Our Life's Purpose

“To truly laugh you must be able to take your pain and  play with it.”
                                                                                                                                                               -Charlie Chaplin

Many of us think about our life’s purpose and know we have one, and don’t always know what it is. Sometimes our purpose is to shed light on something. Sometimes our purpose is to meet and be with our soul mate….sometimes our purpose is to break a pattern that has been repeating….and so on. Sometimes, what we think is our purpose really may not be. On that same line of thought, sometimes what we think we want and what we think we are here for consciously is not really what makes us more of who we are in our essence. Sometimes, our eyes are bigger than our stomachs and we want something that really isn’t in our best interest. Sometimes, the opposite is true where we play it small and don’t really stretch into who and what we can be. 
I am here, in my small way, to help to ease the pain and suffering and to help us to hear our soul’s voice in our bodies. I do this through my chiropractic work, through facilitating Family Constellations, and through blending Imago work, image, and meditations with my chiropractic and Family Constellations into a whole entity. I call this Body Presencing. Here, I help others to heed and to heal their souls through listening to their own voice as unique, sacred, and separate from their families, even over generations. This took many years for me to know, accept as my purpose, and to find words for it.
Once we find and know our purpose, the rest becomes easier. There are many struggles and challenges along the way. Usually, this is because we fight ourselves. We may not want what we see as our gifts, we may want something grander. We may want something familiar and because of this we miss what is under our noses…because it doesn’t smell like, tastes like, or feel like what we are used to. 
In my 2015 blogs I will be writing tributes to my father who is at the sunset of his life. He knew his life’s purpose in some ways, and in some ways he didn’t. He grew up in the south side of Chicago as part of a religious Jewish family in a very Irish neighborhood. This was also a land of gangs. My father being a small, cantankerous, angry boy had to prove himself to these gang members. He did this through fighting. Because he was so small, he won by default in that he was often the last man standing; or so he says. He didn’t care about physical pain so he turned off his pain channels. This was mostly because of a series of traumas he endured as a two year old, which I wrote about previously where he was regularly abused by his caretaker while his mother and father were at work. There were pain days and there were torture (fear) days. He much preferred the pain days where he learned to stop feeling the pain. Of course we know that the emotional pain has endured. 
Being part of a gang gave him a sense of family and he was proud of that. He always thought  he would grow up to be a “hobo” and travel around by rail box car, or a physical education teacher because he loved sports. As a high school student, his class was shown a movie in which the main protagonist was a psychiatrist. He was so moved that he knew he wanted to be a psychiatrist when he grew up. After two years in the Navy in WW2, the use of the GI bill gave him the means to go to college and onto medical school, where he became a psychiatrist. He successfully practiced for over 50 years and became renowned in his field. He helped many people to become more whole. He listened to their emotional pain and helped them to know themselves.
This was his life’s work and his passion, but was it his purpose? He always wanted more. As he got older, he wanted more money as he wanted to leave a legacy…of money. He became confused and lost his focus. He helped others in order to help himself and he helped others to navigate their emotional pain as he longed for someone to help him. He wanted to start a foundation to help other lost souls and got “hooked” by scammers who “listened” to him and supposedly cared about him. All they cared about was money…just as he did towards the end. When he was younger that confusion of self and purpose wasn’t as obvious, but it was there. He helped others for himself. There is nothing wrong with helping others for us, if we know it. Many of us are in the ‘helping’ professions to help us; and we know it. It is the not knowing, the unknowing of the intent that is our undoing. So he thought his purpose was to help others but really his life’s purpose was to listen, love, and help him. If he could have accomplished that he would have helped to break a generational pattern in our family. We had generations of family members, mostly the men, who hated themselves. 
Can we know our life’s purpose? Yes, I know we can. Can we become confused regarding our purpose? Absolutely we can. Our purpose is tied to our hearing and loving us where we can see our strengths, our gifts, our weaknesses and allow us to follow the path that is true for us. This is different from what we yearn for or fantasize about. What is hardest for us uses our strengths, makes us grow, and become fuller people. This is usually the path to our true purpose. What is yours?
If you would like help decoding yours, please feel free to contact me by sending a private email to: gail@bodypresencing.com.

Shift Your Story Shift Your Life: Guided Meditation
The stories we constantly tell ourselves often determine the paths we take in life. So get comfortable, place your feet on the floor, and close your eyes.
Tune into your breath. Feel your chest rise and fall as you breathe; 3, 4, 5 breaths.
Ask yourself, what is my life’s purpose? Then let that thought just go. Notice the next thought that comes up for you, and let it to. Ask then for help so you can know your true purpose. And just breathe.
In a few moments, in your mind’s eye, you will find yourself at a favorite place for you. It could be a waterfall, it could be by your favorite, tree, or a path you walk and you like to take, etc.  When you are there become aware of your senses. How does it smell, what colors do you see, and what do you hear?
A path might open for you….follow it and watch and listen. A person might come up to you. Ask him/her what they have to tell you.
You might hear a voice speaking in your ear. Listen. You might get a deep sense of knowing. 
Once you have received some kind of message, become aware of your breath, and count to 5 and open your eyes. Write down your experience so you can come back to it. Do this meditation whenever you are in the need of some guidance.

If you didn’t get anything this time around, no worries; just enjoy the experience.


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