Living On Purpose

I’d like to pass on a great post from the Manifest Mastermind blog about being on purpose at work. Thanks for finding me on Twitter, Manifest Mastermind!

Working and Being on Purpose Manifest Mastermind, co-creating your dreams and desires.

In summary, we need to check in to our internal guidance system, also known as our emotional guidance system, to find out if we are on purpose in our work. No one else can tell us if what we are doing is right for us.

“You  know your purpose when you have a clear understanding of how you want to feel and what experiences contribute to those feelings.”

This statement, from the Mastermind blog post, summarizes what I heard countless experts tell me on the Living on Purpose teleseminar. First, get clear about what you want! Block out a morning or afternoon to really focus on what your best day would look and feel like. Write down what experiences you want from your life. Ask for certain feelings to come about like this: (the following statements were notes from telesummit call with Hans Christian King.)

I would like the experience of joy in creating artwork please.

I would like the experience of satisfaction in my means of employment please.

You get the gist. Change it up how you like it.  So here I am on Saturday, feeling trapped by my own negative thoughts. I know like I know I’m not supposed to be replaying these thoughts over again, but they’ve taken hold! I’ve tried distraction by housework, music, internet browsing. But the thing that really changed my negative mindset was writing that statement above. It’s all about focusing on what I do want. It’s such a trap to re-play what we don’t want, isn’t it!

So try it next time you’re stuck in a rut. Write down what you really would like to experience.

Aaaah, that was a month just for me. I finished the Living on Purpose telesummit hosted by Adoley Odunton.  I don’t know how she did it, but she lined up some incredible speakers for this month long conference (mostly 1 call per day, but some days had 2 calls) about living on purpose. Each interviewee was asked “How do you define living on purpose?” And each answer was different! I witnessed Adoley grow and mature in her confidence as an interviewer and I myself did a lot of learning and introspecting.

After hearing over twenty speakers reflect upon purpose, I’ve come to understand it better. I started this blog by stating that it’s not as important to know your “life purpose” as it is to make your daily decisions with awareness. I still believe this, yet now it’s much more refined.

Here is a mashup of different answers from this series; I love it!

You’re living on purpose when:

• your core values match your daily behaviors
• you feel you are living “in the flow”
• you’re taking action on your values
• you have isolated and learned to  express your passions (like dance, art, teaching, science, comedy, meditation…)
• you give service and value to the world
• you feel you’re growing and evolving as a human
• your heart is in coherence
• you are living in alignment with your soul values
• you are doing what you love
• you are living in alignment with the reason your soul incarnated
• you are growing into the fullness of who you are
• you surrender to the purpose for which you were born
• you are connected with your guidance

As you can see, many of the speakers who answered  ”what does living on purpose mean to you” talk about alignment. We’ve got to feel we have a yardstick by which we measure our daily decisions. We use this proverbial yardstick to find out if our behavior is in alignment with our core values, our passions, our reason for coming to Earth.

Even if you haven’t given yourself a “statement of life purpose,” (and it’s not at all a prerequisite for living an exquisitely beautiful passionate life,) you use your inner guidance that you’ve already set up to gauge your daily behavior.

Many of the presenters spoke highly of meditation. When you go into a quiet space in your mind, you allow yourself to connect with your guidance. The regular practice of meditation can help you clarify your goals, passions, and purpose — simply by being quiet! The funniest one-liner from the entire month: I came out of the womb with existential angst! From Marci Shimoff, author of Happy for No Reason, a study of 100 unconditionally happy people. Marci (who I recommend in my book suggestions and in my ebook) said that she didn’t get the titles for 2 of her books until she set aside some time for a silent retreat, which was completely against her talkative nature. But there, in the silence, she could see what she should do next, and the book Happy for No Reason was born.

Another big theme I saw running through the speakers’ messages was to learn how to ask for what you want. When you get very clear with yourself about what you would like to experience, you are helping yourself to get it. It makes sense! If all I do is complain about how much I dislike this or that or him or her, I am reinforcing to myself my dislikes. I pull people in to my life who also love to complain, and we can commiserate together instead of planning our fantastic alternative lives.

At least three of the speakers spoke highly of hypnosis. Ninety percent of teachers ask students to do affirmations to help change their lives, but subconscious beliefs hinder the conscious mind from making those changes. (from Jeneth Blackert, New Wealth Teacher) Dr. Robert Anthony described our mind like a captain and his crew. The captain is the conscious mind and the crew is the subconscious mind. I would guess that mutiny is when you can’t tell yourself what to do for any reward in the world using your conscious mind because your crew has run amok! Hypnosis, then, would be the method to talk to the crew directly, bypassing the critical factor gatekeeper of your mind.

Your intention makes things happen, and gratitude is the fastest way to bring about positive change in any situation.

Now I can understand why people extol the benefits of finding a mission statement for their lives. I always considered it overkill, like trying to extract too much meaning from a hot dog or something. (Make me one with everything! ba-dum-bum.) Knowing what your purpose in life is seems grandiose at first, but if you can identify what your passions are and what your values are, and what you really want out of life using tools like meditation and/or hypnosis and/or a life coach, then your “life’s purpose” begins to crystallize. Once you have that, all your subsequent decisions get easier because you suddenly have a yardstick!

By the way, I added a new widget to my sidebar on the right. During this series of conference calls, I was inspired to design something that would sum up what it means to live on purpose. See my print on demand store in the link on the sidebar or here, using the domain I bought just for this idea: http://www.iamlivingonpurpose.com

Purposeful parenting doesn’t mean you have to be a perfect parent. It means you gather knowledge about best practices and do the best you can with what resources you have.

I’ve been thinking about all the things the American public school system does not teach my sons. Public school can teach our children how to add and divide, how to read and write. But unless your child hit the proverbial lottery by being assigned a fantastic caring teacher, public school doesn’t teach your children about making smart life decisions.

I want my sons to know how to choose food based on its nutritional value, not by which animated character endorses it. I want my sons to know how to reflect on their values and know how to tell what they really like to do just because it brings them joy, not because their friends badgered them into it. I want them to know what to do with their anger when it arises so they may be able to transmute it into creative energy for problem solving. I want them to spend their lives making sure their hearts are coherent.

My older son is smack in the middle of middle school. He’s right at the stage where the preteen morphs into the teenager and begins pulling away from Mom & Dad. If I haven’t done my job correctly by now, there’s no stopping him from doing what he wants. But I think I’ve done well. I’ve told him how I measure his progress; that even though I care deeply that he does well academically, I care more that he develops a good and caring character.

Do your sons and daughters know what you value most in their development? Make sure you tell them, or else they will guess.

Since I am the Live on Purpose woman, I figured, “How could I NOT listen to the Living on Purpose Telesummit” Adoley Odunton is hosting? I think it has been two weeks already (halfway done). It’s a mixed bag of speakers all adapting or trying to adapt their particular message to the theme of Living on Purpose.

Here are some of my favorite speakers so far.

Barbara DeAngelis.

I had not heard her name before. Her presentation, presence, and personal power blew me away. She has been my absolute favorite speaker so far and I’d recommend her books, lectures, and consultations if you are searching for some clarity. She asked, “Who shows up when you show up?” She is referencing your vibrational being, as well as the emotional baggage you’re carrying. Then she stated, “To make sure YOU show up, do the work!” She is referencing the emotional work of healing old wounds, clearing old emotional blockages, and clarifying what you really want in your life. Your body is like your radio, picking up broadcasts from the infinite. If your radio is rusted and the batteries are dead, you won’t be able to pick up any signal at all. If you keep your radio in good working order and it is clean, with new batteries, you’ll be able to easily tune in to the messages being sent to you. (Your life purpose, your goals, your values, what you should do next…). Barbara thanked us for letting her have another opportunity to give away her “bundles.” She asked us to re-define our measure of success and purpose to this: When you can give away your bundles, you’re a success. What are bundles? They are the messages we download (from our higher self? from God?) that get transmuted into our life purpose. They are the inimitable message of truth that we can pass on to other seekers.

From me, Jessica:

Yes, we must all do the work. It’s quite uncomfortable at times to face our shadow self. But I wonder what’s worse: the fear of facing our shadow or the pain manifested in our body from never facing the shadow and letting it consume us. Trust me, in the long run it’s more painful to never face those painful memories and emotional wounds.

Raphael Cushnir. I had never heard his name before, either, but his presence and clarity blew me away.  He’s like the spokesman for the emotional guidance system. He calls it “emotional connection.” When you are facing an emotionally painful situation, if you can learn to embrace the pain and really feel it instead of sweeping it under the rug in an effort to hide it, you’ll  pass through the pain and it will be able to change YOU for the better. Emotional connection is a rarely taught skill (from his site):

“Mere emotional intelligence is not enough. For maximum benefit we must directly and consistently connect with our emotions. In particular, we need to connect with the emotions we routinely avoid, resist, or attempt to dismiss. It’s these emotions that possess the key to our greatest goals. And learning to connect with them is a rarely taught but essential skill.”

Raphael was able to speak eloquently and succinctly about some difficult topics.  Sight-unseen, I’d recommend his books to anyone. Even though I was at the laundromat during his call, his message was so important to me that I grabbed a paper and pen to take notes:

We are either in acceptance or resistance to our emotions. If you try to change for the better when you are in resistance, it will fail. Emotions are messages sent from your brain to be experienced in the body. We need to take the elevator downstairs to connect with our emotions. It can’t be done solely in the brain through knowledge of an emotion! If you try to control what you feel regarding a particular emotion, you’re already resisting! We don’t get to choose what we will feel or how long we’ll feel it; we can only choose to accept it or resist it. When we resist a particular emotion, it remains unfelt. A trick that unfelt emotions use to find their way to your body is to act like a magnet and draw people and situations close to you in order to bring up again and again feelings we vowed not to feel. Ah, misery! You can be sure that underlying all repetitive emotional patterns in your life is a resisted emotion.

Here’s how to recognize and release resistance

1. Be aware of an emotional contraction in the body. (pain of some sort)
2. Put gentle and close attention on it. Allow physical discomfort to be experienced.
3. Let the emotion move through you so it can dissipate.

Your attention is the surfer. The emotion is the wave. Emotions are the royal road to spiritual realization. Move from resistance to acceptance!

From me, Jessica:

Through my life, I’ve often toyed with the question:  ”What comes first, emotional healing or physical healing?” These two speakers corroborate with my conclusion that emotional wounds must first be healed before the physical body can reach optimum health. I still bat the debate around in my head every once in a while, like tonight. Perhaps healing the physical body first can become the catalyst for emotional wounds to offer themselves up for potential healing. What do you think?

The following post contains images that may not be appropriate for the youngest viewers. Figure drawing class consists of both clothed and nude models. I had years of previous experience with figure drawing in pencil and charcoal before I entered this class. Results not typical if one has never drawn before!

Honestly, I chose this class on a whim because the class I really wanted was full when I went to register.  So I asked which classes did have room left. The one that I felt an affinity for was “Figure and portrait painting in watercolor with Dennis Pendleton.” I was going to take solar plate printmaking; perhaps I will later this year.

I faced a small fear by enrolling; I was scared of working with color! I can use colored pencils just fine, but when I paint my results are out of control.  I took 4 classes; one month’s worth. I’ve seen a great improvement in my color mixing and treatment of color temperature.

In this one, my instructor actually mixed the wash for me, and that’s how I learned NOT to paint a bright orange blob.

These are by no means masterpieces. They are training exercises, that’s all. I’ve now realized that the path to purpose really does take practice. If one wants to be a dancer, can it be done without dancing? If one wants to be an athlete, can it be done without workouts and training? It’s not that I really want to be an artist; what I want is to be able to paint what I see in my dreams and imagination to share a big idea with you.

I want to be ready when the inspiration strikes!

I don’t open all my email. I look at the subject line and skim what has come in overnight. One that came in yesterday said this in the subject line: Carol Look on Abudnance, Shirley McLaine and Marianne Williamson WOW. Now, I had already heard the Marianne Williamson call last week, and it was awesome. I was guided to open this one to find out about why Shirley McLaine was in the newsletter.

I found a link to the “Living On Purpose Telesummit”. I did a double-take. Hey, I’m running a living on purpose blog, I thought as I clicked on the link. My email said Shirley McLaine will be a speaker at this telesummit, but she’s not listed on the web page. After glancing over the speakers to appear and realizing I only have heard of three of them, I have concluded that I’m absolutely no expert on living on purpose. So, I’ll give you the link so you can learn from the experts.

http://livingonpurposetelesummit.com/ The tagline says “Wake up inspired, live fearlessly.”

I believe the first step to living on purpose is to NOT live unconsciously. The first step involves catching yourself when you go on autopilot. Sounds simple. Just try to count the times you switch into autopilot during one day. You’ll lose count after a couple of hours unless you’ve cultivated laser focusing ability. I always say to start with small habits, like cleaning your own hair from the bathtub before you get out of the shower, or putting the toothpaste top on before you let go of the tube. (hmmph, can you guess my pet peeves? It’s like my housemates each thinks he has the whole house to himself and he’s not sharing a bathroom…)

Okay, so you’ve started small. You’ve brought a bit of awareness to your day. Expand it a bit, and begin thinking about the things that you normally gloss over. Where does that homeless man I pass each day sleep? How can everybody act like nothing’s wrong when there are natural disasters and wars happening all over the globe? I wish I could teach that mom not to be so harsh with her kids. Who integrates prisoners back into society once they’ve been released? EEK! What are you willing to do about those thoughts? That’s why it’s so much easier to gloss over them and store them away in the back of your mind.

I’m going to switch gears and give a short overview of Marianne Williamson’s presentation that I heard last week:

Those who hate, hate with great conviction. Some of us who love, though, do it when it’s convenient. It’s time to evolve the concept of love. As a mother says to her children, “that misbehavior won’t happen in my house,” so shall the women of America evolve to be able to widen the definition of our house to the community- we won’t have that (starving children) in our house (the city, state, country…). You cannot bomb away hate, but love can transform hate.

Marianne’s newest event in Los Angeles will be February 26 2010, and it’s called Sister Giant: Rousing the Sleeping Giant of American Womanhood. She’s going to force us to think about the things we normally gloss over. She’s going to ask us what we’re willing to do about those feelings that arise.

The two purposeful links I’ve brought you today both talk about waking up.  Let’s wake up on purpose.

Comparing yourself to others gets to be a slippery slope for your own morale. My painting teacher complemented my first painting, though I really didn’t like how it turned out because I was comparing myself to accomplished painters like him. He said once I practice a little and get the right type of paper and brushes, I’d “dazzle” everybody with portraits, to which another student said, “just great, so we can all hang our heads in shame.” I countered, “That’s not what it’s all about!” She insisted, “yes, it is.” She compared her talents to my talents and ended up feeling badly.

She revealed her own self-manufactured world of feelings of inadequacy right there. During my childhood, I learned how to dim my own light because of comments like hers. I got negative feedback on my flexibility, intelligence, creativity, dancing, and I ended up quitting many things I was good at with this rationale: “I don’t want to make others feel bad, so I’ll stop doing what I do naturally.” According to Gay Hendricks, that attitude is adopted by most of us during our childhood, as we test our behavior on others to see their reaction. It seems like my entire childhood and adolescence centered around me reacting to what others thought of me. They provided feedback, I reacted with either withdrawal or defiance. This is a normal pattern.

If we continue to dull our own talents due to fear of negative feedback well into our adulthood, however, our spirit suffers and we may or may not feel regret. Be sure not to blame others when you look at your life after dimming your own light!

And likewise if we continue to compare ourselves to others, creating feelings of inadequacy well into our adulthood, we are setting our own trap and stunting our own progress with the cyclical nature of self criticism.

Beliefs of inadequacy can be eliminated by using Morty Lefkoe’s Who Am I Really Process. I have not gone through his entire program, but go ahead and read the blog in the link above and you’ll find a free trial of his belief eliminating process. After working with his clients, he has found that replacing a negative belief with its corresponding positive belief does not always work. Find out why at his blog.

How a person expresses their ego has a lot to do with what kind of feedback they’re getting from others. Negative feedback could result from someone  showing off too much and being too eager to tell others about how great one is. Whether you’re getting negative feedback because you are gifted and others feel self-conscious around you or because you’re egocentric and you drive others away,  Big Mind process can help isolate and pinpoint your own motivations. From the web site linked above, “Big Mind Big Heart is not someone else’s interpretation of who you should be and how you should live but rather a way you can come to your own deep understandings, and directly experience your life, your relationships and the world at large in a new and rich way.” I have attended a Big Mind event and I can attest that if you work through it with a facilitator, you’ll see benefits.

Comparing a short person to a tall person or an accountant to an artist is hardly fruitful. Compare yourself to you at an earlier time to celebrate your progress. See how far you’ve come?

Happy 2010. Near the end of 2009, a momentous year of change and growth for me, I decided to join my local Art Students League. It felt like such a spur of the moment thing for me to do. There is a yearly fee, and members pay for the art classes on top of that. I wiffle-waffled and stammered my way through handing my debit card to the receptionist/admin at the League. “Well, this is it! I’m just going to do it.” I thought, “Once I dive deep enough to fork out money for a membership fee, I’ll have to take the classes, too.”

I took my first two uninstructed life drawing classes (which I used to regularly attend before I had children) before Christmas and last night I took my first watercolor painting class.  *Hint, I’m terrified of painting in color.* I’ve been a graphite portraiture artist for decades, and rarely ventured into the world of color.

So, I dove deep. This is an investment for me. Each class is THREE hours! I have children at home for Pete’s sake! And then I’ll have to buy all my own art supplies! What was I thinking?

I’ll tell you what I was thinking.

I’ve been blessed with a talent I do not use. I have a yearning in my heart to engage in the art of fine art, because when I begin the journey, my spirit soars. At church this year, I heard the message many times that if I have a God-given talent and suppress it, the act of suppressing will eat away at my soul/spirit. During Amy Ahler’s Women Masters series of teleconferences this summer, an overwhelming theme was “do what you’re called to do,” “do the thing that makes you happy, and go for your dreams.” Lack of money and rationalizations rarely offer a valid excuse for stuffing our passion away in the underbrush of our psyche.

So, I had a chat with my inner mean girl. She said that artists are a dime a dozen. She said that you just have to look at Etsy web site to  see that artists struggle to sell their art and to make ends meet. My inner mean girl is convinced I should wait until all the children are self sufficient and off on their own before I indulge in my own passions.  In fact, that’s why I was waiting all these years. I was busy.

Okay, enough’s enough. This blog post is about living on purpose, my way. Let’s just wait and see if I can make a living by living on purpose. At the very least, I’ll enjoy the journey!

I hope everyone’s holidays have been merry and bright. And may all my readers enjoy an abundant new year. Abundance is a wonderful word, because it refers not only to finances and the material world, but also to the spiritual and emotional planes as well. Wouldn’t it be awesome to always have an abundance of the holy spirit?…an abundance of joy, of  gratitude, of love?

If you need a story to inspire you, go hear Marcia Wieder’s personal story of life transformation at her Dream University. She looked around at her own life and realized it was opposite of what her dream life would be like. The two questions that caused her transformation were: How do I want my life to be? and What am I willing to do about it?

So many people get caught up in these two questions. The first requires clarity of vision. You have to know what your dream life would look like in the first place! Lots of us have lost that laser focus on our dreams. The second question forces you to look your fears in the face and battle it out. Who will win; you or your fear? We’re afraid of commitment, of risks, of insecurity. If you need your life to change, there is going to be some risk, insecurity, and commitment to your vision in order to jump start the process. Or maybe not!

So take ten minutes to watch Marcia’s video on the link above. She tells how she went from overweight and broke to living her dream. She emphasizes that a lack of money in your life right now does not need to stop you from making some steps towards your dreams right now.

While you are there, click on the link for her free ebook 100 Ways to Make Life Easier. She offered me this ebook in her newsletter and I was blown away. I’ve read more than a handful of self-help titles. Marcia has delivered such a powerful group of tips and advice that I can’t believe she’s giving it away for free. I’m not an affiliate for her, I just think that if you want to change your life and manifest more abundance, then you need to follow the tips she’s laid out in this ebook.

To an abundant new year!

By Michelle Casto, guest blogger. Originally posted on ArticleSnatch; keywords Soul Care and Self-Care

In today’s challenging times, there seems to be less and less time to do soul-nourishing activities. However, every ultra successful person knows a secret ingredient to success which is often over-looked, that of being “balanced” and taking plenty of down-time to rest, refresh and rejuvenate.

For many, the holidays can create added stress and pressure to an already full plate. Many suffer seasonal affective disorder, and just feel “blue.”

What follows are 5 simple ways to Care For Your Soul that if you start now will quantum leap you into the New Year feeling refreshed, focused, and fulfilled.

1. Honor Your Core Values
People, circumstances, and things that are not good for you cause you to constrict and withdraw your love, power, and passion. If you keep living a default life, you become more and more disconnected from your True Self and Source/God/Goddess. The more disconnected you are from Source, the more disappointing results you attract over and again.

Your nurturing soul stuff (like enjoying healthy positive relationships, doing work that has meaning for you, staying in balance, attracting financial abundance, having a spiritual practice) allows you to expand into your divine essence. You will always be adjusting to see what fits you now.

2. Nurture Your Soul With a Positive Environment
Identify the state of being that creates an environment of success for you. Now create supportive environments that honor your values (people, opportunities, places that inspire you and move you forward). Too many times we are fighting against-ourselves, other people, or circumstances that are contrary to our inner nature and then we wonder why it is so hard to make changes and become the human beings we are meant to become. Environments and associations (who we hang out with) are 100x more important than you realize—can pull you forward or drag you down.

3. Discover Your Life Purpose
You cannot talk about caring for your soul and not mention living with purpose. A native American saying is, “Everything on earth has a purpose. Every person a mission.” Just like a bird who has its own unique song, you, too have a song to sing. It may only be a little song but there are people who will like it. You were born to do something great and to help someone or perhaps a group of people. Your purpose often seems much bigger than you and affects others in a positive way. When you are on purpose, you help greater humanity.

4. Write Your Own Fairytale (complete with happy ending and all!)
Who remembers the fable Goldilocks and the Three Bears? What was the story—-three beds, certain bed, certain porridge. Not too hard, too soft, hot or cold, but just right. She had to try out various options before choosing one that suited her tastes. What I call a lot of research! You are the author of your own success story and can edit anytime you feel like it.

5. Receiving Support from a Trusted Mentor
When it comes to nurturing your soul, there is nothing more impactful than receiving emotional support from a coach or trusted mentor. If you need help with any of these ways to care for your soul, a professional life coach can help you look inside and identify what your soul is longing for. That is the purpose of a Life Coach, to support you in making the changes that help you to feel good and be happier.

These simple ways will help you to nurture yourself and care for your soul when you just take the time to practice them. Let me know if there is any way I can support you in taking better care of your SOUL.

Michelle Casto empowers you to accelerate your success on your path of purpose.
Visit www.brightlightcoach.com