Many of us of a certain age were raised with televisions on. 3 choices -- NBC, ABC, CBS. But a 4th choice was turn it off. Still is.
We become out of touch with our own lives, our grief, our desires, our circadian rhythms, by having television bombard us with other things to be concerned about. It taught us a kind of passivity that was revealed by the advent of the internet. TV was a one-to-many medium. The internet and social media are many-to-many. I embrace that.
Step #2 Walk a dog, preferably in the woods. They will be totally in the moment. You can be too.
Step #3 Grieve. You aren't in touch with who you are or your purpose if you don't allow yourself to feel angry, sad, bargaining and surrendered to what is. Squeeze it out. Squeeze it right out of your tearducts. Like a zit. Push through it.
Step #4 Be good to yourself. Take a multi-vitamin. Give up your worst junk food item(s). Start doing the things that make you happy or satisfied more often.
Because the purpose of your life is to be fully alive. When I hear people say, in whatever form, that they are searching for their purpose in life I take that to mean they are unhappy and they can't effectively confront why. It isn't that they don't know but rather that they DO know, if only subconsciously, but they want an event or an external change to force them to push through or to free them from blockage. In my experience, each of us has to kickstart our own freedom. Make a big positive change like one of the 4 I listed and then keep going.
Each of us attracts the same kind of energy we put out into the world. So simply being mindful of what that energy is can make a big difference. Confusion attracts confusion. Purpose attracts purpose.
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I'm reading Carol Pearson's 'The Hero Within' which I found during a deep set of sessions on story telling and narrative. One presenter listed some of most enduring and universal stories and then analyzed that the protagonist in those stories move through four of Pearson's six modes: the Orphan, the Wanderer, the Warrior, the Martyr. In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy lives with her aunt and uncle; an orphaned child on the edge of adulthood. She wanders in Oz and meets three flawed men. She goes into warrior mode with the witch; she does so out of love for her dog and her friends. Finally she sheds the illusion of not being responsible for her own life. eg the "martyr" that dies is her irresponsibility. Star Wars, ET, the life of Christ and dozens of other fundamental narratives of western culture follow this pattern so we have to think there is something timeless and universal in this pattern.
Pearson is however, not concerned with storytelling but rather with our internal narratives. How we see ourselves and our futures. We can change our internal narrative only after we are aware that we have one. Amid the noise of our lives, it may take a very conscious effort to get enough clarity to see which of the six modes we have adopted and then choose one which suits us better.
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