Monday Master Class - Callings, Passions & Grand Purposes...

Namaste ~ The spirit in me respects the spirit in you.

I believe we are spiritual beings. I believe C.S. Lewis when he said, "You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body." I believe that our only real true purpose in this life, contrary to popular belief, is not to DO anything, but to BECOME something.

I think those of us who believe in a higher power also tend to believe in a calling or grand purpose in your life, but I think quite frankly the vision of that is slightly skewed and I'd like to see if I can straighten it a bit here.

Every event, every relationship, every moment of every day has the power to shape us, strengthen us, grow us. I believe that when we were created, there was a map hidden somewhere in our psyche, our DNA, somewhere and that on a subconscious level we are ultimately following that map. Now you may be thinking, I would never have chosen this marriage had I know I would be abused in it, or you're thinking I would never had taken this job if I had known how it would affect my ability to spend time with my kids... or whatever your current life struggle is. However, I believe rarely there is ever only one choice to learn the lessons we need to learn. I believe with spiritual maturity we begin to recognize...
the lessons when we see them and can make better choices for ourselves, but until that time we make the best choices we know how to make and whether the end result was pleasant or painful, their outcome and effect on who you are will be the exact lesson you needed to learn.

I'm one of those people hard wired to always take the hard path because I want to learn it all and I like the feel of the burn after a good workout. That's not necessarily a better path and indeed for some it would be the wrong path. Think of a miniature golf course, there are 2 sometimes 3 or more courses, usually ranging in skill level, but they all end at the same place. All the people playing the course are learning something, experiencing something, but let say you chose course 1, a harder course, while going through that course, you wound up in the water, stuck under the windmill and off into the grass at least a dozen times! By the end you probably have a worse score then you would have had on an easier course, but I bet you learned things on course 1 you couldn't have elsewhere so that the next time you play, you play better.

Now lets say next time, you just want to have some fun and not work quite so hard, so you choose a beginner's course. You probably aren't as frustrated by the end of the game, you probably laughed more, and you still picked up some skill by simply engaging.

I just don't buy into there being wrong choices. It all leads back to the same place and we're all here to teach one another and learn from one another. I absolutely love the story of the blind men and the elephant. If you are looking for a purpose in this life, a passion, a grand calling... you've already found it. It's inside you, it's to simply become all you were meant to be. Love the people in your life, teach them, learn from them, and grow into that which you were created to be.

Nursing, teaching, sailing, painting, isn't your calling.
Being the next Mother Teresa, Billy Graham, Oprah Winfrey, isn't your calling.

If you are passionate about these things, then by all means follow that path. I'm a huge fan of passion! Passion is your bread crumbs and nursing, being Mother Teresa, writing or whatever you find yourself passionate about is here to teach you. By all means you should partake in that! I'm simply saying, don't make you life be about that passion, that calling. Be open to the passion shifting, the call changing, because at the end, what is important is not what you did, but what you learned and who you became as a result of that.

I know we all have a god voice, an intuition, a gut instinct, whatever you want to call it, but it's that thing inside that directs you, warns you, and shows you what is good. If you can learn to recognize and listen to that voice, it will ALWAYS guide you straight. However there are other voices running through your mind, the tapes of your parents, perhaps a spouse, some may call it satan, or even your own self defeating spirit and these voices can mimic that one true voice impeccably. When we fail to recognize where the message in our head is coming from, this is when it gets dangerous, this is when we screw up, but remember even if we don't make the perfect choice we still have the blessed ability to learn. Recognizing truth is a slow process, but it is completely doable and when you start to hear it, recognize it and act on it... it will absolutely change the trajectory of your life.