Some Building Blocks

Purpose may be with us all the time but, if it is, it has proven to be, for me, frustratingly elusive.

But I have been able to assemble a few basic building blocks to help along the way.

1. Mindfulness and the frequent application of it throughout the day has to go into the foundation. It may actually be the mortar which helps the individual blocks to connect and "stiffen up" the process.

2. In the sitting practise I do in the morning I have been watching my thoughts come and go, meander, quicken, drop off, etc. I also watch how they make me feel, what moods they stir, what memories and associations cluster around them.

3. But more recently, I have been engaging in talking to myself. Yes, talking out loud. It shifts with time and recently I have called it a conversation. A conversation with myself. But to have a conversation there has to be another. So I have invited to these conversation others; other parts of myself - perhaps we could call them other selves.

At one point I invited my Guardian Angel to these conversations. The Guardian Angel in this sense (at least) is the representative / representation of that energy which acts as go-between between the visible world and the energetic world. The conduit, or the facilitator, or the bearer of messages between this packet of energy (moi) and the energy which moves through the universe, and through me. Perhaps the Guardian Angel is that which acts as the invisible hands which has guided me at pivotal points in my life by presenting options which weren't there previously.

It's like I create this space in which I'm just sitting there, aware, and carrying on a one way conversation. Maybe that's a kind of narrative in the making. I'll make a statement, a comment, or ask a question, or a series of questions. Emotion gets added to the process. And I sit back and watch what comes, what is presented.

I could call it a conversation with the other, the best friend. Interestingly it's with one at a time, not the "whole gang."

4. Over a period of time I have noticed that I have to go through a kind of developmental progression each time - and since I do my sitting practise in the morning - this has become a way of kickstarting my day.

After I get up, I'll have a cup of coffee and a small bite of something and then start "sitting." First comes just waking up. That's tricky because I feel awake already. The words get in the way. But there is a definite sense of "entering my body and entering the space around me." The sense of energy builds when this happens. Till then it's like I'm in a virtual world but then it transitions into a more real world beyond my body and my thoughts.

5. Sometimes the conversation follows. And I use "the conversation" to bring together what I have learned, what my values are, what I'm working on, what I want to learn and to express.

6. After that I have noticed that I have begun to listen for the first piece of information, the first nugget of the day, the first choice morsel of spirit. That then becomes a partial theme for the day. I ask questions about it. I wonder how "it plays." etc. I may share that with people during the day.

7. At the end of the day I do some reviewing and wonder if my day has amounted to something or if it was for naught. This review has become a benign whip which helps to motivate me to reenter my next day.

8. I suspect that "purpose" will be the focal point for my further activities during the day. I hope that it isn't a limiting belief in the sense that if I don't "find" it that there will be many more "for naught" days. When purpose clarifies then I will have a daily choice of whether to enter that sphere and act from within it.

The problem with "waiting for purpose" is that it can foster a habit of drifting, of not doing what can be done. I am now thinking that a better strategy is to act on what I/we know now and if we have knowledge which is important that it wrong to hold it back.

9. The expression from within and the connecting to without will be for the purpose of healing that which is within me and around me.

10. It comes back to me how this process of stepping into the world, engaging it, came about for me. Several months ago, during a particularly intense conversation, I was reminded of how when I was about 12 years old, I was complaining to my parents as we were driving somewhere not to my liking that "I didn't ask to be born!" and "this isn't living, it's just existing (as in killling time)." I think I was being a real prick, but I was also a screaming over how what was happening in me around me wasn't anywhere close to an authentic expression of who I was or wanted to be.

And in recalling that, I offered a prayer of thanksgiving to the universe for this existence and for this life and that I am choosing life and living and wanting to enter my space, the space around me and to make a difference. Voila - purpose.