Too much to do, too little time. This is modern life, in a nutshell: busy, stressed, and meaningless. Our to-do list is endless, yet, irrelevant. If we dare to stop for just a few minutes and sit in silence, that big emptiness fills us inside: what is the point?
We know there is much more to this — there is more to life, there is more to us! Yet, what is it exactly?
Purpose. A higher force, a vision, a dream driving us forward, bigger than us it expands us, inspiring and filling us with hope and joy.
We humans were designed for so much more — yet, most of us keep safe in our status quo, and never get to know what we came here for. That’s right: the majority of us don’t live their purpose.
This article is an invitation for you, who are ready to turn this around and fulfill yours. Here I share with you why most of us never get to know our purpose, why it is so hard to know it, and how you find it.
Why You Don’t Know Your Purpose
The number one reason why you don’t know your purpose is because you are looking at the wrong place — which is a side effect of you not understanding what purpose truly is.
We live in a society addicted to doing. We are busy, stressed, and living on to-do lists. As a result, we look for purpose as if it was a thing for us to do. This means that in our minds, purpose is the utmost checkbox to mark as completed and fulfilled. There’s no way to get to purpose right from this departure point.
Purpose is not something for you to do. Purpose is something for you to live and be: at its core, it is an expression of your soul. You live your purpose by allowing you to be yourself. When you are yourself you simply live it, do it, be it, without much thinking, as if it was all obvious.
When you are yourself, without overthinking, without worrying about what others think, and without doing things to get someone’s approval, the result is a high level of connection that allows you to effortlessly live your life authentically. From this state, you do things from within, and not from your mind pushing you around.
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This is no different than you waking up in the morning knowing you want French toast for breakfast: it is just obvious, because that is what you want, and you are doing nothing but not holding yourself back. Clarity is simple, obvious and silent; no trumpets play when you know what you want.
Purpose doesn’t live in your mind: it is an inner knowing that lives in your heart — but is encaged by many layers of illusion.
Unfortunately, the consequence of not knowing our purpose and living in a society addicted to doing is two-fold: we either feel a lack of meaning in life, or we create fake purposes to keep us busy. The former creates hopelessness, the latter stress, and both create disconnection and unfulfillment. All of which create more layers of complexity, making it harder for us to look at the right place.
Purpose matters for many reasons, one of which is that it is an indicator of how true you are being to yourself. This is why in most spiritual paths the central point is “know thyself” — because without it you won’t be able to fulfill your divine purpose.
The journey for purpose begins with acknowledging that we don’t know, and accepting the journey to go deeper within ourselves.
I Don’t Get It: Don’t I Know Myself?
You surely know yourself as a social construct, which is a result of attachment to certain temporary, shallow, and mortal attributes such as your work and salary, brands you like, sexuality, what you studied, where you were born, where you live, your language, your relationship status, your friends, your hobbies, what you like and what you don’t. These are only indicators of your present and future if you limit yourself to a box, thinking this is all there is to you.
You are so much bigger than you think! As an eternal being, knowing yourself goes much deeper than that.
To know yourself the requirement is first to learn to see clearly, by releasing multiple layers of illusion and misunderstandings. Until we do that, what we think we want is only a reaction to what is socially expected of us, our emotional wounds, our narrative, our need for external validation, our need to get specific responses from other people, our limiting beliefs, our mental models and our often distorted understandings of what love is, all of which are but perspectives, reactions and socially constructed.
Think about it: say you used to not be jealous, and then you had a partner who cheated on you, and from there onwards you became jealous. So are you a jealous person? You weren’t before, but then this emotional wound was created. And then you heal it with a new partner, so you are not anymore. Is this even a relevant attribute to who you are? Who are you, beyond all these different reactions and stories?
In other words, it is not your purpose that is missing: it is you that are missing and not coming through. This is why liberation is such an important word in spiritual development: we need to release ourselves from the prison of our minds.
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Why Is It So Hard to Know Myself?
Because decades of social conditioning don’t dissolve overnight.
To get to know yourself you need to heal and let go of what is not you. This is the core of spiritual growth: each layer we peel off allows us to embody more who we truly are — and naturally live our purpose.
More than that, each layer we peel off allows us to live a much more loving, authentic, and vibrant life. Hence, it is worth the trouble!
At the same time, this inwards journey is only taking you to something that is already there, within you, all along. We just need to release all these layers of complexity we have grown along the way.
Why Do We Suffer Without Knowing Our Purpose?
Because as long as we don’t know, we are not being ourselves — which brings tremendous frustration, stress, and disconnection into our lives.
Your main job in this life is to be your authentic bright divine Self. Without it, authentic joy and fulfillment can’t be sutained in life.
Develop your emotional intelligence and listen to that suffering and frustration. In the pursuit of purpose, comfort and “poor me” are the enemy. The intention of your emotions is not to keep you miserable but to make you get out of the couch and do the necessary work to find your joy in being you. Outgrow your current state, take responsibility for your life, and allow yourself to be yourself: live your purpose, in joy.
The Different Layers of Purpose
We are multidimensional beings, carrying more than one single purpose to fulfill — although we do have a bigger individual purpose.
We all have multiple things to experience in this life, and many roles to play in other people’s lives. We are all one. We have an individual purpose within our growth journey, as well as a purpose to play in the collective project.
Existance is multilayered. Yet that doesn’t change the foundation: be yourself, stay centered and aligned, trust the whispers of your heart and soul, and you will fulfill your purpose, and live with clarity.
We all get out of alignment now and then, yet we can all learn how to return to our center faster and more easily: that is one of the many great benefits of spiritual growth.
Your purpose is an expression of who you are. The more you know yourself, the more you live authentically, and the more you live your purpose — simply by Being you.
Ready to embark on a journey of self-discovery, purpose, and accelerated growth? Schedule a Discovery Call with me today! I am Aline Ra M, spiritual guide, teacher healer, learn more about my work here.
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