Discovering Your Purpose

Some people seem to be born with an innate sense of what they’re meant to do in life. It’s like a calling and they find themselves compelled to move in a certain direction. I enjoy working with many of these individuals because they tend to be highly functional and the work we do together helps them to further develop their gifts and capabilities.

I knew at the age of 14 that I wanted to learn from a traditional American Indian Doctor. I started saving money and making plans to leave for Arizona. I left at seventeen and made it as far as Oklahoma, where I landed in a community of Kiowa Indians. Within a few years, I began to apprentice with Horace Daukei, the last surviving traditional doctor among the Kiowa tribe.

I trained with Horace for three years. Horace was the most gifted healer I have ever encountered, but he didn’t really know how to deal with his own emotions and issues. The immense power he worked with filtered through all his internal conflict. He eventually became very destructive and I had to break contact and go off on my own.

I felt lost for sometime after things dissolved with Horace. I didn’t feel that I really knew what I was doing or that I had gotten all the things I needed to do my work. I had a very difficult time getting started in my work and I barely survived during those first few years of my practice.

Many of the old Kiowa Indian doctors use to go up into the Wichita Mountains to fast for four days and nights without food or water. They received many different kinds of powers that allowed them to facilitate healing in others.

All of these old doctors have died out and people had stopped going to fast in the mountains years ago. But I had a very strong feeling inside that I needed to go into the mountains to fast.

Many people struggle to find any sense of purpose or direction. They have no sense of what it is that they want to do with their lives and they often find themselves working at whatever job they happen to fall into just to pay the bills. Many feel that they have no choice and they do whatever they have to do to survive. That can be very deadening as it offers no real meaning or fulfillment.

Most people spend their lives working for someone else and that can be very good if you’re doing something you love and you have a good relationship with your employer and coworkers. It’s also nice to be able to just go home and leave your work behind at the end of the day. You probably also have the benefits of health insurance, paid vacation and a steady paycheck every month.

Working on your own is a whole different reality. Your survival is dependent on what you do and how people respond to what you have to offer. You find yourself in situations where you are forced grow and develop many additional strengths and resources that you probably would not have developed had you not been out working on your own.

I worked at a few jobs during those first months after I finished college, but I had a sick feeling about it. I knew that I was off track and I realized that it would take me forever to get to do what I really wanted to do with my life. I made the decision that sink or swim; I was only going to do the healing work. This is one of the most important decisions of my life and it continues to pay off.

Many people have difficulty getting a clear sense of their purpose or direction because they have shut down parts of their awareness. People shut down emotionally in response to losses, hurts and the stresses of everyday life. They may shut down to an even greater extent as a result of emotional, physical and sexual trauma. Shutting down feelings causes us to disconnect or shut down so many of our internal resources. That includes much of our internal guidance mechanism and the natural creative impetus that flows from our depths.

Children often dissociate in response to neglect, trauma and other experiences in which they feel threatened. People with dissociative tendencies can be very floaty or ethereal. They may have vivid dreams of the life they want, but they often find it very difficult to make things happen in the physical world. Parts of them fail to ever fully mature and that prohibits them from developing many of the internal resources or faculties that are necessary to create their vision in the world.

It takes a real conscientious effort to practice being present. It’s about learning to become fully engaged in life. You do that by intentionally facing life’s challenges as they present themselves and being present with the feelings that arise in response. Doing so will help you to become more grounded into your physical body and the world. Body work and healing sessions can also help you to develop a stronger foundation that will allow you to become more present.

Children often grow up in situations where they find themselves responsible for the care of other siblings. They may also experience a total role reversal that requires them to care for dysfunctional parents. Many of these children’s basic needs for love, attention and nurturance are never met or even acknowledged. All they know how to do is care for others. Many of these individuals are drawn to the various helping professions such as nursing. They tend to create circumstances in their lives where they find themselves being overly responsible for the wellbeing of others.

Many of the disappointments, setbacks, hurts, trauma, dysfunctional relationship dynamics and things that have held us back in life have a way of becoming deeply wired into us and that’s why it can take considerable work to facilitate real change.

I’ve had gone through numerous healing sessions and vision quests. That’s helped me to digest much of the baggage, construct a new foundation and create a new format that facilitates my growth gives me the resources to do what I need to do. Now I’m helping to facilitate these same kinds of changes in those I work with.

Our feelings help us to connect with the parts of our mind that give us an awareness of what it is that we are here to do. It’s through our feelings and emotions that we gain an awareness of our needs. Our needs then help us to connect with our purpose.

Our deepest desires are connected to our life’s purpose. Ask yourself "…What is it that truly excites me …What is it that makes me feel the most alive …What do I truly desire?" Do you want to go back to school and earn a degree? Is there some part of the world that you want to travel to or live? Is there some kind of work that you feel passionate about or experiences that you always wanted to have? Now ask yourself "…what steps can I take to make this happen?

Many of us are at a loss as to what to do to implement our vision. That’s why it’s so important to examine our goals, determine what action we need to take to make that happen, break the process down into manageable steps and then steadily work toward creating our vision.

I didn’t know what to do to help myself initially. There was no manual or guide book to spell things out for me. I had to figure out what worked through a lot of trial and error. I try many different approaches. Some things work and others don’t, and so I go back and modify my approach till I find what does work.

Now I have a million things to do. I have clients to check in with, talks to set up, work to do on my website, chapters to write, recordings to make. I have to decide what projects I want to work on at any given time and then work steadily to make that happen.

Writing is a process that helps me to ground and clarify my thoughts. It gives me the opportunity to share my understanding of the healing process. It also generates more interest in my work.

I started writing some years ago and it’s taken me years to develop my own voice. It can sometimes be difficult to articulate what I’m sensing, thinking and feeling. There have been times when I didn’t feel satisfied with what I was producing, so I set the writing down for periods of time. I also felt that I needed time to learn more. Stepping back for a while helped me to regroup and gain some perspective on what I was doing.

I’m putting out a monthly internet journal, so that gives me a real incentive to write articles from month to month. I spend lots of time doing research and collecting examples from the people I work with and then I weave it into chapters. It can take me many hours to complete just one chapter. I usually work on two to four chapters at a time.

We’re all unique and we have our own individual purpose in life. It’s important that we come from a place of acceptance and do what feels right to us deep within. Many of us have internalized parental and societal values. That often leaves us feeling like we have to do or be something to earn our parent’s love, respect or to measure up to some arbitrary standard. There are numerous examples of people who went on to study medicine or pursue some other vocation, and attain some measure of success by external standards. But underneath it all that they may feel so empty, and in some instances hate what they are doing. That’s why it is so important to be true to ourselves.

People like Gandhi and Martin Luther King helped to transform our world. We can’t all save the world. Someone has to grow the fruits and vegetables and fortunately there are enough people who find fulfillment in their work as farmers. Discovering your purpose has nothing to do with what you should be. It’s about discovering what feels right on the inside and then following through with constructive action.

I started making plans to leave home and go live among the American Indian tribes when I was fifteen. The thought of going out on my own like that was terrifying, but I knew deep inside that it was something I had to do. Good thing I listened to my intuition. Otherwise I would have never had the opportunity to learn from my mentor or do any of the other things I’ve done along the way that have made it possible to fulfill my own purpose.

Many people are paying way too much to their fears. The fearful parts of our mind will just keep coming up with more and more excuses for us to not take action. Fears then grow out of proportion as they accumulate and the fearful voices multiply. That can leave us in a state of paralysis.

There are lots of times that I have felt fearful, but I can’t let that stop me. I realize that I have only one chance to live this life and it’s up to me to recognize and embrace the opportunities that present themselves to me while they are still available. There are lots of things I’ve done along the way that were difficult and I felt so vulnerable, but I just breathe into the fear and proceed.

I remember thinking that I would develop all these healing gifts as a result of training with my mentor and all kinds of people would be lining up to seek out my services. I thought the same thing some years later when I started going back to do the vision quest. The work has become much more powerful and I’ve received more gifts that I can work with as a result of all the training I’ve gone through, but people didn’t start lining up. It can be very difficult at times. Most people have a very limited understanding of the healing processes of their body and mind. Many are not willing to do the work that it takes to really change, and people often run when issues surface that they don’t want to face.

I do find many people who are receptive and more people are drawn to me as I continue to develop. But I have to really put myself out there to reach those who are receptive to my work.

Having to market my work can be very challenging and there are parts of the process I don’t enjoy, but I’ll do whatever it takes to attain my goals. I’m always searching for opportunities to do radio interviews or speaking engagements with groups or organizations that are open to my work. I’m posting the articles I write in my newsletter and on my website. I’m doing lots of other things. All of these things help me to reach more people. People learn from the articles and talks and that generates interested in my work. This creates more opportunities for me to do what I enjoy the most which is to work individually with people.

Many people have become so conditioned to expect instant gratification. They expect their dreams to materialize instantly. They often give up when they run into setbacks and then retreat to the safety of what they are already familiar with.

We may run into all kinds of resistance as we strive to go forward in our lives. There are times when everything seems to go wrong and it can feel as if some external force were trying to push us back into the box.

Some things will come easily, but many things in life are not going to work the way we want them to. That doesn’t mean that it will not work at all, but it may mean that we have to go back and modify our approach. Or it may take a lot more time and commitment to see results than we ever anticipated.

Many of the obstructions that we encounter are reflective of the fears and other limitations that we have internalized over the years. Learning to deal with the challenges as they present themselves is part of our process of maturation. It helps us to develop the presence and power to effect positive change in the world.

It can be really frustrating and disheartening when things don’t work. The difficulties that we encounter may also evoke our fears, insecurities, doubts and pain and we may feel totally overwhelmed at times. The stress can be wearing at times and the pain can sometimes make it difficult to function.

Thoughts, feelings, emotions and life experiences need to be digested and assimilated. We tend to internalize the stress and pain that we fail to digest.

You can facilitate the digestive process by breathing softly and deeply into any fear, pain or stress that you feel. It can take some time, but the unpleasant feelings will soften and dissipate. Breathing into the feelings as they surface will help you to ease the stress and dissolve some of the resistance. Doing so will help you to confront and move through your fears. You will deepen your intuition and gain access to other resources that within that will help you to move forward and meet the challenges at hand. You will also find it easier to flow with life as it unfolds before you.

At other times it can feel as if our life is exploding around us and we find ourselves feeling overwhelmed with the stress and confusion of our lives. We may find ourselves in so much pain that we can hardly move.

I find that it helps to breathe softly and deeply with the intent of being permeable so that all those painful, confused and conflicted feelings can flow through me. I feel an inner core of strength emerging from within as I work with this practice. This inner core has strengthened as I’ve continued to work with these practices so that I feel it within me at all times.

I feel the stresses of my own life wearing on me. That’s why I make a real conscientious effort to digest whatever comes up and keep the passion alive within. None of us can do it all on our own. That’s why I get periodic massages to move the stress that tends to get stuck in my body. I go for healing session when the opportunity presents itself, and I go on the vision quests. All of these things renew my spirit and keep me moving forward.

We all need the assistance of others to fulfill our vision so be willing to ask for what you want. Give generously to those who support you. There may also be instances where you do not have the opportunity to return the favor to the same person.

I always remember those who helped me to get to where I am today. There are many times when I help others who do not have the means to compensate me. Some of them have commented that they feel bad that they are not able to compensate me, but I ask them to pass the benefit along to someone else some time down the road when they find themselves in a better space.

There are so many different kinds of spiritual practices and they all have their benefits. Self-actualization is one of the most important aspects of our spiritual development. It helps to pull more of our soul into our body so that we become more grounded in this physical reality.

I’m continually habilitating myself by working to expand my range of motion so that I can do more and more of what I want to do. I’ve been doing this for years now and now I’m helping others to do the same. I’ve come to realize that our sense of competency expands with every skill that we master or task that we accomplish. We grow stronger and develop the presence that makes it possible for us to move through the world with greater ease. Our self esteem grows and we develop a faith and confidence in ourselves and our ability to do what needs to be done. Every step we take brings us further into the realization of our purpose.