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Chapter 1

Who Were You Meant to Be?

There is nothing you can do about what interests you or energises you. It is simply who you are. Trying to change this, not accepting this, will always result in a tiring, frustrating struggle.

Nora was back. She perched on my tufted office chair in poised anticipation. Her large designer scarf graced her neckline with elan and confidence, richly complementing the long dress that draped across her knees. Nora’s black paper-board portfolio of artwork rested against her chair, as she updated me on her vocational dilemma. I had not seen her in over a year; our last contact had been a vocational assessment interview. She had appreciated my help back then, but now needed more. Nora’s winsome blue eyes and softly waving blonde hair defined her femininity at a glance, and when she spoke her whispery, melodious voice was full of intelligence and insistence. “I have two diametrically opposed selves,” she complained. “Whichever one I try to satisfy, I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t I’m sitting on a fence, paralyzed. It’s depressing to be this indecisive!” Nora had come to me for answers. I asked myself, Can she stand to hear the truth?

The truth was that Nora was scared to death to fulfill her talent’s purpose. I knew what to expect from the portfolio, because I had seen samples of her work the year before. Nora had attained national recognition in her areas of expertise, turning out exquisite art that had been acclaimed in print, yet she could not bring herself to insist upon a career in art. Nora occasionally made money with commissioned art projects, but when these dried up, she began to think long and hard about other careers.

This interview marked the latest in a series of crises in Nora’s life over who she would become. The first had occurred when she was seventeen. Having shown promising talent in high school, Nora was offered a small scholarship to art school by a benefactor. Nora chose nursing school instead. Later, a divorce and the demands of a handicapped child made it a struggle for her to keep her head above water over the years.

But as things calmed down and her child got older, Nora had come to see me for occupational direction. At that point, the year before, she had decided she could not make enough money at art, and chose instead to pursue a degree in social work. This had proved to be a huge bore, and she did more doodling than note-taking in her classes. Now Nora was back in my office. She handed me a sheaf of her latest art work, which was stunningly imaginative and of professional quality. As I looked through her drawings, transfixed by their strange and moving beauty, Nora implored me anxiously, “So what do you think? I’ve been considering getting a degree in biology or genetics.”

Here was Nora’s split As her striking artwork wordlessly declared its unmistakable message about her life’s purpose, Nora spoke about an advanced degree in science. She was agonizing over the original conflict she had never resolved. Should she help others, or express herself?

This is the dilemma that this book addresses. You are probably familiar with Nora’s predicament for it is one many of us encounter: to choose one direction would mean giving up her deepest desires for self fulfillment, but to choose the other would mean feeling irresponsible. The good news is that this dilemma is an illusion. No one is really stuck like this. We have been taught to think in absurd extremes, as if we had to choose one or the other: our happiness or the good of others.

Is This You?

Take a moment to see if you recognize yourself in the following:

You are unfulfilled in a key area of your life. You would like a change, but cannot see a way to make it Often you feel frustrated and blocked. You are very attuned to the needs of your loved ones, whether you show this outwardly or not Duty is taken seriously. You have a humanitarian streak and want to improve the lives of other people. You daydream about a different kind of life and have a strong desire to be free of the burdens you carry. Perhaps you have bought some of the tools needed to fulfill your dream or plan, and even allowed yourself limited time for its pursuit. You may have come close to making a major change in your life, but it never quite happened. Responsibilities sidetracked you, and you turned back to the familiar life you already knew how to do. This was a relief, because you did not want to appear selfish or egocentric. You hate the thought of not pulling your own weight. For instance, depending on someone else’s financial support while you train in a new field, or borrowing money for a new venture, seems irresponsible to you. Often you have thought to yourself “How can I pursue my plan and dreams when others still need me so much?”

This description may not be a perfect fit, because these things rarely are. But if you scored yourself five or above, you match up well. If so, there are a few things we can tell about you from the preceding description:

You notice your own feelings and the feelings of others.

You want to improve your life.

You tolerate unhappiness to fulfill your responsibilities to others.

You know how to act and what is expected of you.

You have a strong conscience and sense of duty.

You are a humanitarian and want to help improve others’ lives.

You like to be creative.

You do not want to be selfish or egocentric.

You like to be helpful, but try not to trouble others for help.

Don’t you think this reads like a resume for the kind of person this world needs more of? These are exceptional qualities that show concern for others, creative potential, and a well-developed sense of responsibility. The trouble is, we can be such good citizens that we stop leading our own lives.

Let me add here that there are phenomenally successful people who have very creative careers, and yet they too experience the same inner clash between what they want to do and what others need them to do. It is not the nature of the job that defines whether or not you have this conflict; it is the reasons you are doing the job at that moment. If you are pursuing a job in order to fulfill the needs of someone else, your true self will find a way to object.

Are We Afraid to Know Ourselves?

It amazes me how ready we are to jump through hoops, fulfill all kinds of numbing job requirements, and top it off with acts at home that could cinch Oscars. However, when it comes to pursuing our dreams, or even just expressing our true longing for a different life, we suddenly collapse into a mass of anxiety and embarrassment. The ease and skill we show in our daily life evaporates when we consider changing our lives to reflect more of who we really feel ourselves to be. High on our list of anxieties is the fear of selfishness, followed closely by the fear of looking foolish. People who would not turn a hair in making expensive decisions in other areas of their lives suddenly can become indecisive and guilt- ridden over spending small amounts of time or money on their dreams.

Every one of us has a sense of who he or she really is. This instinct has been with us from the beginning, observing all that we do with the bemused and frustrated air of an impotent advisor. You know deep down whether something is right for you. There is no one who cannot tell when an activity stirs up life-giving energy or, conversely, exhausts and frustrates. We come equipped as infants to know this in our viscera, where the tide of hormones tells us what feels good and what does not You too came fully equipped to tell the difference within yourself between what is genuine and what is imposed.

Our Amazing Adaptability

The sad and marvelous thing about human beings is that we can be taught how to choose against ourselves. We are so adaptable, so smart, and so attached to our early caretakers that we can learn how to turn ourselves inside out, just to be who somebody else needs us to be. Human beings have the remarkable capacity to become something other than what they really are, and make it their reality. We are all prodigies when it comes to this talent, and we get started on it early in life.

Perhaps this is why we are so fascinated by royal families and celebrities. We know what they are up against! There is something riveting about watching a famous person caught in their role like a fox in a trap, and struggling to be a real person in spite of it. We cannot get enough of a princess with an eating disorder, or a celebrity who risks everything for a momentary high. We all know very well what it is like to want to escape from our “success,” when success has meant turning ourselves into something that we are not. But why have we become such masterful actors? Why do we spend our whole adult lives continuing to chase accomplishments that no longer satisfy our souls?

My job in this book is to help you figure out how you can build a life based on who you were meant to be, rather than who everybody else needs you to be. At a deep level, you already know the answer to the question of who you are meant to be, but for many reasons you have forgotten. Now you will reawaken the knowledge of what makes you feel alive and full of energy. Let’s look now at a couple of my clients who lost track of who they really were.

Two Cases of Misplaced Lives

Shelley did not really want to die, but every time she looked out the balcony of her hotel room toward the turquoise Caribbean, all she could think about was swimming so far out she would never be able to get back. Why did she keep thinking this? And why now of all times? She and her husband, Matthew, had planned an anniversary trip for three years. When Matthew heard about a business conference in St Thomas, it seemed like a sensible way to save money. Shelley had plenty of time on her hands while Matthew attended sales meetings, and she liked to sit on the balcony and look out over the water as she sipped her coffee. But after a day or two, every time her mind relaxed, she would catch herself on that mental swim to nowhere. Each evening she shook off the morbid image, and got ready to join Matthew and his sales associates for dinner.

A year later in therapy, Shelley marveled at how unaware she had been of the reasons for her unhappiness on that trip. A depressive crisis six weeks after the trip had finally brought her face to face with how empty her life felt, and how terrified she was to do anything about it. She realized, looking back, that the anniversary trip was the perfect metaphor for her whole life. Pretty, intelligent, and an accomplished hostess, Shelley had become the ultimate accessory, the peripheral support for her husband’s center-stage life as super-salesman. Even the anniversary trip had served his career needs.

With her two children grown and married, Shelley’s family role had evaporated away to superfluity. Her husband would be inconvenienced by her absence, but who would really notice if she were to disappear? She knew her parents would be upset, for they loved her dearly as their only child. However, their love was like the love of her husband. They loved what she could do for them, but they had no idea who she really was, or what she wanted to do with her life. It had not occurred to them to look for signs of Shelley’s unique interests. Instead Shelley’s parents selectively rewarded the traits in her they liked best, especially her warmth and concern for others. Shelley was a perfect little caretaker from early childhood on. Her mother had been sure Shelley would become a nurse. However, Shelley’s impulsive early marriage and rapid-fire pregnancies had ended that hope. Her parents were bitter about Shelley’s life decisions for years, even refusing to help her financially when Matthew was out of work for several months. Shelley was left feeling like she was always letting someone down every time she sought happiness for herself.

The dynamics of Tim’s story were different than Shelley’s. He was a handsome, boyish looking physician in his early thirties, with two small children and a wife to support Becoming a family doctor had been his plan for so long, he no longer remembered when he decided to do it. His goal to be a physician seemed to have always been there, like the color of his eyes or the unruly cowlick on the back of his hair. Each stage of growing up, like going to first grade or getting his driver’s license, merely seemed to be another step on the way to medical school. The strange thing was that Tim never really enjoyed his science classes or medical courses. He was smart enough to get good grades, but it was torture for him to work such long hours and deal constantly with complaining patients. Yet every hard-won step in his career seemed worth it just to see the pride in his mother’s face when she introduced her son, the doctor. He knew how much it meant to his hard-working mother that her eldest son had made her dream come true. Tim was convinced that his secret wish to become a writer was the height of ingratitude and irresponsibility. Besides, how would he ever make his physician’s income as a writer? Tim began to feel depressed, and his irritability at work sapped his strength.

Both Tim and Shelley had misplaced the responsibility for their lives. Each had mistaken sacrifice for loyalty, and felt guilty for not feeling more satisfied. They may have shown some differences in the way they sacrificed their lives to meet the needs of others, but deep down they were facing the same question. The question that needed answering was not, “Do you have a successful job?” or “Do you have a stable marriage?” but rather, “Is this job about you?” and “Is this marriage for you?” Many people might have felt envious of Shelley, the successful man’s pretty wife, or Tim, the doctor who rose out of the working class to fulfill every mother’s dream. They certainly looked good from the outside. But that was the problem. They had been looking at themselves from the outside. In fact, Shelley and Tim had built whole lives around how they would look to family, friends, and society at large. Yet at a certain point for both, the hollowness of their efforts became too painful to ignore any longer.

The Peculiar Satisfaction of Sacrifice

Tim and Shelley had offered themselves on serving dishes to be made into whatever their loved ones needed most, and for quite awhile that was enough. Not just enough; their sacrifices were actually deeply satisfying—for a time. You see, to be able to get it right and become who loved ones think we should be is a psychological accomplishment of the highest order. Think of the patience, empathy, fortitude, and dedication it takes to rearrange one’s true self into someone else’s pattern. It is staggering to consider the personality resources people must use up to do that. Yet when it comes to using these resources for themselves, to further their dreams and deeply personal senses of purpose, many people suddenly feel confused, scared, and profoundly unsure of themselves. This moment is the “panic attack,” which will be discussed in greater detail later.

There is a good reason why we trade in our true interests for goals that other people have set for us. The payoff in this deal is that at least you have someone who believes in you. In Shelley’s case, her parents were proud of her abilities as a good caretaker, and Tim’s mother knew her son could do anything. To know that someone sees a potential in you, even if it is the wrong one, has a tremendous impact on your choices, especially when you are a child. The fact that someone believes in us lifts us to heights we could never achieve all by ourselves. To be believed in, even if our parents are missing our truest interests, is a compelling and inspiring experience. It easily eclipses the little voice inside that cautions us against taking that path. If you follow your loved ones’ advice, you need never fear the loneliness of separation from your family. Making their dream your future is one way of sidestepping the uncomfortable realization that you might be very different from them.

The Necessity of Knowing Who We Are

We do not want to arrive at the end of our lives feeling like we have not frilly lived, that something vital was left undone. Within ourselves, we have parts that can tell the difference between living our true lives—the ones we were meant to have—and lives that have been dictated to us by other people.

This part of the self that knows is the Core, the inviolable True Self, the Real Self the Higher Self. This inner touchstone tells us who we really are, and who we are meant to be. It is the white stone on which our true name is written. Not the “name” our parents pinned on us in this lifetime, but our soul’s identity. In his book, The Soul’s Code, James Hillman uses his “acorn theory” (1) to describe the inevitability of our personal destiny. Just as a tiny acorn holds the code for a spreading oak tree, so each of us is born with an intent that seeks to express itself every chance it gets.

You are the most important person in your life. You may have tried to believe otherwise, but you have paid for this misperception with the discontent you feel or the symptoms you suffer. Perhaps you still clutch on to the illusion that you are harming no one when you give up your dreams. We can twist our potential into strange shapes of conformity without wincing, yet are seized with panic when we are invited to unbend and follow our true desires.

What Kind of Force Are You Going to be in the World?

Discovering the desires of your real self is not an esoteric exercise. You have a moral duty to recover your happiness. Does that surprise you? What you do with your life affects the way you drive your car, talk to your children, treat your employees, and relate to your spouse or life partner: You are choosing every day what kind of force you are going to be in the world: a force for growth, or a force for resignation. These may sound like abstract ideals, but their practical outcomes are very real. There is not a person in this world who has resigned himself to an unhappy and unrewarding existence who has not had demoralizing effects on the most cherished people in his life.

Unhappiness and a lack of fulfillment get passed down from generation to generation like bad genes, and they affect the more vulnerable, sensitive members of the family until someone gets serious symptoms of emotional problems.

What you decide to do with your life, in your generation, is not just about you. It is about what you are going to be giving to the world and passing down the line. Taking responsibility for your own life being satisfying and fulfilling is not a selfish act in the old sense of that word. Think of it as psychological pollution control: we are obliged to clean up our own dissatisfactions before they contaminate our relationships with others. Put your fears that your desire for fulfillment is “selfish” to rest.

The Right Purpose

Our obligation or duty is to play our parts in life so that our particular strengths and weaknesses, our very individuality, can interweave with the fabric of the world in ways that enrich and strengthen both ourselves and the world. Our individuality is our one perfect gift to our parents and the world. And it must be given, put out into the world in exchange and sharing; otherwise it withers and curls into unrecognizable shapes that bear little resemblance to the pattern of intent that crystallized at our birth.

However, many of us are anxious to not harm anyone with the pursuit of our purpose. Our wish to do no harm can become so primary we try to kill off our real selves. Few people want to know their lives’ purposes if they think that following these purposes would lead to suffering for themselves or their loved ones. Yet the right purpose for your life is never dangerous or harmful. There is always a path to take that fulfills you without harming others. Of course, if you have not found this way yet, you rightly hesitate to act. However, together in this book we are going to seek your solution. A true life’s purpose always has some benefits for other people as well as yourself. This is the principle of overflow, and will be dealt with in chapter eight, which takes up the subject of putting the self first.

When people initially get the urge to follow their dreams, it is often in the form of fantasies about total breaks from their everyday lives. We daydream about leaving our spouses, quitting our jobs, moving to the tropics. After being stifled for so long, can you blame the true self for going a little overboard? The subconscious mind is histrionic; like a bad stage actor it goes to extremes to show us a subtle truth. Learn to listen to its underlying message—“You need change”—instead of the harebrained solutions with which it first peppers the mind.

Your true right purpose is trying to find you, but you may not know yet what it looks like. You must find out how to recognize this stranger if it approaches you. Below is a checklist that may be a good match for some of your thoughts and ideas about your true purpose (for an indepth quiz on finding your true direction, see Appendix A):

The Right Purpose Checklist

You feel energized and deeply interested in it

You feel fully engaged, “clicking on all cylinders,” as you do it

You feel like you belong there.

It has a constructive purpose, directly or indirectly.

It does not exploit, humiliate, or harm others without permission.

It has built-in potential for your continuing development

You have a sense of pride and “rightness” about it.

Signs of it popped up all through your life, even from childhood.

You will notice that the checklist does not say that your purpose will never cause your parents any worry, or that your spouse will surely think it is a good idea. Jostling, bumping into others, occasionally stepping on toes, all may be unavoidable when we follow our true purpose, a result of being genuinely focused on getting where we want to go. As long as the harm is not intentional, other people can be amazingly understanding of our need to be single-minded about these things.

When you make good choices about your life’s purpose, you will have an influence on other people’s lives, but cannot know in advance who they will be. Many people want the assurance that if they follow their dreams, they will end up directly helping their loved ones, or improving the lives of their families. This cannot be guaranteed, especially if your interests are very different from those of your family. It could well be that the people to whom you will bring satisfaction or happiness are far removed from your family.

Your job as an adult human being is to go out into the world and contribute what you can as you engage in self-fulfilling work and the pursuit of happiness. It is very possible that you could end up helping many other people while being utterly unable to improve your own family. Your family may be unable to receive your contribution, because they are not interested in it They might not “get” it. Other people better suited to your family’s needs may have to find their way to them. Meanwhile, your job is to head out to where you can do the most good.

It seems to be a rare event when family members have enough things in common to make staying inside the family maximally fulfilling and productive. Sometimes people feel that they are at cross-purposes with their families, and this is often quite literally true. Our first and foremost job as grown-ups is not to avoid hurting the feelings of loved ones at all costs or to protect our parents from the emotional distress of an empty nest. Our jobs are to find our destinies and become productive contributors to our chosen adult communities.

What Do You Want?

Before reading any further in this book, take a sheet of paper and start writing down answers to the question, “What do I want?” Jot down everything you can think of, from the big to the small. The only requirement is that you be scrupulously honest and put down only the things you really want, not the things you think would be good for you. If more ideas occur to you later, go back and add them on.

When we do this exercise in the Growth Group, we use unlined white paper and have everyone hold up his or her pages afterwards, not to read but just to see how the writing looks on the page. The thing that always stands out is how much white space is usually left on the pages. People write, think, write, and still end up with plenty of paper left blank It is the equivalent of going speechless in front of a genie who has just granted you unlimited wishes. We are so trained to think about what is good for us or what other people need, that it can be hard at first to get back in touch with what we really want The point of this exercise is to start somewhere. Later, as you develop your talent for knowing what you want, you may find it much easier to add to your list.

Another reason why the page is not filled is that we have learned how to condense many of our wishes and wants under a few abstract headings, such as “I want a satisfying relationship” or “I want to be successful.” Suppose you were the genie: don’t you think you would need a lot more information in order to fill those requests? For instance, to fill the first wish above, wouldn’t the genie need to know exactly what kind of person would be satisfying to you in a relationship? To take the “I want to be successful” wish, what precisely is success in your mind? If you see a sweeping generalization on your list that would confuse a genie, circle it. Later on you can come back and add the specifics.

Which Area of Your Life Do You Need to Start With?

Different people have unfulfilled dreams in different areas. Some people know who they were meant to be in the career field, and may even have pursued it successfully. But they may never have defined what they needed for real happiness in their relationships. Other people might feel very good about their marriage and yet be disappointed over their unsatisfying career. In some cases, there is dissatisfaction in many or all areas of life. It is important for you to identify in which areas of your life you do not feel you are filling your needs. These are called Life Choice Areas, because in each of these areas we have made choices that have led to either fulfillment or frustration.

Our dissatisfaction in any life choice area is not accidental. It was probably part of a complex pattern of accommodation designed to please or impress someone else. We may feel okay about success in one area, but we may pull back in other parts of our lives if we fear we are going too far beyond what others expect of us.

In the pie chart on the opposite page, there are sections allotted to important areas of life. Without giving it too much thought, circle the sections in which you feel you need help. What areas are not fulfilling who you were meant to be? What important parts of your life are going unlived?

The next question, of course, is whether or not you want to change them. There may be things that you know are going unfulfilled in your life, but for many complicated reasons you may decide that now is not the time to try to change them. The next step is to pick the one area that you are most motivated to pursue at this time. Put a big star on it. You can change your choice or add a new one at any time during the reading of this book, but because we have to start somewhere, picking one area will give you a focus.

How Do I Figure Out What My Purpose Is?

Originally we all came into this life well-equipped to figure out what we need in order to become our most satisfied selves. Later we are often trained to forget or lose this natural knowledge; therefore, some reminders will come in handy.

Life Choice Areas

Where do you feel the need for more?

There are a handful of psychological tools that help us find our right purpose. They give us crucial information through our reactions. These tools work whether we know about them or not, just as gravity holds our feet to the ground. The goal is to make them obvious and available for everyday use. All you have to do is be willing to notice your reactions on a daily basis. You have always had this information, but you may not have realized what it had to offer. Like a magnet being pulled north, we respond predictably whenever we are close to something that reminds us of who we were meant to be.

The Tools of Self-Discovery

Our true purpose in life is as unique as each one of us, but the tools your true self uses to communicate with you are common to everyone. Many people enjoy hearing from their subconscious mind, and allow themselves to be guided accordingly. When we are receptive, the process of communication with our true self is so smooth and natural that it requires no conscious effort on our part. If years of stifling yourself has dulled your ability to read these cues, however, then you can use the Tools of Self-Discovery:

– The Tool of Energy Shifts: what makes your energy level change

– The Tool of Recognition: who or what you recognize as being like you

– The Tool of Envy: who or what you envy

– The Tool of Appeal: what undeniably appeals to you

– The Tool of Physical Response: what gives you a physical reaction

– The Tool of Mental Response: what puts you in a positive mental state

Now let’s see how you can pick up these tools and begin to shape your dream. As you use these tools, you will automatically shift your life path away from frustration and toward fulfillment.

1) The Tool of Energy Shifts:

Every time you get close to an area of interest that connects with who you were meant to be, you will feel a definite increase in energy. Involvement in—or even thinking about—this topic will stimulate you, making you look forward to it and want to do more of it Your energy will shift like an infallible weather- vane; it has no choice but to point in the right direction.

If you force yourself to pursue things that are not in line with your deepest interests, you will find yourself losing energy, feeling tired, bored, and stifled. It will feel as if something inside you is not willing to go along.

2) The Tool of Recognition:

Things will catch your attention in the area of your true purpose Robert, a client of mine who was a frustrated actor, was unable to watch television programs without thinking about how he would have played each scene It was such a normal part of Robert’s television viewing that he had never realized what this was indicating. Bettina, a young woman who wanted to become a children’s book illustrator, could not read her daughter a bedtime story without analyzing the painting technique in the pictures, or whether or not the illustrator’s style fit the tone of the story. These people were “recognizing” the occupational skills needed to express their underlying life purposes. This sense of recognition is often accompanied by thoughts like I could do that or ideas for how you could have done it better. The critical undertone comes from the natural evaluative instinct of a person who is potentially a master in that field. We cannot help but appraise someone else’s skill in “our” area. We recognize it before we become it.

3) The Tool of Envy:

Look at what makes you envious and critical. It tells you that there is something you feel should have been yours, but you have allowed it to go unclaimed. Envy is one of the most reliable indicators of what we were meant to be, because it is so childishly honest. The proper purpose of envy is to spur us toward getting the object for ourselves. The trick is not to get stuck in envy, nor to content ourselves with resenting people who have what we want but to understand the meaning of the emotion.

Jennifer, a very intelligent woman came to see me about finding some direction in her life, but instead she filled her sessions with complaints about her husband. According to her, he was obsessed with buying the latest four wheel drive vehicle, and making sure that he had the very best in fly-casting equipment Her husband owned his own business, provided her with a comfortable living, and was certainly able to afford his pleasures. Her attitude was so critical, it began to tell me more about her than him. We explored what bothered her so much about her husband’s pursuit of these special interests. It turned out that she was deeply envious; not of his all-terrain vehicle or fishing rods, but of his guilt-free pursuit of his dreams. She did not know what she wanted to do with her own life, and it drove her crazy to see her husband follow his inclinations so easily. Jennifer was close to convincing herself that she had married a shallow, petty man who was obsessed with his possessions, when the real problem was that she had not allowed herself to focus on what she wanted.

4) The Tool of Appeal:

Appeal is the attracting pull that desirable people and things exert upon us. In a store, some items appeal to us, while others are passed over without a second glance. In a room full of people, we sneak peeks at a certain person because there is something about him or her that we find “appealing.” This subtle experience is a reliable guide, nudging you toward something or someone who reminds you of what you need.

5) The Tool of Physical Response:

Physical sensations are among the best tools for self-discovery, because they are less likely to be filtered through family expectations or cultural norms. When we get close to our purpose in life, we all have physical reactions. A heightened sense of energy has already been mentioned. Physical pleasure is a giveaway as well. What is exciting to your heart and mind easily extends into pleasant body feelings. Feelings of warmth and well-being are very common, often accompanied by pleasant, full feelings in the chest area. Connecting with our true purpose gives us a feeling of physical lightness, especially noticed as a feeling of weight being taken off our back and shoulders. It is also characteristic to feel physically able in the pursuit of our true purpose, as though our nerves and muscles were preparing to make physical action easy.

There are also unpleasant responses to things that would pull you away from your purpose. Feelings of disgust, fatigue, boredom, depression, headache, nausea, and irritability are just a few of the physical sensations that occur when you are moving away from your right direction. (The one exception in this category of negative reactions is anxiety, unquestionably a noxious sensation. Anxiety and fear are natural knee-jerk reactions many of us have toward any kind of change, good or bad, and therefore are not always indicators you are going the wrong way.)

It is important to “tag” these feelings when they occur so you will learn to recognize their messages in the future. “Tagging” the feeling means that you notice in detail how it feels, and then name it so you can quickly identify it later on.

6) The Tool of Mental Response:

Just as our bodies respond to what we like, so do our thoughts. For instance, if you are considering an interesting career that fits you well, you will probably experience hope, optimism, and a sense of possibility. Uplifting fantasies will pop into your mind about how it would be to live that way. These pleasant and stimulating mental responses occur when you are on the right track, moving toward your true purpose in life.

If you review these tools for self-discovery, you will probably recognize every one of them as familiar experiences. Perhaps you will even wonder what the big deal is, since you already were well aware of these feelings. The point is that these naturally occurring human feelings also are tools, designed to be used for guidance. Too often we dismiss these experiences as simple random reactions, lacking any particular usefulness. The truth is that these feelings and reactions exist for the crucial purpose of telling us when we are on track toward finding fulfillment If you don’t know where to start, utilizing these tools will begin to point you in the right direction within a single day.

Success Moments

It is hard to see all at once what we should be doing with our lives. However, on any given day, you can use the self-discovery tools already in your possession to gather up pieces of your life puzzle. Every time you notice a surge of energy, or follow your interests, you are having a success moment Tag it, and keep going.

The goal is not to burden you with unrealistic expectations of perfect mental health or instant total success. Our goal is for you to collect success moments. Success on this life quest is getting as close as possible to the bits and pieces of your dream. These are the moments when you know you are living your life through your real self. A success moment is a goal that is completely possible, and without which nothing bigger is possible. A moment of success may be followed by a disappointment, or an emotional regression. But that does not cancel out the reality of your success, however brief it may have been. Success is success. People who have successfully followed their dreams have learned the art of nurturing and tagging their success moments, and they take every bit of credit for them.

The Wrong Questions to Ask Right Now

It usually happens that as soon as people come up with an idea for their future, they immediately begin assessing whether or not they think it would be possible. Worry starts over how they would go about making these dreams come true. They quickly run through their sum total of ideas related to the topic, and, not surprisingly, come to the conclusion that it cannot be done. This demoralizing attitude quickly drains their initiative. The problem is that they launched prematurely into the planning stage, when they had barely begun to formulate ideas for what they wanted to do.

Self-discovery has a predictable course, and skipping over some of the steps never works. The sequence of growth stages is invariable. If you are in the daydreaming stage and try to push yourself ahead into planning, you could easily become so discouraged you will stop.

Accepting Our Desires

Sometimes we know what we want before we are ready to accept it We can be surprised by a simple desire popping up, and the dilemma that results can make us intensely uncomfortable. This is what happened to Michael.

Michael was a thirty-seven-year-old sociology professor who liked to stop in at a local bookshop on his lunch hour. One particular day, he hovered around a certain bookshelf for over a half-hour, picking up a large paperback on spirituality and art, and putting it back again. He made a point of investigating other titles on nearby shelves, pushing his glasses up on his nose and thumbing through books he had no intention of buying. Michael could not walk away from the book with its thrilling, mystical cover art, but he could not bring himself to buy it either. It was getting late, he had to be back for his next class. He told himself his ambivalence was absurd. Putting a stop to his dithering, Michael plucked the spirituality book off the shelf and tried to look casual as he strolled to the checkout counter. Inside, however, Michael felt like an adolescent about to buy a sexy magazine. What had been a safe and private fantasy was now exposed on the laminate counter as a declaration of intent.

When Michael talked about his purchase later in a therapy session, he fidgeted in discomfort. He felt as though he had exposed a shameful, unacceptable side of himself, but he said he also had to have the book. One might say that this was a small act, an inconsequential event. But if we had monitored Michael’s pulse, blood pressure, and adrenaline levels at the sales counter, we would have come to the well-founded conclusion that his body was preparing him to run for his life. We can easily understand the anxiety of a mortified teenage boy trying to buy a forbidden magazine. We recognize such symbolic acts of emerging adulthood, and the bridge every adolescent is trying to cross. But a grown man, a professor and parent, feeling such a high level of anxiety about buying a book does not seem natural.

Of course it is not the book itself that so embarrasses Michael or those with seemingly incongruous desires at these critical points of transformation. In Michael’s case, it is the intent behind buying the book that feels so forbidden: he wanted to become his own person in a way that his old life could not accommodate. Michael, the ultra-rational, data-based social scientist was responding to an inner call stronger than any professional peer pressure. After many years he was finally admitting his interest in spirituality. As a child Michael had thought deeply about God and had many questions about why people suffered. In high school he had daydreamed about becoming a minister and leading his own church. But since his college indoctrination into the social sciences, Michael had developed a contemptuous attitude toward religion. Michael also had learned early not to tell his parents too much about his religious inclinations. He knew his engineer father and accountant mother were steering him firmly down the path of practical realism. Research in the social sciences was a good compromise for Michael: it allowed him to ask all kinds of questions—except the ones that interested him the most.

As Michael stood in that bookstore, wavering between growth and fear, he was seized with the embarrassment and anxiety that can grip all of us when we take a step in public toward reclaiming our true self. His profound sense of exposure and self-consciousness revealed the highly meaningful nature of his act. As Michael paid for the book he desired, he was symbolically saying to the clerk (the gatekeeper, the authority figure) that he was intending to change the course of his life. Because this felt so taboo to Michael, he had a fit of indecision before taking that step. At a deep level there was a part of Michael that knew exactly what buying the book meant he was taking back a piece of himself that had been ransomed to family opinion years before.

Over the next couple of years, Michael began to attend a church that encouraged his searching, intellectual questions about God. He ultimately became a leader in his church, and has felt deeply rewarded by this new direction in his life.

Pivot Points

There may be more dramatic events in people’s lives than buying a book, but Michael’s example illustrates that the most ordinary act can become a watershed event when we are ready to change. At these moments, we become highly conscious that we have the power of choice. We no longer assume that who we have always been is who we will continue to be. A pivot point is formed when we have the freedom to turn in any direction, and we know it. Choosing rightly at these times is a striking experience, never to be forgotten. Many people can look back and cite just such moments when they first risked their allegiance to their deepest desires.

The amazing thing is that over and over life confronts us with such opportunities, such pivot points. To remain the same, you simply choose what you have always chosen. To discover your true purpose, you must experiment with choosing from your soul. These tiny choice points are easy to overlook, just as the tools of self-discovery seem unremarkable until you deliberately start using them. However, it does not matter how small the act or how inconsequential the decision. If you know what you want and finally do it, you are rearranging your universe.

Three Words to Remember

A quick overview of the whole process of recovering your life’s purpose may be found in just three words:

RESPECT ~ PROTECT ~ CONNECT

These will be your touchstone words, practical reminders of what is needed to set your course for the first time on finding your true purpose, or to recover from a temporary setback. These three words combine the attitudes and actions that will materialize fulfillment in whatever area you choose. They work together in a synergistic way, so that each sparks off both of the others to create the optimal conditions for your future.

1) Your first responsibility is to respect your own unique interests and needs. There is nothing you can do about what interests you or what energizes you. It is simply who you are. Trying to change this identity, not accepting this identity, will always result in a tiring struggle that can never succeed. You are not required to like your unique interests and needs, especially if they make you very different from other members of your family, but sooner or later you will have to grant them respect. The first step in finding your true self is to honor the primacy of your needs and interests in your life and then look for acceptable ways of expressing them, because they are not going away.

2) Your true self’s unique need is something that you must protect from other people’s opinions. If you do not protect yourself in this area, you will be molded to fit what makes other people or traditions more comfortable. It could be a family member, an employer, a cultural norm. These outside forces influence you into becoming who they need you to be in order to maintain a preferred view of the world. Everyone in your life has a part they would love you to play and if you do not shield yourself from this pressure, you will end up dominated by activities and roles that will whittle away at your resolve until your future is lost. No matter how much you love or admire these people, you must protect yourself against accepting everything they have to say and consequently losing your own values.

To connect with like-minded, supportive people is the next necessity. We all need to have contact with people who are interested in our ideas and who are energized by similar pursuits. This does not mean that you have to give up relationships with loved ones, your current job, or anything else in your life that may be less than energizing. It just means you need to add people to your life who will support your efforts at growth and change. Without this connection to a few supporters, it is easy to get frustrated and give up.

Taking a new step can be a fearful venture that stirs up anxieties, but it is even more frightening when you lack supportive people in your life. As we will see in the next chapter, taking new steps can be made even more difficult when the very people who should be most supportive try to hold you back.