Today I want to get you thinking about your purpose in life. Where are you going in life? What makes your heart happy?
If you are feeling frustrated or unhappy about any state or part of your life right now, then keep reading because I'm going to give you guidance on that. We'll talk about following the rules you were given as a child, or listening to what makes your heart happy.
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I was listening to a song from the soundtrack from the movie Moana recently, How Far I'll Go. That's what inspired me to share this with you. Go here to listen to the song. If you haven't heard it, it's a great feel-good song to help you think about going after your purpose!
What makes your heart happy?
If you haven't seen Mona, here's a short recap:
It's the story of this young girl who lives on an island with her people, and her father is the leader. She is supposed to inherit his position of leadership. But she keeps feeling called to go out onto the water.
However, at the same time, she feels that she's doing something wrong by wanting to heed that call. Her dad keeps pulling her back to the island and saying, look, you are supposed to be here and lead these people, this is what you are here for.
But she has this call of her heart that keeps calling her to the water. And so of course, she follows that call and goes out onto the water and saves her people. What a beautiful story.
This got me thinking about our own lives....we all have an inner voice calling us to do something.
What in your life represents your island?
And what in your life represents the call of the ocean?
What is the call that is within you?
Disney
Finding your purpose
You can look at this in the big picture from your entire life and your life purpose, and where you're going and what you feel will make your heart happy. Yet, the idea of completely changing careers is pretty scary to most people!
If that's a bit too intimidating, then you can also look at this in individual pockets or areas of your life. Where is it that you have your island? Meaning, what are the rules that you have been brought up in? And that you have been living with in certain areas of your life?
Your island represents the rules you were raised with - whether those are rules for the entire game of life, or rules for relationships, or work, or being a parent....(You get the point.) 🙂
Start with the small islands. What are the rules you were given for these aspects of your life?
Has it ever occurred to you that you don't have to follow those rules?
The rules of your islands are simply the ones your parents gave to you. You don't actually have to follow them if you don't want to!
What what is your call? What do you feel in your heart that you really want to do, that you want to express, that is going to bring you happiness and joy and fulfillment? That is something that is going to be different from the rules of your island.
Now, there's an important thing to note here. The rules of the island are not bad. And they are not wrong. There's no condemning of the rules of where you are or where you have come from. It's simply the recognition that those rules of that island don't work for you.
Here's a simple example. Most of us were raised on the island of belief that you go to school, you get a good education, you get a good job, you save for retirement, and then hopefully the stock market does not crash in a year or two before you need to retire. Now you've got your nest egg. It's time to go have fun and travel and see the world and do whatever you want.
Well, you have to decide for yourself, does this island actually work for me and make me happy?
Or does my heart yearn for and long for the calling of the sea, whatever that sea is for you?
In my case, this was the island that I was raised on. My parents did a great job raising me in this way. They embodied this island themselves. But I also have many ancestors who were entrepreneurs who got off that island, and they passed those genes down to me.
I have come to realize that the idea of staying on that island does not work for me and does not make my spirit and my soul happy. So I did what Moana did, I took my boat and I left the island and here I am talking with you!
I simply encourage you to think about, what is the island that you were raised with? Do those rules actually apply for you in your own heart? Is that what makes you happy? Or is there another call to you that you feel that you want to go after?
How to know you're not living your purpose
How do you know if the island that you're on doesn't work for you?
In the story of Moana, it was pretty obvious and clear from the beginning. She just never felt like she really fit in. She felt like she wasn't meant to be there and to fulfill that role. Moana had this deep feeling inside of her that there was something else for her to go explore and do.
This might come as a bit of a surprise to you if you haven't pondered it, or if your family had pretty strong expectations for how you would live your life....but...
We all have a feeling deep down of something we're meant to do.
It's time to tune in to that feeling.
Take a little time to sit down - to ponder, to meditate, to pray, to journal, to talk with someone. Start to discover the calling of your heart. Is it to stay on your island, or is it to leave your island and go do something else?
It can be pretty clear that you're mean to get off of the island. If this is the case, you'll feel discontent, you feel unhappy, you feel frustrated, maybe you even feel depressed. And when you have these feelings, you don't really understand why you have them, or why they're there.
Sometimes it's simply a matter of reframing our thought process and changing the way we think about things and see the world.
But sometimes it's actually a message to us, from our spirit communicating to us saying, I am not happy here, take me out to the sea, this is where I want to go!
So if you're feeling any of those emotions, that discontent at all, then I'm going to encourage you to sit down and honor those feelings and see what is behind them.
Do what makes your heart happy!
This is my message for you for today. We're taking our message from Moana!
Take a look at your own island and the rules of your island and see if they actually apply to you.
If they do, that's perfect. There's nothing wrong with being on that island with the rest of your tribe.
However, if you have some inkling that maybe you're supposed to go out to sea for some reason, honor those feelings. Follow that call that you have within you and seek out for yourself whatever that path may be.
I give you blessings as you do this, that you will find this path for yourself and that you will find that happiness that you are seeking as you go along this way.
I strongly believe that we are all here for a specific purpose and that you have a purpose that is different from those around you. Seek after that purpose, seek after your sea and your boat and you will get the help that you need as you go on your way.
