Questing on Purpose

This morning brought with it the first pair of instigations as part of the 2018 Quest.  This week is about exploring and testing personal purpose.

I don’t usually like audio content, but this morning, I had the quiet and the space to listen to the interview between Jeffrey Davis, Caroline Miller and Katie Daleabout. Jeffrey asked some amazing questions to get the conversation going. I enjoyed sipping my morning coffee as I listened to these very authentic humans being very honest.

Caroline Miller’s Instigation

If you choose to tackle harder goals on a daily basis, imagine how you could amplify the positive impact you want to have on the world.

It’s often said that ‘you can’t keep what you don’t give away.’ What will you give to others through your best work in 2018 that will positively impact them so that you might keep it, as well?

What do you need to do in 2018 to ensure that you live without unnecessary regrets and have that kind of fulfilling purpose and impact on others?

With the arthritis, today, my fingertips and wrists hurt. It’s hard to type without being acutely aware of each key that I press. Just as I am struggling to remember that resting is a productive activity, my “harder” goals to tackle are the truly difficult ones: surrender and allowing, rest and play.  How can I amplify the positive impact I have on the world?

I think one thing I am doing, and can keep doing, is talking about it. Being honest about where I am, what I feel. By talking honestly about chronic pain, autoimmune disorders, and my experience of them, I can hopefully help others to experience empathy for all of the silent sufferers who don’t have words to wrap around their worlds. By giving away empathy, by giving away honesty, by giving away love, I can keep those things for myself.

I don’t like the question of “unnecessary regrets.” Regret is a form of sadness that can only teach us how to better move forward, and I don’t think it’s something you can intentionally avoid.  I’ll just say yes when my whole body sings “YES!”, and go from there.

Katie Daleabout’s Instigation

When we get clarity on what we want to create and it’s for the greater good of humanity, then that vision can happen more easily. When we make space to show up this way, the universe will fill it with our desires, but we have to make space. How are you going to make space in 2018 to create what you really want that will be for the greater good of humanity? What ritual might help your mindset make space? What habit or activity might you stop to make space and test your fulfilling purpose?

My 2018 calendar is already full, and this question is an important one. I’ve got a full-time job, 9 monthly trips to California, studying for grad school, and my home and family to be present within.  Making space where there is very little room is not going to be easy.

However, I go back to the start of this prompt – what am I making space to create?

I work for a company with the purpose of getting more people to enjoy, understand, and preserve nature by experiencing it, with the happy side effect of preserving wildlife habitat and supporting sustainable agriculture. I work for a company that is working for the greater good of humanity. I don’t need to make space for that – or around it. It’s my full-time job.  I might say that I’d like to create space to personally spend more time outside, but that, too, is included in my full-time job.

I’m in graduate school studying comparative mythology. This supports my writing and storytelling work, and is supported and sustained by the same. I’m practicing and learning in a number of different directions, and they already fill my time and space for my own growth, which is ultimately to serve my creativity and soul’s purpose. I have already created space for this, as well.  The travel is a bit of a beast, but I still think it’s doable.

I am a stepmom, a wife, a dog-mom, a homeowner. I work from home, so the dog and the house are impossible to ignore for very long. My home and my family are the air I breathe and the sound of my heartbeat. They are the reason I take showers and eat meals. They are grounding and reality and love. Like the dog taking up the WHOLE BED at night, they might grumble if I need to nudge them into a different position to make room for my legs, but they will adjust. They already have adjusted.

This exercise has led me to realize that I’ve already done this work, and I have no need to create additional space. That I’m already shaping my life in a way that flexes and bends with my reading and writing demands. With my psoriatic arthritis and bad days and good days.

Rituals, however, are something I’m interested in building back into my routine. I’m studying with Lora right now, and I know that those practices will become a ritual that I make a part of my regular life.  I’d like to make journalling a daily thing instead of a sporadic hit-and-miss practice. My friend Kath gave me the gift of a yoga practice I can do even on my most painful days, and I’ve been doing that in the morning. I’d like to grow and sustain that.

Habits to stop? Hrm. Escaping into my phone. Social media. Dumb games. The things that I do to shut off my heart and mind and release the steam-valve of emotions. They don’t feed me. They don’t help me feel good. They serve as a brain-break. So I need to find other ways to let my brain idle.