Living On Purpose

In my last post I was thinking about doing some soul searching, emotional healing work with real masks. This post isn’t about that.

I hosted a party this weekend. It was in celebration of my 40th birthday, though it wasn’t my actual birthday; it’s still coming up.  I’m not a party person. Not a hostess. There are families I know that have parties every month. There are families that make a habit of cooking enormous amounts of food just for kicks and invite all their friends over for no special reason other than to share food together. I’m not that kind of person. Usually the thought of hosting a party triggers an increased heart rate as I panic over the state of my house, the amount of preparation and money needed, and the amount of cleanup needed afterwards.

For my 40th birthday I decided to “just get over it.” I hadn’t had a party for me since my tiny little baby shower five years ago, and before that….ummmm…..not since I was turning 21 and invited some girlfriends to go hiking with me in honor of my birthday.

I was internally driven this month to make papier mache masks and had a moment of inspiration as I said, “heeeey wait a minute, I actually like doing this. I bet my girlfriends would like painting these masks. I bet their children would like painting something too.”

So I did what no one I’ve met has done before with a party. I turned it into an arts and crafts party. I took a week to make about seven or eight masks. I bought 20 plaster of paris figurines for the children to paint.  I gathered paintbrushes, paints, sequins, feathers, yarn, hot glue for the glue gun, and 5 plastic masks for backup.

This party went so well it was unbelievable for me. I invited mostly married couples and they all had children so the kids started painting figurines first. Then I invited the grownups to paint the masks and two jumped right in. Later during the evening about four more ladies decided to paint masks. I was impressed with the amount of concentration and creativity shown. The adult men stuck close to the grill where my husband was making carne asada. But two teen boys asked for masks to paint and they impressed me with wrestling masks.

Here is yours truly, Jessica, wearing my mask. I made this mask before the party as an example and a prototype. I wanted the camoflauged, blending right into the woodwork look. That’s the figurative mask I wore as a teen, barely able to speak up. So I plucked some leaves and painted the veins, then pressed the leaves right onto the mask. Then I hot glued silk ivy leaves to the sides during the party.

This mask above is awesome.  It was designed with paint, sequins and feathers by the mom of the girl in the picture. Those store bought molds, the only ones in the craft store, were sized for a three year old’s face, so it fit her daughter perfectly. This is one of the masks I made with papier mache. Above this photo is an example of a store bought plastic mask fully decorated.

On a final note, the woman pictured in this photo thought she wasn’t creative. She didn’t believe she could paint a mask nicely. I think her mask turned out wonderfully, and she thought outside the box. To get the sequins to line the top of the mask, she put a thick coating of glue and scooped the sequins onto the mask by the handful. Any that didn’t stick went right back into the jar. I think a creative themed party really helps people tap into their natural abilities and sometimes hidden & buried creativity.

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!

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

What would the world be like if everyone participated in their joy? During a recent worldwide meditation called Fire the Grid, the moderator asked everyone to do something that brings us joy. I got to thinking about how many people go several weeks or more without seeing joy in their lives. What if we switched priorities? What if we scheduled in time for doing things (or finding activities) that make us happy? The more people that do this, the more people would find careers or jobs that they actually like.

Those who enjoy organizing; become professional organizers. (I say this because I can hardly believe there are people who actually LIKE it! I’m the sloppy artist type.) Those who enjoy accounting, banking, dancing, art, creating, inventing, healing, serving, exercising, teaching, and presenting: Do those things. If we become unbalanced in our lives while pursuing the things we enjoy, there would be people available who enjoy bringing balance to others (life coaches!).

I can see this world forming already when I look through my friends list at Twitter. The people who have found me there are enthusiastic life coaches, therapists, doctors, authors, marketers, and artists. They are the ones who love what they do and want to spread the word that everybody else deserves to love what they do, too.

Another question: how do I integrate doing the things that bring ME joy with wanting to further the planet on its spiritual evolution? It just integrates naturally. Once a person starts generating happiness, it quickens the evolution of themselves and those around them.

I am vastly slowing down my blog entries this summer as I work on these and other issues. I will continue to design monthly wallpapers (because I love doing it so much!), so go ahead and sign up for my newsletter.

I have put the ebook Sad For No Reason on hiatus as I work with various technical difficulties.

During the past several weeks, I have been introducing you to a few outstanding individuals who are doing big things towards living a purposeful life. Do you remember these two?

Michael Neill and his Genius Catalyst web site and Feel Happy Now book and movement.

Bill Cummins and his “What one person can do” program and Boothby Institute.

These two speakers will be leading a free webinar on Tuesday the 19th at 11 am pacific.  Don’t worry if you’re at work during that time, because a recorded audio will be sent to registered participants. I would like you to go register right now to hear these awesome speakers for free. Even if you can’t free your schedule during that time slot, go register. Here is the information about the call:

The Big Chat Presents…

a free, LIVE Webinar

with Michael Neil,  Bill Cumming and YOU
TUESDAY, MAY 19TH, 11am Pacific, 2pm Eastern

for a conversation about LIVING FROM THE INSIDE OUT

• How does one need to think in order to be successful in any economy?
• What is the key to feeling peaceful no matter what is going on around you?
• What are the brilliant problem solving approaches used by two master coaches?

Based on questions about what is most important to you right now….

Register here for the Big Chat Webinar and you’ll get the webinar details and special code to join.

You can join via the web or phone and the call will include live Questions and Answers with two brilliant coaches!

This call will be recorded, and will be made available at no charge to everyone registered.

Today I give you three loosely woven stories for inspiration.

When I was in elementary school, I used to collect four-leaf clovers and unicorns. I could sit alone in my back yard for two hours a day, scouring the clover fields for four and five leafed clovers, and I harvested hundreds over a couple of years. I suppose I believed in luck. However, I wondered how my backyard kept on offering me more and more four leaf clovers when I kept killing them all! Love is like that, you know. Whether you are giving or receiving love, it won’t run out. I sat in a park with my older son this week and picked out three four-leaf clovers in ten minutes. He’s always astounded when I do that!

Unicorns, to me, signified all the pure innocence in the world. I read books about them, had plush unicorns on my bed, unicorn calendars and paintings on my walls. Yesterday I was going through my garage and found a book my sixth grade teacher assigned me to write. She provided the hardcover and tape, and we assembled it like a real book. I called it “Unicorn in Gwanaland”. I see I was a true optimist even back then. This book is about some townspeople who were afraid of a monster living at the outskirts of their town. They called the magical unicorn to slay the beast, but the unicorn refused. He went into the monster’s cave and learned it was a gentle creature trying to harvest grass for his pregnant wife. The unicorn became the mediator between the monster and the townspeople, and at the end of the book, the children are playing happily with the monster-babies.  I suppose the moral of this book, and my entire life, is to always look for the good in people. Give people a second chance.

I have an angel wing charm on my keychain. When I set my keys on the table, even strangers are drawn to it, enough to comment that they like my keychain. Recently I did an online search for an angel I’d never heard of: Uriel. The image I found astounded me with its beauty. I saw he had three sets of wings and his heart was a circle of light; his golden hair being lifted by the wind became his halo. I printed it an put it on my wall for inspiration. Then, just two days later while in a store I found a set of three angel wing dangling earrings. How could I refuse this impulse buy? I got them; they were not expensive at all, but at the same time, priceless!

To four-leaf clovers and angel wings, to unicorns and synchronicity, here here, enjoy!

Overcoming fear seems to be the topic of the week, as The Women Masters conference call was on living a fearless life, and on a separate blog Happy Lotus, Nadia isolated the movie Defending Your Life as one that masterfully deals with the topic of overcoming fears.

Wikipedia introduces fear:   Fear should be distinguished from the related emotional state of anxiety, which typically occurs without any external threat. Additionally, fear is related to the specific behaviors of escape and avoidance, whereas anxiety is the result of threats which are perceived to be uncontrollable or unavoidable. Bill Tancer’s top ten list of fears as culled from search engine keywords consisted of flying, heights, clowns, intimacy, death, rejection, people, snakes, success, and driving.  In general, people appear to be most afraid of two things: the threat of pain or death, and the threat of social rejection or isolation.

I think it is fear of  “the threat of social rejection or isolation” that drives us all to adopt strange and dysfunctional coping skills. We’re quirky. We have baggage. We are eccentric. We are trying to feel as though we fit in to something. Isn’t the entire field of counseling/therapy devoted to helping people get over their fears?

The web site that was introduced to me this week on The Women Masters call was Fearless Living by Rhonda Britton. I had never heard of her before, even though she’s managed to appear on Oprah several times, she’s written four books, and she has a daytime reality drama, Starting Over. (I don’t watch very much daytime TV!) But I know just from the short bit I heard from her that she is authentic! In fact, getting to your authenticity was a big topic in her call. How can I live authentically if I’m stuck battling my demons by constantly resisting that which I’m afraid of? I can’t. One can’t dream of living a life of purpose when shackled by fear. Check out her programs and books because I know she helps people step by step.

I have issues and baggage! For me in this moment, the act of keeping this blog titled Live on Purpose is my way of holding myself accountable for my own evolution. It forces me to grow beyond my comfort zone, it allows me to converse with wonderful people I would have never met, and it keeps me constantly seeking out new information in the topic I love dearly, self-growth!

I remember that I posted a video from Isha last year, and I decided to check in with her Youtube channel just now.  Looks like her movie “Why Walk When You Can Fly” is ready! She says, “we are not our thoughts, we are not our fears, we are not our emotions, we are so much more than that!”

I’m doing a little homework about the people who are focused on becoming catalysts for positive change; the people who want to help others see that they can find their own purpose for living. It’s not that all aimless wandering is negative or purposeless; in fact I think the wanderers are searching, and they may not be lost at all.

So this month, I am learning about author, speaker, and success coach Michael Neill. He feels that the title “catalyst” fits him better than any other label like therapist, counselor, or coach. In his words:

My own definition of these three ‘helping professionals’ is…a therapist fixes what’s broken, a consultant tells you what to do, and a coach, like the aforementioned single-decker vehicle, is comfortably equipped and trained to help you get wherever you want to go.

When my wife went on to ask me which one I was, I thought long and hard before realizing that while I inevitably did a little bit of all of those things, the heart of my approach didn’t really fit any of them. What I am, and the role I hope to play with you throughout this book, is a catalyst.

And how fitting that his web site is named “Genius Catalyst.“  Michael has written four books and hosts a HayHouse radio show called “You Can Have What You What.”  One of his books, “Feel Happy Now,” is full of experiments and things to try to increase your happiness right now. Here is my favorite part from his description of the book:

This is a book about unreasonable happiness. It is about your ability to feel happy not only when you get a promotion, win the lottery and fall in love with the man or woman of your dreams, but also when you lose your job, can’t pay the mortgage and are surrounded by screaming children.

It’s about your ability to experience good feelings in your body even when good things aren’t happening in your life. It’s also about why feeling good when things are bad is one of the fastest ways to make them change for the better.

Feel Happy Now

In the middle of June, Michael Neill will be co-hosting a seminar/workshop/discussion called The Big Chat. I’ll get to meet him, because I’ll be attending; listening to and discussing everything under the sun about purpose. The description of the discussion from the web site:

Far beyond what it means to “make a good living” or “be a good person,” Bill and Michael will challenge premises we tend to take for granted about what is possible in our lives and the world. Their unapologetic aim is to break through the cultural notions of what life purpose is, to challenge what problems can and cannot be solved, and come to the experience of what it feels like to be in a place where you are at peace in yourself and wildly excited about your contribution to the world.

The Big Chat

Hey, that’s where I’d like to be: wildly excited about my contribution to the world. I’m already excited about my own growth and expanding awareness, and I believe it’s time to start sharing. Check out the web site about The Big Chat, and ask yourself if that’s where you want to be, too!

More and more purposeful people are finding me, and I’m so pleased! Here is an internet radio station devoted to purpose, on BlogTalkRadio:

Live Your Purpose & Conscious Livelihood ™

There are episodes about living on purpose listed under the station description. Click on an episode title, and the podcast interview will play. The station interviews authors and others who help all of us to radically change our lives so that we may live out our life purpose, or find our purpose, or just do something good with our lives. What an endlessly inspiring topic.

I found a Colorado author focused on purpose, as well. Kevin Doherty, an acupuncturist and life coach, has self-published a title “The Purpose Principle: 11 Strategies to help you eperience ultimate freedom in your health, wealth, and love life.” I went to his booksigning event at Border’s Bookstore! Here is the web site for his book: http://www.purposeprinciple.com/

I think the best books come from practicioners who see many patients over years, and so they have been able to formulate a theory of how to best help others. That is what Dr. Doherty has put together, and it is obviously based on a well thought out strategy and many case stories.

Enjoy these two resources today! Below is a photo of Author Kevin Doherty and me, Jessica Alvarez of LiveOnPurpose.info, meeting for the first time at Borders Bookstore.