What is Your Amazing Unfathomable Gift?

THE quest to find one’s purpose is exhausting. I know because for a long time I was not only exhausted but frustrated trying to find mine. It seemed everyone else on planet earth had found theirs except me. But then as I talked to more and more people, I realized that I had PLENTY company.

In looking at the world in general it seems that only a choice few know and understood their purpose. Like Oprah, Tyler Perry, Jay-Z, Ellen De Generes, the Queen of England, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Dr Oz, Dr Phil, Suze Orman, Deepak Chopra etc. I’m sure you can come up with a few more, and a couple closer to home, but how do we usually determine that someone has found his or her purpose — their amazing unfathomable gift? One is we know WHO they are — they are well known and recognised; two — they have great influence to move people into action and three — they’ve either made a lot of money or raised a lot of money for impressive causes.

In other words if we were to compare ourselves to those people who have found their purpose we might conclude that we’re yet to find ours because:

1. No one recognises us/knows who we are

2. We are not rich

3. We are not involved in any charitable causes

4. We have zero influence

What I’ve realised about those we perceive are leading purpose-driven lives is that not only do we know WHO they are — they KNOW WHO THEY ARE!

The process of personal development has always fascinated me and now more than ever before, I think the time has come for us to truly live the words of William Ernest Henley …to be the master of our fate and the captain of our soul.

There is too much outside-in living. Look closely at where our focus is going to be if we were to “be like” any of those folks above that I’ve identified.

We’ll be consumed with ways to get rich, get recognition, gain power and choose causes based on “what’s popular these days.”

All this activity is going to bring is struggle and pain because we are who we are, and can never be someone else. This is our amazing, unfathomable gift. To be the best at WHO WE ARE. We are never going to FIND OUR PURPOSE on the outside. We find our purpose inside ourselves and that purpose unfolds as we live — moment to moment — letting our life and our experiences guide us and show us the way.

Dr Dennis Kimbro shares a painful truth, “Nothing is more tragic than encountering a person who believes that his or her life has no meaning that he or she has no contribution to make.”

We all have a contribution to make but no one is going to find that for us. We have to do our own digging and mining and most importantly — LIVING! So many of us allow other people to run our lives and then complain that we’re not making progress.

Emerson hit the nail on the head with this quote:

There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better or worse as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried. — Emerson

That plot of ground given to us to till is our life and we have no idea what power lies within us until we actual DO something. Live. Experiment. Make changes. Improve. Try again. Mark Nepo, bestselling author and poet says it this way “Every single being has an amazing unfathomable gift that only meeting life head-on, will reveal.”

There is no blueprint that you must find that is going to tell you step by step — what you need to do to live an abundant and fulfilling life. At the most there are a series of “best practices” that you can implement but are they the BEST practices FOR YOU? Experts — even experts with firsthand experience — are only telling you what worked FOR THEM.

Your life is giving you clues all the time. When we get caught up in others’ expectations, try to adopt another person’s “way”; when what we strive for is to be accepted socially so we behave in a particular way we most definitely cloud the directions of our own inner compass.

If you’re at a painful turning point, experiencing on-going burnout or in crisis, now might be a good time for you to stop and tune into what your soul is directing you to do. I know it sounds scary. Ok. Not scary — absolutely ridiculous and I’m sounding like a bungling mad woman but trust me. I know what I’m talking about. And it seems that others are beginning to catch a glimpse of what I’m alluding to like a friend of mine whose life changed dramatically due to ill health and the reality that the average patient with her condition dies two years after diagnosis. Three years and one month later she shares: “This morning, I awoke feeling the best I have felt in years. Very grounded and comfortable. Like my body has returned to its familiarity but with more wisdom, understanding. For sure this morning I can tell you I have truly grown from the experience of the past three years and I felt released. Released like someone said to my body — ok she has evolved, loosen your hold and heal now, you have much to do. It’s a very strange, surreal, elated feeling. I guess I am writing this, as part of getting used to the newness. Everything is the same yet tremendously different, my understanding is different. I don’t know what I dreamt or where my soul travelled to last night but I awoke renewed. Thank you to the divine light of the universe, it is now my humble duty to appreciate myself and let things unfold.”

I am inspired by her courage and have rekindled the flame in my own life to live as close as possible to the REAL

GISELLE — to appreciate myself and surrender to letting my life unfold.

Struggle, pain, health, crisis, can all indicate that we are living out of alignment with our true selves. We need to give up what no longer works in our lives and surrender.

Mark Nepo says that surrender is like a fish finding the current and going with it. Let go and let your life speak. This is your truth. This is THE WAY you’ve been looking for. You hold all the answers. You have the key. It’s time to unlock and release the amazing, unfathomable gift of you.