Living On Purpose

Sometimes I feel like I want to puke and cry and run away.

Most of the time I don’t even know why. I’m one of those people that takes a really long time to figure out why I’m feeling the way I’m feeling. I always admired the people that could immediately say, “I feel like this and this is why.” Sometimes it takes me a couple of days, sometimes it takes a couple of weeks, there are times when months go by and before I realize what’s really going on.

That made me curious, I wondered why. Intellectually I know that something is causing me to feel this way. But I just can’t put my finger on it. Is it because I’m an optimist? Is it because I have trained myself to always look at the positive?

The answer lies deep within.

Deep within my subconscious mind. In the part of the brain that is automated, the part of the brain that is primal, the part of the brain thats only job is to keep me safe. Science tells us that before we feel a feeling, we have a thought before that—the thought center of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, always fires before the emotional center of the brain.

So why then, do I want to puke, cry, and run away? What is the thought that is making me feel this way? That unbiased curiosity is the most powerful tool in my toolbox. That curiosity is the place where clarity and understanding are found, where possibility is endless, and where the magic of creation begins.

Creativity is one of my core values.

And I naturally infuse it into every tiny nuance of my life and being. If there’s something I don’t like, I believe I can change it. And I know that the start to any change is one thought—one idea—even when my emotions are telling me to run away from it.

What exactly is there to be so afraid of? Could it be that my subconscious mind wants to keep me safe from an idea so big, so limitless, so unknown? By leaning into the signal that my body is giving me (to puke, cry and run away) I can truly understand why. Why I am holding myself back. Because the truth is, it is not an outside circumstance holding me back, not a person, not a situation, literally nothing. 

Just me. 

Just my thoughts. 

Just my choices. 

Just my actions.

Our results are directly related to the choices we make every day. And we get to choose our thoughts. Even when our emotions are trying to call the shots. 

The first choice can be unbiased curiosity.

The second choice can be not believing our emotions. 

Another choice can be to choose thoughts that make us feel good, choose thoughts that make us feel safe, choose thoughts that make us feel like the powerful beings we are.

Today I choose unbiased curiosity.

I am choosing to identify the real obstacle—my own limiting belief in the form of a subconscious thought—and redesign my day.

I am choosing to identify the thoughts stirring up fear-based emotions just trying to keep me from playing full-out.

Today I choose to figure out what is out of alignment with the life I’m designing for myself and consciously taking different actions.

To me, living life on purpose means:

• consciously taking action instead of relying on habitual [safe, fear-based, hard-wired] REaction,
• knowing we are not our emotions and we are not our thoughts,
• understanding we are the thinker of our thoughts, and
• believing we can be the creator of a life we love

What does living on purpose mean to you?