Sarah started coaching with a question she has held for a lifetime. What is my purpose? Why don’t I have a vision of what I want to do? After exploring this with her in all the logical ways possible we found her answer.
Our culture measures success by what we accomplish. We are taught to find our value by what we do in the world. Success is important, and it is decided by what others see as visible. For many, this works because we love creating things viewed as successful. We are good at creating a valence seen to have value. Some of us like and enjoy creating in this way but not all of us.
Sarah discovered that her purpose, her higher truth, was simply to know herself. Her early life experiences did not allow that opportunity so now is her time. How do we get to know ourselves? For her, it was not about creating career goals to achieve or climbing the career ladder. She discovered through meditation and letting go of the expectations of others that she was to learn about herself through self-expression.
As she observed intuitively, Sarah saw how her life is unfolding in ways that create opportunities for her to begin to allow self-expression. Up until now she simply completed work that others said she should do. This began when her father, an engineer, who told her to get an engineering degree, which she did.
Engineering was not Sarah’s life’s work; her career has been as a writer. She is a technical writer, a website text writer and all forms of writing in which she takes the ideas of others and creates wonderful content. Sarah is a successful content writer.
This year the responsibilities of her work position changed dramatically from a technical writer for engineers to becoming the marketing writer for her company. The new role changed her relationship with everyone from taking their ideas and recording them in a digestible way to leading the marketing efforts. This change was not a coincidence. Sarah was not happy with the work she had done though she did it well. Sarah had meditated on finding her purpose and her vision of her life so how does this fit?
From an intuitive perspective, knowing ourselves comes through self-expression in whatever form is natural to each of us. In this new role, Sarah found that she had to put forth her ideas, a complete dichotomy from before and something that is not comfortable for her. She would prefer the invisibility of her earlier work.
Sarah admitted that career success is not important to her. Though it is important for her to do things well. In this new role, Sarah had to find her voice, allow her perspective and drive innovation in marketing the work of these engineers. Sarah realized that up to this point she was the invisible, unknown writer behind great work. To know herself meant becoming visible to herself and others. Knowing herself is her purpose.
As an aside, Sarah realized that she had begun to express herself in other ways as well. Instead of the standard black pants and a black sweater as her daily wear; she has begun to wear more colorful clothing. Dress is a new form of self-expression, and it is evolving slowly.
Self-expression is a new way of being for Sarah. It is not comfortable though she is clear that this is her life purpose as she knows it at this time. Knowing herself is a spiritual journey. Sarah has begun this uncomfortable journey toward self-expression and being seen.
Take a moment and consider how you express who you are in the world.
Best wishes, Kay