Changing your mind is something you have the power to do at any moment, but what about changing your creative purpose? Do you feel you were born to accomplish or create something specific that hasn’t come to pass? Are you trailing after a creative purpose that doesn’t spark your heart or interest anymore? Or is your inner voice leading you to create something completely different that will turn your life upside down?
It can be all of these reasons and a thousand more. The mind is very capable of finding and wallowing in a bed of reasons, keeping you distracted from what you need most – to clearly connect to the truth of your purpose and the feelings of desire it fires within the deepest parts of you.
The Power of a Purpose
I feel that a creative purpose changes as a result of your experiences. What you loved and wanted as a child or before a life changing event can seem almost as if it belonged to the heart of someone else. It can also mean the purpose you’ve always felt connected to has augmented to incorporate something broader, brighter and more expansive.
The power of a creative purpose is that it helps you reconnect to your clearest inner truth in the chaos, to lead you through the dark passages of the creative journey that are felt rather than seen or are still coming into focus. When nothing is certain, the power of your purpose can keep your faith strong and your motivation going.
It takes effort to want to know more, to listen and be willing to enhance your awareness and pick up on the little clues that are easy to overlook. It’s also why I chose to highlight it as the…
Theme of the Week: Staying Connected to your Unique Creative Purpose
Life experiences allow you to uncover hidden treasures within you, the more subtle things that light up your heart and lead you to something simple yet big and soul changing. It’s these shifts and changes as part of the self-discovery process that bring you to your true, expanded, creative purpose.
For example, I was a writer first at a very young age. What I couldn’t see at 10 years old was that my writing is also healing. It helps heal me, expands my heart and enables me to move through hurts that cling to the walls of my being, giving me something I could have never anticipated – the opportunity share the words that come through me to heal others. I am simply a vessel. I tune in and share what comes.
While I may have thought I was going to be a writer in terms of my career focus, my passion and purpose is to write, share, guide and teach to help others heal their mindset and release the false information you use to hide from your creative power and purpose. Within this bigger context I can help people do the deep work as well as the more practical things to help them share their creativity and passion in the world.
Your purpose can and likely will shift too, changing and morphing over time to include more, evoke more from you. However, the seed of it always starts in your soul – speaking to you through your heart. The trick is finding it.
3 Tips for a Stronger Connection with your Creative Purpose
Start with the simplest fill-in-the-blank question: I feel most fulfilled when I … and write as many things that come to mind as possible. If nothing comes to mind then just be patient and sit with it. Take a week, two weeks or more. Make an effort to pay attention to how you feel as life happens around you, what draws your attention and what drains your spirit. This gives you a starting point for what needs to go and what you want to grow towards. Then do yourself a huge favor by asking yourself this question the rest of your life.
Find something you love that doesn’t feel like work and set aside regular time to spend on it. Immerse yourself in whatever you choose and see what comes up. You might notice your mind wanders to the same kind of ideas, dreams or people. Maybe you start to feel more grounded as you get out of your mind and connect with all your senses while doing something that makes you happy. If you don’t have something you love to do, I always recommend starting with something simple like spending more time outdoors on walks. This is easy to fit into a work schedule and allows the body to be busy while the rest of you observes life going by. Walking also relaxes the mind because there is no focus, just observations to play with as you walk.
Pick something that made you happy as a kid and do it whenever you can. When I was young I lived by a church that had a swing set hidden between old trees and tall bushes. My sister and I would go there on warm summer nights and pump our legs as hard as we could trying to touch the tops of the tall greenery with our feet. It was a great way to get out extra energy and enjoy the cool summer night air while listening to the crickets. It always felt so freeing.
My new house in Colorado is just down the street from a local park with swings and other great stuff for kids. Each time I walk by it’s filled with little ones, but today I finally got my chance to chill out and swing. I just climbed on, closed my eyes and started kicking my legs. All of the mental congestion and deadlines from the week melted away as I reconnected with the real me, and I suddenly got an idea for my business that was directly in alignment with my heart and creative purpose. I loved sitting in the peace and quiet, sun on my face, taking in the moment.
If you think your creative purpose is just out of reach or still a complete mystery to you, it can help to start with these 3 simple tips. The best part of being human is that you get to choose a new path and align with a new purpose at any time – you just need to be honest with yourself about what that is without thinking your creative purpose should be something different.
Want more insight and support, connect with me for a Creative Reflection Reading or other creative services. Want to read more blog posts for extra inspiration regarding your purpose? Check out Creative Purpose and the Power of Crafting Inner Questions, Creativity Kick-Start: Practice Creative Self-Acceptance or Ways to Keep Creative Faith When your Path Suddenly Changes.
Photo Credit: EagleCam, Mark Turnauckas, M. Walcher