Living On Purpose

I needed a time out! I’m staying with my parents for a time, letting them get to know their grandchildren. What a blessing for them to know each other, and what a blessing for me to be able to travel out of state to visit my parents. Travel has gotten difficult and expensive. I have not been on a plane for four years, and the last time I checked, you didn’t have to pay extra at the airport to have bags checked. Now on Alaska Airlines it’s $15 per checked bag, each way. I wanted to come home two days early, but changing travel dates is now harder than getting into the dentist on short notice.

I listened to Janet and Chris Attwood give a very long presentation today. They have a new program called the Passionate Life Secrets. To kick it off, they hosted “9 hours straight of passion, purpose and prosperity” streaming live online. I only heard about an hour in bits and pieces over the day. Here is the invitation to their new program, and it is not an affiliate link. The passion test is a way to define what your life purpose could be based on your talents, skills and passions. Once you learn how to bring these three aspects together for the purpose of bringing value to other people, you’ll be able to monetize your passions, they say. Can you imagine saying to yourself giddily, “I would do this for free and they actually pay me to do it!” I’m in no way affiliated with these programs, I’m just bringing this info to you as an fyi.

I did get to rent Alice in Wonderland during my trip. I have a new favorite phrase: “Lost my muchness, have I?” And I have a new favorite day, “Framptious Day.” I have not been paying attention to Alice in Wonderland all these years and had completely forgotten the storyline. So I see the similarity…I think I’m on a quest to find my muchness, too.

I have been contemplating some more on a favorite theme of mine. Now I wonder if a study has already been done to find the correlation between a person’s tendency to treat themselves badly with drugs or overeating or undereating and their sense of self worth. I’d perchance a guess of 98% correlation between having a low sense of self worth and a high rate of self mistreatment. I’m wondering about this because I’m wondering about choosing a new line of study. If, for instance, I study nutrition, I’d only be able to reach the supposed small percentage of people who would be able to listen and change eating habits without being hampered by their inherently low self worth/esteem. If, on the other hand, I study a psychological or therapy line of thinking, I’d only be able to help the people who are actually reaching out to therapists for help. If  I become a performance artist, I could reach random people, whether they knew they were looking for help or not. Hmmm.

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.

I’d like to thank Mary Kay of Spa for Your Soul Coaching for yesterday’s chat. We discussed issues related to parenting and step-parenting. I’ve been a step-parent for about fourteen years. Mary Kay is an encouraging spirit and we found ourselves talking about many topics. When I shared my story-saga of step-parenting she suggested I have something that others in my position don’t: experience in what works and what doesn’t work. She shone a light in a direction I’d never looked by suggesting that novice step-parents may like to hear my story. I’ll take that advice to heart, Mary Kay. She put it like this: “Make your mess the message,” meaning that while my learning curve may be sloppy and I may have made some mistakes with my parenting decisions, I still have something to offer to first time step parents.

One topic we covered was the obvious issue about what defines family. One of my stepsons went through a phase where he insisted I wasn’t family to him, even though I’d been step-parenting him well over a decade.  He was a young teen and quite impulsive.  Mary Kay’s intuitive comment on that: “It is much easier for him to hurt you by lashing out than to feel his own pain.” Teens go the path of least resistance. A wise step parent will see this and take a step back rather than engage in a verbal battle over who is family to whom.

Mary Kay’s Spa For Your Soul main site Bringing calm and comfort to Mom’s busy life. Take a look around! She has a 5-day e-course, a blog, and a coaching business targeted to moms. Remember, moms, self-care is very important to your well being and the well being of your whole family! I found that out yesterday. That one hour chat with a coach was self care time for ME, and Mary Kay urged me to give myself credit for everything I’ve accomplished during my story-saga of step-parenting. Aaah, I pat me on the back.

Long before I started this Living on Purpose blog, I had an internal mantra: “I am not my thoughts.” I knew in a conceptual way that thoughts were things and they were not the same as ME. For instance, I don’t have to believe I am a bad person if I notice a “bad” thought float through my brain. I don’t have to believe my thoughts. Most of them are not even my own, anyway, if you buy the concept that the brain is like a radio thus making thoughts like stations.

This was only the groundwork, or a foundation, for some more “unlearning” to take place. As we grow up, we learn the types of behaviors that we can do to get us what we want. Then when we realize these behaviors don’t serve us anymore, we have to drop them or stay stuck. I like to think that I’m in the middle of “unlearning” how to behave.

Byron Katie, author of Loving What Is, recently said in a teleconference interview: “Smoking quit me, overeating quit me.” Why? Because she faced her own truth and questioned her own thoughts. She looked long and hard at her own beliefs and realized that it’s optional to believe debilitating thoughts about yourself or others. Once chronically depressed, she now describes her life as “heaven.” She has done the work of self introspection and now teaches others how to do the same so they can experience freedom from toxic thoughts and beliefs, too.

Last year I interviewed Carol Skolnick about her work as a facilitator of The Work of Byron Katie. If this topic interests you, I invite you to read the interview here:

Interview with a facilitator of The Work

Here is the main Byron Katie web site, full of video interviews of people going through the self introspection process:

The Work of Byron Katie

On this resources page, find the sidebar that says “downloads” and print the worksheets there. Have several “Judge Your Neighbor” worksheets available and the next time you’re mad or irritable or depressed, fill it out and do The Work for yourself!

Resources page at The Work

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!

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.

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.

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!