‘What is my purpose in life; how can I be in service?’ I asked.
I had waited months for an appointment with an Intuitive Healer and Body Regeneration Specialist. She came well recommended and had helped many people I knew through a variety of health problems. I was recovering at the time.
She answered: ‘To Live.’ and then she chuckled.
It’s moments like this where you want to flip the metaphorical table and bury yourself under a pile of non-metaphorical blankets.
Triggers can be interesting. They show up at seemingly random times and bring up such intense, incredible emotions that one cannot help but know that there is a lot of stuff here to look at.
For me, ‘To Live’ was an extremely loaded answer, and it was also the last thing I wanted to hear.
I had spent most of my life, since the age of 10, feeling very unconvinced of my life and existence and contemplated its end numerous times, getting quite far in the implementation process.
I lived, until that point, seeking direction and guidance from the external. I had wanted this Healer to tell me what specifically to do with my life, so I could go do it – save oceans, teach yoga, grow gardens. But she didn’t give me what I wanted. Like the best kinds of Healers, she showed me where to focus, so I could heal myself.
People who are deeply loving sometimes ask you:
What brings you joy?
What do you love to do?
Dream your life into existence; what do you see?
In the years of my life that were riddled with struggle, pain, and heartache, I could not comprehend joy, love, and dreams. I was desperate to not feel all the heaviness that I felt. So my response to questions like these was anger, annoyance, or panic. I would often complain that no one understood me.
Having alienated myself during this time, the loneliness was maddening, but I was learning to enjoy my own company and be true to myself. I would even experience tiny moments of joy or laughter in the emptiness of city dwelling.
It’s amazing how the tiny things, so easily dismissed or ignored, can be the difference between suffering and blossoming. This is where awareness and focusing on what we want to bring in are so powerful. It isn’t obvious when we are going through these moments. Still, a tremendous evolution is taking place within us – we are releasing our thoughts, mental patterns, and beliefs attached to the 3D physical reality that is already here. We are opening to creation and manifesting in 5D and beyond. This is the work of creating worlds and universes of possibility within.
Sometimes, this happens in big sweeping moments, but for me, it mostly occurred in those tiny moments that were speckled like diamonds in deep, dark, hard rock.
I chose not to get vaccinated during the days of Covid. My choice came from within, and I was strong in it. I did shake and quiver when day after day, conversation after conversation, I was met with pressure, guilt, and manipulation attempts. It’s a wild thing to feel so strong in yourself and then watch people you love take turns to plunge metaphorical knives into your gut. This isn’t a unique story; quite a common one those days.
I had always been good at imagining, dreaming, and building fantasies. For years it was only used to escape difficult reality. Until I was reminded that I can (and should) use all my gifts.
So, I started dreaming about what I wanted conversations and interactions with people to be like before I had them. I would place my hand on my heart when it would quicken or on my belly to soothe the ‘knife wounds.’ I recall past conversations and realize moments of anger and frustration when I moved from my centre and endeavored to allow long-buried truths to rise for acknowledgment and healing. I learned to ask for help, and even bigger, I slowly learned to receive it as well. If I particularly dreaded a conversation about the vaccine with a co-worker, I would imagine us laughing and sharing and holding each other in respect. I don’t know exactly how, but it ended up changing my words, my tone, and eventually how I showed up and engaged in these conversations. I no longer dreaded them, and I didn’t need to prepare or armour up for them. It became like a dance, as the knives would still come at me, but I’d get out of the way, quite gracefully at times.
We are not islands, and so, while these dances ended up being good for me, I still didn’t really see the point of my life. What did I do in the world, which brought me to the question of Service?
My idea of Service at the time was synonymous with martyrdom. Service was the thing I did, that I didn’t want to do, but had to do to prove myself worthy of living somehow. Shame and guilt played a big part in this, too, as the more of those I felt, the more intense the acts of Service would be. I wanted to do something “good” and “useful” with myself in the world, but because I held this idea of Service, nothing I did ever felt sacrificial enough.
If this sounds eerily familiar, it’s because this is part of the religious and often cultural expectations set up for most of us, regardless of our backgrounds. So, as we unplug from this, the question arises: ‘Who or What are we in service to?’
At the time of my asking this question, I was in service to fear and control, in that I was afraid of many things and rarely felt safe in my body. Understandably, I would seek to control situations and people so that I could exist in the moment. The thing is, I had always lived like this underneath the surface and was simply ignorant to any other way of being. I hid my fears behind a façade of prosperity and outward success, so I could hide in plain sight, until the moment I couldn’t hide anymore.
Having taken some steps to awaken and deepen my connection within the Self, I was more confused than ever. I had no idea who or what I should be in Service to. At that point, I knew that my actions had to be inspired by my deeper truths and aligned with my intentions, so this line of questioning within was very important for me. When the answers came, it was like a flood of inspiration.
Service, as it turns out, is not a static state. In one moment, we could be in service to Love, in another, to Freedom, and in another to Play – all in the same day, as it turns out! What a Life!
By no means can I tell you with certainty what the purpose of my life is. I also cannot fully define Service, as what it looks and feels like for me is different than for you. I do know that the process of Life is enriched by Service as a way of interacting and experiencing Creation. It allows for authentic joy and a relationship between Self and Other.
If you are on your awakening journey, then regardless of how you feel today, what you ate or what you did, you are already in service – not just because you are healing yourself, not just because you are contributing to the mass awakening on the planet, and not just because you are sharing your truth – though all these do help so much. But simply, because in this moment, You Live.
And Life is in Service.
