Discover Your Life Purpose: Easier Than You Think

The most common existential or spiritual question we ask ourselves is, "What's our purpose in life?" This profound query often leads us on deep, introspective journeys, searching for meaning and direction. However, the answer is probably much simpler than most of us realize. It often lies in the everyday moments and the passions that ignite our hearts. Instead of being a grand, elusive concept, our life purpose can be found in the small joys, meaningful connections, and the activities that bring us fulfillment and happiness. By paying attention to what truly resonates with us and brings us peace, we can uncover a purpose that is both authentic and accessible. Join Dr. Traci Moreno and Pasquale Naccarata as we discuss this profound question.

Transcript

Hi everyone,

I'm Dr.

Tracey.

Hey,

This is Pasquale.

Today we are talking about life purpose which is always a huge topic especially,

You know,

When you're reading spiritual books and I think that's always a topic that people are drawn to.

It's the number one thing I'm always asked.

What is it really?

Oh well that would make sense.

What is my purpose?

Why am I here?

Yeah,

Well I see it.

It's to wear the evil eye remover.

It's we're going to keep that away.

I see that that's usually the biggest question with when people are going through the loss of a loved one or going through a grieving process or really any sort of loss even like the loss of a job or something like that.

Even good things like becoming parents or getting married or any sort of like huge life-changing event.

People start to reevaluate their life and you can easily go into kind of like an existential crisis where,

You know,

And that's where you start really,

You know,

Asking those questions is what is the meaning of life?

Why am I here?

What is the purpose?

So how do you help people through that?

How do you answer that question?

So my favorite,

I always like to,

So I like to be pretty direct and so I always talk about the story of me saying I once went through this and I was like okay guys why am I here?

Okay when you say okay guys you're talking to your peeps.

My peoples.

And they're not all men.

His spiritual peeps.

Guys just make sense to me.

And so I remember asking several times through my life and I will tell you that the common theme is and my direct answer is,

Are you ready?

Drum roll.

Someone doing it?

It is to live.

That's our purpose.

Our purpose is to live.

Meaning and not just surviving.

To actually live and experience life.

It's experiencing life.

It's smelling the roses.

It's falling down and hurting yourself.

It's getting your heart broken,

Right?

Or witnessing or being part of a loss,

Right?

All of that is living life.

When we have our walls up,

Our defense mechanisms like to try to protect us from not getting hurt,

We're not actually living.

Now we're just kind of in survival mode.

We're just doing,

Right?

Like and we're not experiencing anything,

Right?

And so for me the short answer,

The short answer is always you're here to live,

Right?

And that means experience life.

Like literally go through it.

Yeah.

Fall off your bike.

Don't be afraid to climb a tree.

Right.

You know?

I think people should always get their heart broken.

I think it's a good thing.

Yeah.

Well,

I mean,

When you're going through it,

Of course,

Obviously it hurts.

You have to be,

You have to learn how to manage through that pain.

And I have to say with that,

Talking about that specifically,

I think the more breakups you kind of have as you get older,

It gets,

You know,

The first one is like,

You feel like it's the end of the world.

It's so devastating.

But like,

You know,

As,

As you experience them,

It be,

It,

It doesn't feel as painful.

I don't think.

No,

But you also learn like from my perspective,

Right?

And so I'm an old man and I have lived a very long,

Long life.

And I will tell you,

I've had a lot of ups and downs,

Right?

But every up and down,

I've gotten up a lot faster.

Right.

I've learned.

And the low isn't as low.

Exactly.

Right.

And then I'm always reminded,

Right?

Well,

I'm here to live.

Guess what?

I am living it.

Right.

I am taking a bite out of that apple and hopefully not choking on it,

But I am living.

Right.

Well,

I always say,

You know,

It's,

To me,

It's better to,

To do that and take,

Take the risk because the reward is so much better.

If you'd never take the risk,

Then we never have that reward.

Like we're sabotaging ourselves from the very beginning.

And then we wonder why,

You know,

Nothing good happens to us and stuff like that.

And so,

You know,

Because,

You know,

Then there's that going into like the balance of,

Yes,

I do believe that,

You know,

When we're on the right path,

Things kind of open up to you and things do opportunities will begin to come your way,

But we also have to do the work.

We also have to be like going towards those opportunities and being open to receive those opportunities.

So if we're just guarding ourselves and like,

You know,

Behind this wall,

Feeling like we're protecting ourselves,

Then I don't believe those opportunities are,

We're like blocking ourselves from those opportunities.

Right.

Totally.

I mean,

Rapunzel got out of the tower,

Right?

She didn't just sit in there hemming or drawing,

You know,

She got out of the tower and lived life because she knew she wanted to do more.

Sorry.

Don't get me started on fairytales.

They're like the worst thing that ever happened to society.

I do love that story.

I do love that story.

Just because you wish you had long hair like hers.

I do.

It's true.

Can you imagine as I'm braiding it and letting people come up?

No,

But like,

But I think,

I think like when it comes down to it,

Right?

Like,

I think one of the things that you said that I think really kind of resonates and is important,

At least from my perspective,

Which I always tell people is,

Listen,

Right now that moment may seem really bad,

Right?

And it may feel like there's nothing you can do,

Right?

Yeah.

But you have to realize it's that moment.

Right.

Right.

And,

And the thing that I always describe to everyone is,

Is if you,

If you look at like a nice tapestry,

Right?

Like if you were really close at that tapestry and looking at it,

You're not seeing a pattern,

Right?

You're seeing that piece that you're looking at.

But if you move your hands away and step back,

You start to see the grand design of it and how beautiful that art is.

Right.

Right.

That's kind of where I always go when,

Whenever you're kind of stuck in that moment,

Right?

It's like,

You can't see anything else.

You're like in a hole and you don't,

You,

You feel like that feeling's going to last forever.

Kind of like when you're sick and you have a cold and maybe you have a stopped up nose and you can't breathe and you feel like,

Oh my God,

Am I ever going to be able to breathe again?

Kind of like that.

Totally.

And you're just like,

And you just lay there hoping,

You know,

That it just miraculously goes away.

But the reality is,

Is that by the time it starts feeling better and you look at it,

You're like,

Wow,

I did learn something about myself in there in that moment.

Right.

Right.

And sometimes we don't see it right away,

But we,

You know,

I always say maintain that trust that eventually some,

And it could be,

Could be immediately after it could be a month,

It could be years later that I've suddenly had this epiphany and been like,

Oh my God,

That's why I went through that.

Because now this,

What I'm going through now,

I can make more sense of,

And this isn't as devastating as that was,

But that kind of prepped me for what I'm going through now.

Yeah.

A hundred percent.

And I mean,

You know,

The thing that I always tell people is,

Is always remember,

Right?

It's,

It's like the,

I always get this one wrong.

Seven degrees of Kevin Bacon,

Or is it nine degrees?

Six degrees of separation.

Of Kevin Bacon.

Of Kevin Bacon.

Right.

Is it six degrees?

I think so.

It changes.

Some of you have heard me say seven.

Some of you have heard me say nine.

It's actually six.

I think so.

I think it's six.

But anyways,

It's the degrees of separation,

Right?

The thing that you have to recognize is,

Is that what's happening to you.

People are like,

Who's Kevin Bacon?

I have no words.

Look him up.

Message me.

I will,

I will tell you.

He's amazing.

Um,

But like what's happening to you in this moment is probably happening to others,

Right?

For sure.

And it's all connected.

And so at some point,

That moment will actually lead you to something bigger and better,

Right?

Something more connected.

The key to that,

If we allow it to,

Right?

Because when we're faced with a challenge or some sort of trauma,

Whatever,

However,

You know,

Big or small,

We're at a crossroads,

Right?

Like psychologically,

I feel like we,

We come to a crossroads and we have a choice.

Right.

Yeah.

I mean,

And we have a choice and I know people hate the word choice,

But it is a choice.

Um,

And it's like,

Which way are we going to go with this?

Right.

We have a choice,

Whether we can learn from it and make us stronger or we allow it to tear us down.

A hundred percent.

And that,

And that goes back to the,

It's all that also leads into,

Or goes back to the choice.

Like whether if we're going to choose living over surviving,

We have to choose to grow and make us better.

If we let it bring us down,

We're just surviving.

We're like just,

And then we just continue to just tread water.

Yeah.

We're not really advancing.

Yeah.

I think that's exactly,

I think choose to live in the tower or climb out.

Like,

But you have to choose one or the other.

I know,

I don't know why she's coming to me.

It's not me.

I did not come up with that.

It just came to me,

But I think it's an important thing to recognize though,

Is that it's very much that you have choices,

Right?

It's the one thing that we're given is free will.

Right.

Right.

It's our,

It's our ability to choose what we want to do in life.

Right.

And an analogy I always give people.

And I want to say before,

Keep your analogy,

But before I forget,

Sorry,

ADHD at its finest.

So shoot,

Now I forgot what I was going to say.

Thankfully she is warding off evil with her shirts.

Oh my goodness.

It's okay.

Do your analogy.

It'll come to me.

So my analogy is always,

I,

And,

And I,

I look,

I firmly believe in right.

It's all about free will you're here.

Right.

And you're here to live.

You can choose,

Like,

Imagine yourself in high school.

Right.

And this is probably the place I always bring myself to.

And I have to do these things is I'm in high school and I have a schedule.

I can choose to follow the schedule.

I can choose to study and do well.

Right.

I can choose to call in sick.

I had a friend who every time it rained,

I grew up in Chicago.

She would not go to school because of her hair.

She chose not to come to school.

Right.

I grew up in Southeast Florida.

So every time the tanning index was an eight or higher,

We had our bathing suits in the trunk and we went to the beach.

And you left.

And that was your choice.

Right.

Look,

That is kind of the way it looks right.

You can choose how you want to live your life.

You can choose to go to school and you could choose to be behind the tennis court,

Smoking your choice.

Don't smoke.

It's not good.

Is I know I understand that it doesn't feel like a choice,

You know,

A lot of times,

Especially when you're in it,

But that's where you have to empower yourself.

And sometimes it's like a,

You know,

Even forcing ourselves beyond that may feel like a fake it till you make it type of thing in the beginning,

But you have to like,

Keep pushing through that.

And so I don't want to minimize,

Um,

You know,

That,

That feeling like it's not a choice and that it has that power control over us because it does very much feel like that.

And that's okay.

But just understanding,

You know,

That just having that understanding,

Like,

Okay,

I know it doesn't feel like a choice right now,

But it is a choice.

This is my choice of how I move forward.

Totally.

And just having that awareness alone can help you at least baby step it forward.

Yeah.

You know,

And,

And I know that the way,

Like when,

Whenever you talk about this,

Right.

Choices and kind of,

It always seems like,

Oh,

Just make a choice.

It's not that simple.

Right.

Like let's be super real.

Right.

Right.

Like it,

It,

No,

It's hard.

It's more than just a choice.

It's there struggles.

It feels impossible.

There's growth,

Right?

Yeah.

You're climbing a mountain because basically like what I say,

It's like,

Yeah,

Our,

Our body and our head are attached,

But they're not necessarily connected and they're not talking to each other.

Usually in our mind,

We can rationally,

You know,

Know that,

Okay,

This is a choice.

We can certainly rationalize the situation that we're in at the moment,

But our body and our,

Our,

You know,

Is like still going,

Yeah,

That sounds good,

But no,

You know?

And so it's like,

We have to,

We have to be able to connect them and get them on,

You know,

Get them on the same page.

And that's why I was saying,

Sometimes when we started,

It's more of like a forced effort,

You know,

We have to really like convince ourselves.

And that's where things like even like mantras and affirmations and like,

You know,

Any,

Yep.

Setting intentions and like just using like whatever tool at your disposal,

You know,

Really,

Whether it's like something spiritual,

Like crystals or,

Or meditation or working out or like getting a friend,

You know,

Holding yourself accountable,

Maybe getting a friend to help you with these things or going to therapy or spiritual coaching,

Whatever it is,

Like grab,

Like you're in the beginning,

You have to like grasp at like whatever can help pull you forward.

Just one little step.

I think that's the key is it's,

If you think of it in an energetic sense,

Right?

Like the energy's there and it's blocked.

You have to choose to move that energy through.

Right.

And that choice could be something like getting off the couch and walking to the fridge and then walking back.

And then the next two hours later,

Walking to the front door and then walking back.

Right.

But just every little thing you do helps move that energy through you.

Right.

And that's how you move through those moments.

Right.

So even like at the smallest level,

I'll even tell people,

You know,

Sometimes,

Especially with things like depression,

Right,

We lose our ability to even want to care for ourselves.

And sometimes even like,

You know,

The idea of taking a shower seems too great,

You know,

And so I would tell people,

Baby step would be just go sit under the water.

Don't even bother.

Just get yourself wet and get out.

You know,

That's better.

You're still going to feel a lot better just with that.

You don't have to do the whole,

You know,

Shampoo and soap thing yet if that's too much for you,

But just that's how like small,

You know,

How small the baby steps can be,

You know,

And even,

You know,

Even things like,

Um,

Prayer or talking to your guides or angels or whoever,

Whomever,

You know,

You,

Whatever's consistent with your belief system,

You know,

And like asking them for help,

I think helps too immensely,

You know,

When you,

When we can't help ourselves,

You know,

I do,

There's all kinds of different meditations and prayer to like,

Kind of give whatever's going on to your angels,

Like,

Just like where they say,

Give it to God,

You know,

Like give,

Tell them,

You know,

I'm,

I'm surrendering.

I'm,

You know,

Giving it to you to take care of,

I'm leaving this in your hands and then asking them for help.

Help me get through this.

Help me with the baby steps.

I need your help right now.

You know,

I think that even something like that,

People can usually muster up.

And I think that's a good start because I think it then begins to,

Um,

Instill some hope and a belief that they are going to help you,

Which then even if you don't believe it's like,

It kind of like gives you,

You know,

Just psychologically,

You know,

Even if you're like,

Okay,

I'm going to,

You know,

I'm not,

I don't necessarily believe this,

You know,

Yet,

But I'm going to try it and see what happens.

And that's what I usually tell people to try it and see what happens.

But,

You know,

It just psychologically,

It's almost like the placebo effect,

You know,

Because you're already,

You're already instilling that hope in yourself.

If you believe,

You know,

Even a little bit that there's a possibility that they could help you,

You know,

So that's going to give you more motivation to kind of go,

Okay,

I got,

Okay,

I can do this.

Okay.

I can take a step forward.

I actually will tell you,

I love the word hope.

It's,

It's one of my favorite words.

And I would even say it's everything.

It's write it on your mirror.

Yeah.

Right.

And always with a capital H.

Yeah.

Because listen,

Hope is the thing that makes things move without hope.

You know,

We,

We don't have much,

No,

You know,

Even if you don't believe it's not even necessarily,

It doesn't have to be a spiritual word,

You know,

Just even like hope in yourself,

Hope and hope that,

You know,

You'll figure it out,

You know,

To have just having that trust in yourself.

Hope's a beautiful word.

Yeah.

But now let's go a little deeper because we,

We talk about kind of the simplistic form of what our purpose is.

Yeah.

There's also an intricate side to it too.

Right.

And the intricate side,

Which maybe we won't cover like the entire thing,

But maybe not,

Maybe.

Okay.

But the intricate side is,

Is remember that throughout your life,

You're learning lessons.

Yes.

And these lessons are things that you're either going to take on and learn.

So when the next occurrence happens,

You actually move forward learning from it.

You can handle the next,

The upcoming stuff a little bit better.

Correct.

And so like,

It's an important piece to like kind of what our purpose is because for me,

One of the big things that I recognize is,

Is that I know I've lived several lives.

And so I know that the lessons that I haven't learned or the lessons that I still need to learn continue to follow me until I do learn them.

Um,

And I see that present in,

In truly in all my lives,

There's like an underlying kind of lesson that I've been learning.

Well,

And that,

I think that goes into even something else of,

You know,

Then learning to be,

This is a hard one,

But learning to kind of be appreciative for challenges that come our way,

Because that actually gives us an opportunity to learn and grow without those challenges coming our way.

How are we ever going to grow?

Because unfortunately most growth happens,

You know,

We don't really grow and everything's going our way.

So it's usually with the,

With the,

With the struggles,

You know,

That we go through that we're growing.

And so I'm kind of like,

I've learned to kind of say,

You know,

Thank you,

Or even to people,

Right.

That may seem like our,

You know,

Nemesis,

Our enemy,

Our,

You know,

People that make our life harder,

You know,

That I've kind of learned to thank them.

Totally.

You know,

Which is very,

Very difficult to do.

The thing to remember is,

Right.

When you're talking about living life,

It's the happy moments.

Yes.

They're great.

Yes.

They help you live life.

But the opportunities,

Those are the drops in the roller coaster.

Right.

Right.

And you have to remember you have choices,

Right?

You can choose to be on the merry-go-round where you just sit and it just goes in a slow circle and you don't really do anything.

And it's just,

Every day is Groundhog's day.

It's great.

That's great.

Or you can choose to have that adrenaline and you get that belt on and you're sitting in the roller coaster and you know it's about to go and then it goes and you feel it moving up and you're going,

Oh,

I don't know about this.

Yeah.

And then right when it goes down,

You scream or you laugh.

I laugh.

I laugh too.

I'm a laughing person.

And I also don't go on like the truest big scary ones,

But I go,

I go,

Right.

And every down you're like,

And then you go up again and you're like,

Oh no.

Right.

That's living.

Yeah.

Right.

I agree.

That's living.

It's the excitement of life.

You know,

If you think of in almost every case,

There's always an up and a down,

Right?

And the ups and downs help it.

And the first few are always the scariest.

Yeah.

And then they slowly start to trigger off.

But the more you live life in the way we're saying,

The,

You know,

Kind of the easier it mellows out a little bit.

Like we've saying,

You know,

The,

The downs aren't as down and we get through them a little bit,

You know,

With a little bit more ease,

You know,

And so it just gets a little bit better.

You just have to kind of,

You just have to jump in there and really just start it,

Start the process so you can start to get used to the,

That time.

And I,

And two,

It's important for us to,

Although,

You know,

We're saying,

You know,

The,

The growth happens on those downs,

But it's,

You know,

The,

The,

The highs are also very important to take advantage of and enjoy because it does help when something happens.

Cause it inevitably will cause that's life.

But when something happens,

It helps us to like,

If we're really taking care of ourselves and enjoying the high,

Then the downs don't feel so down.

And then also we remember that this is temporary.

This is situational.

And so we know that,

Okay,

I'm going to get,

You know,

There's,

There's a high coming once I get to the other side of this problem.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you know,

Sometimes it's okay to say,

You know what,

I'm going to step off the ride for a minute.

Right.

And just get my breath.

Yep.

Then you get back on.

I mean,

I remember one time we went to a theme park and we went on a roller coaster and it was like,

Yes,

I love,

This is my favorite one.

And we would go.

And then what they did was it was so slow that they let us go a second time.

Oh yeah.

We did that too.

And then we were like,

Okay.

And then the third time we went,

I was like,

Oh my God,

I'm out.

I need a break.

I was like,

I need to get off this now because like,

Oh my God,

I don't like it anymore.

You know?

So I needed a minute,

But I will tell you before I left,

It went on one more time.

Yeah.

You know?

And it's just because it's okay to take a breath.

It's okay to take a minute to like,

Say,

Hey,

Things are good.

Right.

Cause it doesn't always have to be up and down too.

We want a bit,

We kind of want a bit of everything and you have to,

You know,

Go with what,

You know,

What we're capable of at the moment.

But just,

I guess,

You know,

The biggest point of all of this is to know that,

You know,

When you're on that downturn,

There's that is just temporary and there's going to be an up or there's going to be stability,

Whichever it is that you choose.

Yeah.

You know,

I always,

I always tell people it's very much that right.

Like in that moment,

When everything feels really good,

You should probably expect the down.

Right.

Because you're supposed to live,

Right.

If you're just going up and it's always up,

My God,

You don't want to,

You don't want to ruin the up by waiting for the down,

You know,

Because I hear that a lot too,

In therapy is like,

Well,

Things are great now,

But I just know that I'm like,

Of course there is going to be,

But that's just life.

And that's why,

So don't,

You know,

Don't anticipate like,

You know,

That logically,

But don't worry about it.

Right.

Right.

Because I think it's always good to know there's going to be a few loops or a twist.

I think that just goes to having appropriate expectations of life in general,

You know,

That,

And that's so important.

And that brings us to why it's so important to go with the flow and be flexible and just kind of ride the ride of life.

I'm going to shock you.

I have no expectations.

I walk around with no expectations.

I've got rid of a great majority of my expectations.

I think that's a big,

You know,

We talk about expectations all the time in therapy.

I think that's,

You know,

Something that really sets us up for failure.

Actually,

That would be a good topic at some point.

Let's talk about expectations.

Maybe one day.

Maybe next week.

I'm on and up,

So I don't know yet.

Oh my gosh.

Someone threw me their hair.

That's gross.

She washes it if you've seen the movie.

But I think it's important just to recognize like,

I think we make kind of a little bit of fun of like what the purpose is,

Right?

But it's truly,

It's just,

It's about living,

Man.

I agree with that.

And I think it does,

You know,

It can be that simple.

And then it's also,

You know,

I think we take life so seriously.

And I think we just have to kind of lighten up and not take it so seriously.

And just kind of,

Again,

Go with the flow and just have fun with it and like enjoy as much as we possibly can.

Yeah.

Yeah.

On a spiritual perspective,

I think,

You know,

I do believe that,

And again,

These are,

You know,

My beliefs,

But from like,

If you're someone who's like really on a path of spiritual growth,

You know,

I believe like one of our biggest purposes,

We're going to go even deeper,

Is to actually remember,

Right?

It's not to like gain the knowledge or learn about spirituality or like about,

Yeah,

About spirituality in general,

But actually to remember where we came from.

What is your,

Do you have a thought on that?

I like that.

I like,

I always say like God's a jokester.

It's probably one of the funniest people I haven't,

I'm sure I know.

We're like the greatest reality show.

It's the humanity is the greatest reality show of all time.

I'm not even going to say the name of the show,

But we're better as a planet than that show.

And I laugh because it's,

And the reason I say that is,

Is because I do think it's about remembering,

Right?

And I think that when like,

You know,

It's like,

Hey,

You did good.

Good job that time,

You know,

On the planet and you really did nice.

And I was really proud of you and here's some key highlights and here's some bad highlights.

We're going to send you back and I really want you to remember all that.

But the minute you're born,

I'm going to wipe that out.

Right.

Exactly.

I'm just going to let you start all over.

What a cruel joke.

It's the funniest thing.

I think he's hilarious or she's hilarious.

They're hilarious.

And I laugh because it's like,

You know,

It is to remember,

Right?

And the nice thing is,

Is that as you start to practice it,

You do start to remember.

Um,

You start to remember some of the things from before you,

You know,

Your people may go like,

God,

That's so different.

And you know,

Or how do you know that?

And it's just because you are remembering.

Well,

Your intuition starts to increase.

So there's things that you begin to kind of know or become aware of,

You know,

Or it's like you run it or you,

Um,

You run into a person,

You meet them just for the first time,

But you have this connection and you're like,

I felt like,

I feel like we've met before.

I feel like,

You know,

We,

Yeah,

I,

You know,

I feel like we've,

You know,

We've known each other forever.

I think,

You know,

Most of us have experienced that.

I also consider deja vu,

Um,

You know,

Like a sign of that,

Of like being on the right path,

Because it's something that we were like maybe previous experience previously experienced.

So different things like that is like,

Like keys that we are,

We're remembering or reconnecting.

My deja,

Every time I have deja vu is a lot.

It's always,

I saw it earlier in my life and it's,

It's now happening.

Yeah.

So,

Oh,

I must have made the right choices because I'm seeing it.

Right.

So I take it on,

Like I'm on the right path.

Totally.

So I would agree with you on that.

Right.

So life purpose is really not that serious other than just to live your life and whatever path you find in doing so that is your purpose.

Yeah.

And enjoy it.

Summary.

Yeah.

All right.

Life.

Love it.

Enjoy it.

All right.

Thank you.

Talk to you soon.