This morning I fed my spirit with a full episode of Oprah's interview with Caroline Myss where they discuss her new book, Anatomy of the Spirit. According to Caroline, "People suffer when they pursue a life or chase a dream that doesn't belong to them." She explains that people get fixated on something and feel they have to have it. If someone else's life does not belong to you, however, you are pursuing a life that wasn't meant for you.
"How do you know what is the life or the path that is meant for you?," Oprah asks.
"If you have life, you have purpose," Caroline replies. She goes on to say that if you have one atom, you are as purposeful as the planet. It cannot be otherwise. You can't have one without the whole. You can't take one atom out and say it is separate frin the whole. In the same way, I can't take you out and say you're separate from the whole.
Two things she encourages us to understand:
First, you've never lost your life purpose. You may have taken a wrong turn or ended up in unfamiliar territory. How do you know? Your internal homing device tells you. That part of you that knows when something feels right and knows when something feels all kinds of wrong. If you feel ill-at-ease. if you feel unhappy, if something doesn't fit anymore or where you are is no longer fulfilling, that's your signal that it's time to steer in a new direction. Just as it is in a relationship, you must remember this: if you have to betray yourself in order to remain in it, you know you've gone off course.
The Bible says it this way. We're "led away by our own lust." Modern terminology doesn't call it lust; it calls it ego. A false image founded on fear, doubt and misinformation about what makes you valuable or successful. That'll get you off course every time. It Edges God Out. If we're lucky or, should I say, paying attention, wisdom comes with experience. Some argue it comes with age. I beg to differ. I think it's the repetition of going off course and finding your way home that helps us grow.
Secondly, she says, "Have no judgments about your life. No expectations (in the sense that certain things shouldn't have happened to you that happen to ordinary people). We've all gone through things that made us say, "I can't believe this happened to me" or "I can't believe he/she did that to me." Somehow we think we're special. Stuff like betrayal, divorce, disease and trauma happens to other people. Certainly not us. When you feel that something happened in your life that shouldn't have and you haven't gotten over it or you're fixated on something that didn't belong to you in the first place or you refused to let go of a rage and should have, Caroline believes these are contributors to our desensitization from purpose. Fear, intimidation, unforgiveness feeds our denial and we spiral out of control.
Lastly, give up the need to know what happens tomorrow. Be fully present and appreciate all that is in your life right now." Even the bad stuff. Martha Beck wrote an article about loss and saying goodbye. In her 5 ways to come to terms with change, #2 says, "Focus on a present happiness." Then she says, "Each source of joy has a 'family tree' of progenitor events that get more
plentiful the further back you look (just as you have two parents, four
grandparents, eight great-grandparents, and so on). Keep tracing the chain of
events that led to your greatest current happiness until you run across one that
seemed painful or ugly when it happened." In essence, what she is saying is that most times, the greatest joys we have experienced have vicariously come from great pain.
Read more: http://www.oprah.com/spirit/Dealing-with-Loss-How-to-Say-Goodbye-Letting-Go-Martha-Beck/2#ixzz218VYPjp8
Oprah says, "Life speaks first in whispers, then in shouts and then a brick up side your head." That's good news! Your homing system is relentless. Know this, it will persist in sending stronger and stronger signals until you get it. Your mom, dad, or best friend may have been telling you for years that you need to do something with your life, leave that man alone, make a change but real change is not gonna happen unless or until our internal homing device signals us. As I think about it, only a master mind could have prewired us in such a way. The same way that a child knows it's time to walk, we know when it's time to make a change. My God, that's amazing!!! Dr. Dyer calls it the shift.
I've been so concerned about shifting from a life of survival to a life of purpose. I believe God sent Caroline Myss to tell me, "you've never lost your life purpose." Now, that's some good, GOOD news for me. Along with increasing peace and understanding, it's letting me know that I'm back on track!
