those around you.
This stripped me of my sense of purpose.
Sounds dramatic, I know. But it did.
Think about it -
You have drive. Ambition. Fuelled by a deep connection to Purpose. The thing that literally gets you up in the morning, regardless of how you will enact that throughout your day. It is the life force energy that is breathed through You. You and your Purpose are essentially akin - there is no separation. Because your purpose extends far beyond what you do, the services that you are trying to sell, or who you portray yourself to be in order to enable you to live the life of enrichment and fulfillment that you deserve. Your Purpose is the driving force; the harmony of your Mind, Body and Soul, your physical incarnation on this Earth - seemingly fleeting, but everlasting, for once you are gone, the remnants of your Purpose linger and truly never cease to remain.
My sense of Purpose collapsed under my feet when I allowed myself to be lead down a rabbit hole of endless marketing and selling under the clever guise of “development”. Now I have come to realise that it does not matter whether this appears in regards to your business or career, your personal life and relationships or anything else at all. There is simply nothing in this world within your grasp or out of it, that you could attain from outside of yourself that will bring you a sense of anything other than a façade of fleeting fulfillmemt - a psuedo-purpose - and hearing all of those very sources blare aloud that it is “all within me”, while they convince me that I am in fact lacking the things that I already supposedly possess, and so should be looking externally to find those and patch up that feeling of lack, made me jolt the f*** up and come right back into my body.
I thought - no freaking way.
We are not doing this.
And so I called my Purpose the frick back. And, to absolutely no surprise at all, it came back to me immediately. Because…
Guess What?
It never left.
Because it truly was, all within me.
And all that that I experienced simply served as a reminder.
That I Am my Purpose. There is no separation where the two of us are concerned.
Nothing can actually take me away from what is already inside of me, especially when it is the very thing that lights a fire in my Solar Plexus and inspires me to BE who I am, act as I Do, and serve in a way that feels so genuine and authentic, that nobody on this Earth could possibly convince me that what I am doing is disingenuine and inauthentic, and that I need a better approach.
So find yours.
Uncover it ;
trust me when I say that it cannot be far.
It could just be in the areas that you are refusing to look, or in the corners that stray outside of the one-track nature that the mind occasionally gets sucked into.
I urge you to take inventory and let this existence be a ceaseless return to the Union between your Life and your Purpose*
(*= You).
Love, blessings and light,
Claudia.
p.s. curious about practicing with me? If you are looking to expand your awareness, deepen your connection and come back to yourself, here is everything you need.
p.p.s. you can listen to my podcast episode detailing my experiences about this here, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, and as always I would love to hear how this landed with you.
Namaste,