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FINDING YOUR LIFE PURPOSE
by, Jay Earley, Ph.D., Director, Life Purpose Center

These are crucial questions for us all. Even if you've never thought about it, you operate out of some understanding of the meaning of your life. If you are approaching mid-life or if you're in a time of crisis and transition, this issue may be just emerging into your consciousness. If you have reached the point in your psychological development where your basic needs are being met, you may find these broader questions becoming an important priority.

I define life purpose as a contribution to the world that uses your whole self fully and gives your life passion, fulfillment, and meaning through dedication to something larger than yourself. It might be work for social transformation; it might be service to people who are in need; it might be living from an attitude of love, or unleashing your creativity, or developing your highest spiritual potential.

I believe that everyone has a life purpose to be created or discovered. It seems clear that at a certain level of psychological development people need to identify and manifest this purpose. Being blocked in this area can lead to apathy, depression, despair, and a variety of other psychological symptoms. It can even lead to physical symptoms. And finding and fulfilling your life purpose can lead to pleasure and satisfaction of a depth that is unmatched by more self-oriented pursuits.

Sensing Your Life Purpose

There is a part of you which understands or creates your life purpose, a wise and loving part of you which is sometimes called the "higher self." This aspect of you lives in the deeper flow of your life, the meaning underlying the particular events. You may sense this purpose at those times when you are able to be quiet and alone and go deeply inside yourself. You may get a hint of it when you are unexpectedly moved to strong emotion by a scene in a movie or something in the news. A project or an ideal may stir your passion deeply and draw you in; you may find yourself devoting long hours to it doggedly or joyfully. You may be surprised to find yourself passionately espousing a point of view at a social gathering.

For some of you, once you have sensed your life purpose, it will begin to express itself naturally in your life. For others there may a long, hard road to actually manifesting it in the world. This often involves much experimentation, personal growth, overcoming blocks, developing skills and contacts, etc. Gradually over time you hone in on more and more satisfying and influential ways to contribute. It can be especially difficult to make your career an expression of your life purpose, as most of us want. This may require much perseverence and creativity throughout this process. It helps to keep in mind that engaging in this process itself is part of the expression of your life purpose.

One of the problems with our current social order is that it allows only a small minority of people to have life work that is simultaneously meaningful, creative, and financially rewarding. And yet everyone should have this opportunity. The good news is that more and more people are searching for this kind of work, and this is putting pressure on corporations and other institutions to make this more possible. They are slowly becoming more flexible and allowing employees more participation, autonomy, and responsibility. There is also a great upsurge in small businesses which have started in recent years, as people opt out of the corporate world in order to pursue their own visions. So in your search for a career which is not only personally satisfying but also manifests your life purpose, you may also be participating in the transformation of our social institutions.

Life purpose is not only found through career. It may involve serving the world in other ways--through volunteer work, artistic endeavors, loving your children, or the seemingly little acts that can be so important. You may sense that your life purpose has primarily to do with a certain way of being in the world which would permeate everything you do--being caring for those in need, being courageous in the face of hardship, being true to yourself, living simply, daring to speak your mind.

Source of Life Purpose

Which concerns move you to a sense of higher purpose? What do you care about deeply enough to dedicate your life to? It can be valuable at first to explore the source or motivating principle behind your life purpose--not what you might do to fulfill your life purpose, but the deeper reasons behind your wanting to do it. We can view life purpose as having three aspects:

1. The "action" is the most obvious aspect--what you actually do in the world.

2. The "being" aspect refers to the kind of presence you manifest in the world--loving or angry, courageous or timid.

3. The "source" aspect refers to why you would do or be these things--what larger reasons inspire you to your life purpose.

For instance, the action part of my life purpose currently involves leading groups and workshops, doing individual therapy and coaching, and doing theoretical work and writing in psychology and social issues. For the being part, I am working at being loving, creative, and letting go of my needs for self-importance. The source level for me comes from my conviction that we are faced with a planetary crisis at this unique time in human history, which will result either in a brighter future or an unprecedented disaster. I am dedicated to avoiding that disaster and helping the human race to continue in its evolution. I am also dedicated to helping create a healthy society, one which is based on love and reverence for the earth, in which everyone is free and has access to the good things in life. My choices for my actions spring from this source.

There are many possibilities for one's source level.  People have been dedicated to:

Living things and the earth
The future of the human race
The children of the world
People who are dying (or some other group of people in need)
The liberation of a particular oppressed group
God or spirit (however conceptualized)
The creation of beauty
The freeing of the human body
Love

The source level involves a dedication to something larger than yourself, a concern which involves more than just your daily struggle to achieve happiness and security. It lifts you out of the usual self-centered mode and into a realm where you are part of larger and more meaningful concerns. You feel deeper, more open, more real. You are touching on the essence of life.

Even though the source of your life purpose will be something larger than yourself, it may grow out of some of your own most intense personal concerns. You may be dedicated to ending child abuse because of the way you were abused as a child. You may care deeply about social justice because of your own disadvantaged background. You may want to end the nuclear threat because your own child is having nuclear nightmares. Your personal life crises and trials can provide the juice and passion behind your life purpose.

People who are in touch with the source of their life purpose are sometimes able to act freely and courageously without the usual fears and limitations of their personal egos. This is because they are committed to something larger. They are not trying to prove themselves, or protect themselves, or hold onto anything they have gained. At least in moments, they have transcended these concerns and are living from a higher place. This is a wonderful feeling!

Being Called

Life Purpose is also a central aspect of spiritual development. True seekers desire union with the divine not for their own gratification, but in order to bring back the wisdom and riches they have gained for the good of humanity. The goal is not simply to know God, but to live in the world from that knowing, to bring the divine into form.

Sometimes people experience their life purpose as a spiritual "calling". They feel called to be a certain way in the world. They sense that a higher power desires to work through them to accomplish certain ends in the world, a divine power who has chosen them to act as a channel for its love or wisdom or purpose on the earthly plane.

This can take extreme, obvious forms, such as channeling written or verbal material which the person does not claim authorship of. Occasionally a person will even feel that they are receiving direct instructions from a divine presence. However, most of us experience a calling in subtler ways--feeling a strong passion for some ideal, being unexpectedly moved at certain times, receiving creative inspiration that seems to come from somewhere else, vaguely sensing a project that needs to be birthed through us.

The experience of being called has been profoundly meaningful to me. Given my scientific background, the idea of having a calling was quite foreign to me until I was introduced to it by Jean Houston. In her workshops she frequently suggested that we consider the idea that a higher power could move through us to accomplish a purpose in the world. When I have tried this out experientially during her exercises, I have been deeply moved, feeling a yearning and attunement and a passionate sense of direction, even while at first not believing in the concept.

The strength of my sense of calling was brought home to me by the following incident. I went through a period of 4 or 5 months during which I was unable to open and connect spiritually. At this time I was scheduled to lead one of my own socially-oriented Empowerment Workshops. On the morning of the workshop, I took a few minutes to open myself to a deeper sense of my purpose in doing it. I closed my eyes, grounded myself, and almost immediately was flooded with that sense of peace and loving connection that had been missing those months. I realized that because this work is my calling, the higher connection was available to do the work, even during a time of spiritual drought.

To feel called in this way, to feel something nobler moving through you, to open yourself and allow yourself to be taken, is an exquisite experience. You feel both humbled and lifted up. You know that you are not of great importance, but you feel yourself as part of something vast and meaningful. "Oh the wonder that bubbles into my soul!" writes D. H. Lawrence about such a time.

Jay Earley offers Life Purpose coaching, workshops, and classes. See www.lifepurposecoaching.com.