Manifest with Your Hands: Life Purpose v. Life Lesson

Clients like to spend time digging into the “meat” of their life purpose.  They’ll ask me to clarify my words and to detail examples of what a specific life purpose is.  We spend a great deal of time in dialogue about life purpose not being a JOB TITLE (although it’s certainly a good beacon if you’re trying to find a niche or a target for your business) but rather a way of being each and every day.

Usually after the appointment I’ll get a follow up question asking me what some “other” life purpose’s might be.  In all honesty I answer that the variation of life purposes is as never-ending as the number of humans on earth. Each person has their own unique set of finger prints – and that’s where the life purpose resides.  The purpose is always filtered through the school which also resides in your fingerprints.  

Here are some life purposes that I’ve come across lately:

• Passionate Visionary and reluctant spiritual teacher with a one-to-one speciality (school: love);
• Innovative Author/Speaker (school: service);
• Innovative Big Shot Healer (school: wisdom);
• Successful Spiritual Teacher and Healer in the Spotlight (school: peace)

Your purpose actually can simply be your school as well, as can your lesson.

Your life purpose is your Divine contract with the Universe to accomplish the mastery of that purpose here on earth.  You’ll notice that the purposes listed above certainly can seem overwhelming if you don’t know where to start.  No one said living your purpose would be easy in this day and age, but it is guaranteed much more freeing than any other choice you make.  Perhaps our Innovative Author/Speaker took the “safe” road and studied engineering in University and has been working as a Civil Engineer for decades.  She’s written some for her trade journals and even spoken at an engineering conference and for a while that fed her inner purpose.  But now, she may be feeling called to sharing a bigger message with a broader audience.  The key is finding out how to apply her big message to the audience she most wants to connect with, recognizing of course, that the audience may well be future engineers if she has an innovative idea about her trade.

(* Please note, that this is a REAL life purpose but a fictional scenario).

My experience has been that the life purpose is the “hot tamale” – the sexy vision of our highest self and we’re eager to wrap our arms around it.  Some people spend years of their life trying to create the “how” of the life purpose without ever actually being in the purpose.  That’s when we dig deeper into the hands – to really look at the practical applications of one’s purpose and how it works to elevate you and create focus in your daily life.

The other side of the purpose is the lesson.  No one ever wants to revisit their life lesson.  I rarely have clients clamoring for a deeper discussion of their lesson or curiousity about the other lessons.  It’s the afterthought and the thing that most folks are trying to squelch or beat into submission.  I remember asking Baeth Davis when I was going to be ‘done’ with my lesson.  She laughed and said, with that broad smile of hers,  ”Well, it IS for life, you know.” 

I laughed too, but I was frustrated and stymied and sure that there was a way over, through or under my lesson. 

That was in 2005 and now I’m finally living with the knowledge and understanding that what my teacher said was true: my life lesson is the key to focusing on and being in my purpose in a big and real way.

What are some life lessons?  Mine is trust, intimacy and surrender issues.  It pops up in all kinds of ways – starting with – personal relationships.  Ask my friends, they’ll tell you I’ve been on a quest for love and romance since I was 13 (notwithstanding my first crush in 1st grade on a little boy named Kurt Voos).   It’s taken me 30 years to be fully available and trusting (of myself first) in a relationship with a partner.  Is it any coincidence that my power to live in my purpose is happening alongside my ability to learn to trust in intimate relationships?

The lesson pops up in all kinds of ways, and I’m particularly at peace when I work with clients who have a similar lesson.  We’ve been through the same inner wars and can speak the same language.  We are learning to trust and so are in the trenches together – ultimately revealing our deepest war wounds in the hopes of healing.  That’s how it goes in the life of a healer – first you heal yourself (and your deep wounds are always related to your lesson or the inverse of your purpose!) and then you start sharing that story with others so that they can transform too.

Our lessons start out small, just like a blister on the back of your heel when you wear new shoes.  You can make some corrections and keep the blister from going full-throttle or you can “hero along” and see how your foot feels at the end of the day.  You choose and you reap the reward or the pain.

My lesson often starts with a twinge of self-doubt and if I don’t address it I can be curled up in bed for the rest of the day, painfully wrestling with the visions that I’m isolated and alone, unloveable and reliving all the heartbreaks and lies that I’ve been subjected to throughout my 43 years.  Not the most fun for sure.  When I stop and recognize the early twinges of mistrust I can figure out where I need to course-correct and get clearer on my purpose, or focus on a task that will move me forward (since part of my purpose is “success” I can often move forward in the purpose simply by “doing” a task that uses my highest capabilities and allows me to accomplish the big outcomes on which I’m focused.

Now that you understand the beauty of your lesson, here are some other lessons I’ve seen lately:

• Powerlessness & Overwhelm with Money & Value Issues (school:peace/panic);
• Powerlessness & Overwhelm/Failure/Inability to speak your truth (school: love/stuffed feelings);
• Not enough in family and intimate relationships (school: service/servitude);
• Victimization & Numbness (school:wisdom/indecision)

In your hands your entire Divine contract is laid out for you.  Knowing what you came here to Earth to learn is the first step in setting aside time and energy to focus on creating a joyful and propserous life.  When you start to focus on being in your purpose, achieiving what wonders come along with that and creating a safe and open place to learn the nuances of your lesson, you are creating a gift to those who come after you.  When you are a woman in service, you are always a role model and those who need you, and only you, are waiting to see your path and learn not only through your expertise, but through the simple act of you being you. 

As always, I’m grateful to the hundreds of people who have shared their hands with me!

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Don’t forget, if you want to learn how to read hands yourself, you can – sign up now for the Intermediate teleseries beginning October 21, 2008.