Who are you really? What exactly is your purpose? Why are you here? Is it pre-destined? Is it about helping others? Do you have an obligation or at least a responsibility to find your purpose? And how do you go about finding it? Is it possible to miss your purpose, to get to the end of your life, never having realized it? And, if you don’t find your purpose by the time you die, have you wasted your life?

These are some pretty heavy questions and honestly, one of the biggest issues that most people struggle with. Especially now. Many of us feel a calling, a pulling, like there’s MORE to be discovered. We’re here to do something big, but we often don’t know what it is. And that’s frustrating as hell. Well, thanks to my latest spiritual journey, I’ve gotten some new and gigantic insights into this subject that I think you’re going to really like.

You’re not a human DOING

No doubt, you’ve heard someone say “You’re not a human DOING, you’re a human BEING”, when you’re getting too focused on action. And, you may have rolled your eyes at this statement. I don’t blame you. It can sound kind of trite. After all, action can be totally delicious, and not taking action can make us feel stagnant and bored.

But… this statement, annoying as it is, just so happens to be true on multiple levels. And this topic, the one of purpose, is one of those levels.

When people search for their purpose, often desperately, they’re usually looking for something to DO. They may think that their purpose is to teach, or to uplift, or to come up with solutions to certain problems, or even to save the world. We often try to spell the word “purpose” with the letters j-o-b. I’ve explained before that it’s more akin to our j-o-y, but I’m going to take the whole concept further today.

You see, it’s not about the action at all. That doesn’t mean that you don’t get to take all the action you want, but what you DO is not your purpose. It is, at best, the expression of your purpose. Or the expression of your joy. Teaching is an expression of energy, so is helping, cleaning, cooking, painting, sculpting, doing the books, changing diapers, managing a corporate merger, or coming up with environmental solutions. And these actions are all fine and good. I don’t want to crap all over anything that you enjoy doing, but they still aren’t your purpose.

Your purpose isn’t to teach; even though you may be a natural and joyful teacher. It’s not to help; even though you may feel drawn to help. It’s not even to create; even though you are a powerful creator and there’s nothing as delicious as allowing yourself to enjoy your creating/creations.

So… what is our purpose then, eh?

Your purpose is to be who you are. To be WHAT you are. To just BE here. You’re fulfilling your purpose to a large degree just by showing up – just by having been born.

You are, first and foremost a transceiver of energy. You receive energy and you transmit it. Whatever energy you transmit determines what shows up in your reality (like a mirror), where you experience it. This experience is how you receive. This is Law of Attraction 101.

Your unique perspective and experience, which causes you to continuously transmit your unique energy, is, at the core, what your purpose is. So, for example, you may change the energy of the room just by walking into it, even if you never say a word. You contribute in your own way just by being there (or even just by sitting at home). This often resonates with people and I’ve been teaching this concept for a long time, but it’s also often not 100% satisfying. And now I’ve found out why.

There’s more…

Yes, your purpose is just to be here. So, you can’t NOT be living your purpose. You can let yourself off the hook. You don’t have to feel guilty about any life choices you’ve made because you might not have been in line with your purpose, or because you “wasted time”, or because others suffered due to your dilly-dallying. All of that is Bullshit.

But… it turns out that there is another part to this equation, beyond the relief of knowing that you really can’t get it wrong. Now, before I tell you what it is, let me reiterate, because I can’t stress this strongly enough, that this is never an obligation or even a responsibility. It’s still not a job. But it’s also not something you can escape. It’s who you are. It’s what you are. And it’s been calling you all your life.

This process has, among other things, also been called “fully stepping into your power”, or “self-realization”. And it’s different for everyone. It also never ends. Just when you think you’ve got it (you’ve had a huge realization and briefly feel complete), you realize there’s more to discover.

The way I see it, it’s like we’ve chosen to come into this “game” as a certain video game character, to play a certain role. We chose this role because we knew that we’d enjoy it, that it would be awesome, and often, because we knew it would allow us to push the boundaries. We choose our roles the same way we do in a game – not out of obligation, but because it’s WHAT WE WANT. Because it is OUR game – for each and every one of us – our role is important in our game (your role is important in your game, my role is important in my game). Because why the f**k would you choose a minor role in your own damn game? You wouldn’t. No one would.

We are, each of us, the hero in our own story. And the role might not come with a cape and tights (then again, it might, because why not?), but it does come with abilities. Many of your abilities you’ve already discovered – these are the things you’re naturally good at. This is the stuff that comes easily to you. These are your gifts. These are your superpowers. How cool is that?

And, as you step further into your power, more abilities will unfold (what? You thought you were done? Not unless you insist that you are…).

Hollywood knows…

Why do you think that we’re so drawn to superhero movies and TV shows? Or supernatural stories? Or stories of one kid realizing she’s “special” in some way and has a destiny to fulfill? More and more we’re being called to step into our power, to step up into the role we’ve chosen in our game. These shows and movies are tapping into that calling. We recognize the underlying message. They also keep reminding us that there’s more to the world than we’ve been led to believe. We love shows about the supernatural, the existence of magic, a world where animals speak and we have superpowers and there are doorways between worlds. And we LOVE being in on the secret.

Now, I’m not saying that these TV shows and movies are a perfect representation. Most of us don’t actually want to be hunting vampires or zombies in “real life” (let’s be honest, the fantasy of that is much more appealing than the reality would be. I mean, constantly being in fear for your life, monsters who actually kill your friends and eat them, and having to put a stake through someone’s heart or chop their zombie head off is fun on the screen but would be terrifying and traumatizing to actually live through). And, while many of these stories have softened the dualistic, black and white definition of good and bad (not all monsters are bad, for example. And even the bad ones often aren’t totally bad…), all of these shows insist on still having some kind of villain, nemesis or evil force that must be battled.

Of course, there is no real force of darkness. There’s only ever the absence of light. And so, our “superhero” roles look a little different than they do on screen. What we battle are our fears, our own, internal limitations. Those are our monsters.

And when we step into our power, it’s less about flying off into the sunset, cape a-flapping, with the knowledge of having saved the word from the baddies, and more of a conscious realization that we’re in a game, of how the game works, and then playing deliberately at a much bigger level. This is where anything you imagine becomes possible. Not just money and houses and a harem of gorgeous, wash-board-stomach baring hotties. Instant manifestation, spontaneous healing, telepathy, telekinesis, teleportation, time manipulation, downloading knowledge instantly (think Neo in the Matrix), are all not just possible, but attainable. And so much more.

“I’m in! How do we get there?”

At this point, you may be quite excited. You might also be a bit scared. After all, if everyone becomes capable of anything, wouldn’t that be chaos? Wouldn’t we just all kill each other? Well, let me ask you this: Don’t we already have the ability to all kill each other? And are we?

What’s more, in order to step into your power, you have to let go of your fear – the fear that might cause you to want to bash your neighbors head in, in the first place. By the time you get to this level of the game, your rage is pretty much gone. So, don’t worry, we’re not handing Hitler a nuclear weapon.

You step into your power by listening to your inner voice, your inner most desires, validating them, and then having the courage to step into that reality. You become who you are more and more. You pay attention to what calls you and you go with it. You follow your joy. You release the fears that hold you back. You continuously level up. So… yeah, pretty much what you’ve been doing all along (see? You’re already doing it!). I’m just peeling back the next layer.

Now, while your journey to discovering your power is uniquely yours, and there’s no one map I can publish that will apply to a bunch of people at once, I can give you some tips on how to make this process of discovery easier and often more fun.

• First of all, validate your intuition, your gut. Pay attention to what you’re drawn to, the underlying ideas, and give yourself permission to believe that if the idea of being special in some way, that you’re here to do great things feels so damn good, there must be truth in that for you. Anything that feels really good to you contains your truthy. And, incidentally, you are special and incredibly important, in your reality.
• This does not mean that you have to be famous if you don’t want to, that you have to work with lots of people (or any people) if you don’t want to, or that you have to do help others. This is not an obligation or a responsibility. You’re discovering who you are, not trying to fit into some pre-determined identity.
• When something gets your attention, PAY ATTENTION. Check it out. Google it. Research it a bit. Find out more. It’s a breadcrumb which will lead you to another breadcrumb and so on. Those crumbs will lead you to a massive and awesome discovery.
• When an idea pops into your head that feels good, even if it isn’t “realistic”, just go with it. For example, you might have the thought that perhaps you were meant to be in a certain place at a certain time to have a specific conversation. And it feels orchestrated but you haven’t yet figured out WHY. Go with it. You were meant to be there. Don’t dismiss it because it doesn’t yet all make sense; because you can’t yet see the whole picture. Or, you might have the thought “maybe magic is real” and that feels great to you. Go with that. What if it is? Ponder that idea. This is how you open up your perception. This shit truly is real.
• Remind yourself that there’s so much more to perceive, if you just allow yourself to (one of the first steps to doing that is to accept the idea that there is, indeed, more). There’s more to see, to hear, to taste, to feel and even to smell (and yup, that one can get gross…). There’s a magical world just outside of the periphery that can become visible if we’re open to it.
• You don’t have to tell anyone about your expanded perception, and certainly not those who don’t understand. But you do have to accept it within yourself. Just like the superhero who keeps his identity a secret. Or the person whose tumor has spontaneously disappeared who decides not to challenge her doctor’s strong belief that that’s not possible.
• The more you step into your power, the more supported you’ll feel. There will be more “coincidences” – things showing up at just the right time. Money, or lack thereof, will never be a hindrance to anything again. People will come to help you at just the right time, with information, to trigger you and help you release fears, with validating conversations. Of course, this has always been true, but there’ll be a lot more positive support now.
• You’ll be challenged to think bigger on the regular. While there’s no suffering when you’re in your power, stagnation pretty much feels like the worst thing ever; so does boredom. And small dreams are like eating rice cakes – unsatisfying and bland. One of your most frequent questions becomes “How do I take this further?”, or “How can we make this even more awesome?”

Bottom Line

We are, each of us, here to be the hero in our own story. We are not here to be the hero to anyone else. Although we can choose to play that game with willing participants, we have to remember not to turn that into an obligation or it will start feeling icky pretty fast. Our purpose is to be who we really are, to fully step into our power, to follow the breadcrumbs and trust fully that they’re leading us to the new adventure. No adventure is too big or too small; it all comes down to whether or not it feels good to us. No subject is off limits or more valuable than another; if it floats our boat, it’s valid.

And it’s time to really embody this, to go down the rabbit hole and choose to believe that the physical world with all its limitations is not all there is. Not nearly. It’s time to believe in magic, in allowing the impossible to become possible, the invisible to become visible, the closet door to Narnia to swing wide open. It’s time to believe in what your heart of hearts has been whispering to you all your life. What are you waiting for?