Burning

We can spend so much time worrying about whether we’re living our purpose that we forget to live. The pressure to become who we imagine we’re meant to be can be just as paralyzing as never daring to try. Perhaps the trick isn’t to have it all figured out, but to meet ourselves where we are and take the next step from there.

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How do you know you aren’t living your soul’s purpose, contract, agreement, or whatever you want to call it?

How much guilt, shame, inadequacy, and anxiety have you inflicted on yourself by fueling the fire of imbalance and judgment, convinced that you should be living more truthfully, authentically, or on purpose?

There is a fierce battle raging inside every dreamer, and aren’t we all dreamers? I’m thinking of those supposed higher callings that can foster feelings of superiority in those who aspire to them… or, more likely, deepen the sense of falling short of their own would-be daring selves.

Competition within ourselves becomes a vicious, circular, bitter battle, one that keeps us falling to our knees and prevents us from even stepping up to the starting line.

Yet with a shift in perspective, everything can teach and inform. Some are willing to throw caution to the wind and dive right in. Others spend decades preparing for every contingency and possibility… and may never truly begin.

Wherever you are on the spectrum is valid. All of it plays into the cosmic dance: this struggle, this delay, this hurdle, and that dream, that goal, that terrifying leap into the unknown, with all its potential for fulfillment and renewed life.

This place, right where you are, matters. We all come to the table in our own way, in our own time, for our own reasons. There is nourishment there, regardless of how or when we arrive.

But what is your why?

Not who you think you should become, or what you believe you ought to accomplish, but what genuinely matters to you? Ask for help. Take a class. Find a mentor, or become one. Love is in the details, and we can afford to be gentler with ourselves amid all this unnecessary madness.

Life becomes a struggle and a burden when we train ourselves to see it only that way. Hardship is real, but it isn’t the whole of life. When we narrow our perception, we limit what we can recognize as possible. The fullness of life remains available to us, sometimes through a single decision to see things differently.

Love your life