Finding Our Mission in Life
Reading autobiographies of successful or sainted people, I get the impression they always knew what their mission in life was, or that they discovered it at a very young age. This is annoying to many of us --- myself included --- who have long had the deep intuitive sense that we have a mission to perform, but we just haven't been able to bring it into focus, so we keep waiting for one of Dumbledore's owls to deliver the instruction book.
Finding the mission seems to be the quest that many people around me, friends and clients both, are on these days. It keeps coming up in unexpected ways, from surprising quarters, so I've decided to write about it often over the next month or so. (Let me know if you get bored with the topic.)
Two words in the thesaurus help me respond to questions about finding one's mission: calling, and lifework. To me, a calling is something quite sacred, and it has a unique bodily felt sensation when I'm on the path of mine. (More about that in later posts.) Lifework, or one's life's work, or one's Work in the world, are the skills, talents, and achievements that are used and created in responding to one's sacred calling.
I think we risk getting off track when we expect our mission to be some crystal clear, hugely important Something that will make a difference to humanity at large. It might, but it's just as possible, as Caroline Myss has said, that one's mission is to bloom where you're planted --- that is, to simply be the best you can be in every given moment while still allowing yourself to be humanly imperfect.
A starting point is to think of a calling as if it were a magnet. To what do you feel magnetically pulled? And as you think about that, try to be aware of the sensation of that pull in your body --- where is the pull located, and what are the sensory qualities of the feeling of the pulling?
Finding the mission seems to be the quest that many people around me, friends and clients both, are on these days. It keeps coming up in unexpected ways, from surprising quarters, so I've decided to write about it often over the next month or so. (Let me know if you get bored with the topic.)
Two words in the thesaurus help me respond to questions about finding one's mission: calling, and lifework. To me, a calling is something quite sacred, and it has a unique bodily felt sensation when I'm on the path of mine. (More about that in later posts.) Lifework, or one's life's work, or one's Work in the world, are the skills, talents, and achievements that are used and created in responding to one's sacred calling.
I think we risk getting off track when we expect our mission to be some crystal clear, hugely important Something that will make a difference to humanity at large. It might, but it's just as possible, as Caroline Myss has said, that one's mission is to bloom where you're planted --- that is, to simply be the best you can be in every given moment while still allowing yourself to be humanly imperfect.
A starting point is to think of a calling as if it were a magnet. To what do you feel magnetically pulled? And as you think about that, try to be aware of the sensation of that pull in your body --- where is the pull located, and what are the sensory qualities of the feeling of the pulling?
Dr Deah's Musings
Copyright 2005-2006 by Liminal Realities
a personal growth education venture
Deah Curry PhD, publisher
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
posted by Dr Deah @ 11:55 PM
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