What Is My Purpose?

The question, "What is my purpose?" can be asked on many levels. We can ask this potent question in the present moment, in our day, or week, or on a soul level for this lifetime. We can also ask, "What is my purpose?" in different areas of our life; in relationships, in work, with our health. Join me on an exploration of ancient Vedic wisdom, as we grow in self inquiry and curiosity about this central life question, "What is my purpose?"

Transcript

Welcome to Spiritual Psychology.

My name is Renee LaVallee McKenna and I bring my 30 plus years as a recovering addict and ex-crazy person turned therapist and shamanic healer to bring you snackable teachings on spirituality,

Psychology,

And all things personal growth.

And today I want to talk about purpose and I was traveling recently and I honestly hate staying at hotels.

Part of travel to me is engaging with different people in different places,

Having interesting conversations with people who might have a different world experience than my own.

And so I've been experimenting with an aspect of Airbnb where you rent a room from people and I'm also actually renting out individual rooms myself.

And so I had an opportunity recently to stay at a meditation center in upstate New York and I met some really lovely people there,

Most of whom happened to be from India.

And it turns out the primary practice in this center is Krishna consciousness.

I happen to have a little familiarity with Krishna consciousness from a client couple that I work with.

And Krishna consciousness is a unique form of monotheistic Hinduism and it's based primarily on the Bhagavad Gita,

Particularly the translation and commentary from the Hindu teacher Swami Prabhupada,

Who's a super inspirational person for me.

He came to the U.

S.

In 1966 when he was 70 years old and in the 12 years before his death from 70 to 82,

He wrote 80 books,

Opened over 100 bhakti yoga centers,

And taught thousands of people.

It's inspirational to me because I have a long list of books and I can't imagine that I'll live long enough to write them all,

But thank you,

Swami Prabhupada.

Let's not underestimate what's possible in this lifetime.

And so in Krishna consciousness,

Followers dedicate their thoughts and actions toward pleasing Krishna,

Whom they consider to be the supreme personality of the Godhead.

And so while I was at the center and I was staying there actually visiting my daughter for family weekend,

It's her freshman year at Syracuse University,

Absolutely stunning college campus.

It was an excellent visit.

But the generous people at the meditation center gave me access to their library and they recommended this very small book called The Four Questions,

A Pathway to Inner Peace.

And I'm going to be honest,

I do not know how to say this man's name.

I tried to find him on YouTube so I could say it,

But all they called him was Vaish.

It looks like Vaish Esika Dasa,

And I'll leave a link in the show notes with the actual spelling since I just murdered,

I'm sure,

The pronunciation.

And in my own personal growth work and in mentoring and counseling others,

I've come to believe that asking the right questions is perhaps the most important work we can do for our own development,

Healing,

And expansion.

Questions are important because they mean we are open-minded.

And if we're open-minded,

Then we can open to new possibilities and different ways of seeing and experiencing ourself and the larger system.

If we're closed-minded and we already know everything,

Then we're stuck,

We're done.

And if we're closed,

Stuck,

And done,

Then we aren't actually participating in the ever moving flowing life force that's happening here.

Being curious and teachable might be one of the most important qualities we can cultivate in ourself.

And so the first question in the four questions is,

What is my purpose?

And although this question may seem immense and unknowable,

It's actually intensely practical on many different levels.

We can ask this question in relation to ourselves,

To any given moment in our day.

We can ask it in our relationships with others,

And on the largest level,

Asking the universe,

What is my purpose here,

Will bring us guidance,

Clarity,

And answers we might not expect.

And so very practically,

On a micro level,

Asking,

What is my purpose,

Can really give us focus,

Accountability,

And greater effectiveness.

If I go on my phone to send an email and I get distracted by a social media pop-up,

I may end up posting and scrolling and forget why I picked up my phone in the first place.

That email might never get sent.

The world is perhaps more full of distraction than ever before,

And so asking myself in any moment,

What is my purpose here,

Really connects me in a very simple way with my own best intentions.

In its simplest form,

Asking,

What is my purpose,

Is a helpful aspect of mindfulness,

Can make things very simple.

Often we're doing one thing and thinking about something else,

And we're much more effective,

Embodied and present when we're actually doing what we're doing,

And thinking about what we're doing while we're doing it.

We had some really cool presentations with some of the professors at Syracuse for Family Weekend,

And one of them had us do a multitasking exercise.

We partnered up and timed each other saying half the alphabet,

And then we timed each other counting numbers back from 10 to 1.

Each of them took about four or five seconds,

And then they had us alternate saying a letter and a number,

A10,

B9,

C8,

Et cetera,

And it took about 30 seconds.

The point being that we often think that multitasking is more efficient,

And it actually,

At least with this little exercise,

It's about three times less effective.

They were talking about study habits with the kids,

And there's a lot of studies that show if the kids focus for 30 minutes,

Much more effective studying than if they multitask And the same grasp of information takes about 90 minutes when you're distracted,

And the quality of the experience is diluted as well.

The weather was beautiful in Syracuse in early fall.

I was only about a mile and a half from campus,

So I walked every day,

And while I was walking,

I kept reminding myself,

I'm walking,

That's what I'm doing right now.

This is a very basic Buddhist mindfulness practice,

To be here now.

When I'm walking,

Walk.

If I'm emailing,

Email.

If I'm speaking with someone,

Speak with them.

Be fully present.

Don't try to do anything else.

There's a very interesting phenomenon that I observe in my own life.

When I am focused and present,

Time actually slows down,

And although we might multitask because we don't want to miss anything,

Actually we miss more of what's really happening when we're doing multiple things at the same time and not actually being present and focused than if we keep it simple.

So it's most basic use of the question,

What is my purpose?

What is my purpose right now?

And we can expand that out to larger periods of time.

I've divided my day into different segments.

I like to work in two-hour blocks.

I've found that a really effective method for myself,

And when the task feels daunting or I'm resisting or procrastinating about it,

I try to do it for just 10 minutes.

10 minutes often turns into 30 minutes,

And I've been trying to establish some new habits,

Doing more artwork,

Writing another book,

And developing more consciousness around my finances.

Those are all really different parts of my brain.

That next level of purpose requires some self-inquiry.

Many of us have some kind of a running list of all the things we think we need to do,

And it can be really helpful to spend some time,

Perhaps in the morning or the night,

Clarifying doable,

Achievable goals for any given day.

Running through the whole list of everything that needs to be done in our life is often daunting,

And we're going to end up back on social media because it feels too overwhelming.

So there's a simplicity to this question of,

What is my purpose?

And a clarity.

While I was traveling,

I didn't meet with any clients.

And I love my work,

And I was kind of missing that.

There was a little bit of an empty spot.

I had to remind myself more than once,

My purpose here is to be with my daughter.

And it really allowed all that static to just dissipate from my own to-do list.

Now,

I do have a to-do list,

And again,

On the next level up,

Asking,

What is my purpose?

What do I want?

What do I like?

What do I want to focus on or create in my life?

Brings us to the larger,

More meta value of the question,

What is my purpose?

And I think it's helpful to ask it directly.

I find things much more manageable when we break them into snackable chunks.

And we could substitute the word purpose for intention and look at the different areas of our life.

What's my intention with my health and my body?

What's my intention with the food that I eat?

What's my intention in the primary relationships in my life?

What's my purpose financially,

Educationally,

Creatively,

Professionally,

Spiritually?

Once we get some clarity about what we want,

Then we can start taking purposeful actions toward those goals,

Dreams,

Or desires.

Desire fuels evolution,

Personally and on the larger system.

Desire is not the root of suffering.

The root of suffering is our dysfunctional relationship with those desires that call us forward to grow and evolve.

So this first tier of asking the question,

What is my purpose,

Is really directed by ourself.

What do I want?

How do I want to spend my time?

What do I focus on?

And taking responsibility for that and having a practice of self-inquiry,

Because as we do grow and evolve and life changes,

Those things that are important to us will change.

My purpose as a parent with college-age young adults is completely different than my purpose as a parent when I had a toddler and a baby in diapers.

The second tier of asking this question is the more universal spiritual perspective of seeking this larger soul level question of what is my purpose here as a human.

We are all part of a larger system.

We all have a role to play here.

Nothing is by mistake.

In the Four Questions book,

He offers this great little analogy of a tiny screw that's part of a larger item.

By itself,

The tiny screw might seem purposeless,

But if you remove that screw or have it in a place where it actually belongs,

Then it plays an important role.

I had just this experience last year with a laptop.

These little teeny tiny screws,

And one of them popped out of the back of my laptop right near where the hinges are for the screen to pull up.

And I didn't even notice it until I opened the laptop one day and the front part of the hinges near the keyboard actually broke.

And that's when I realized,

Oh,

There's a little tiny screw missing.

And I bought two different sets of practically microscopic screws on Amazon and was not able to find the right one.

The Lenovo website was not terribly helpful.

And ultimately,

That crack and the pulling of the screen coming up caused the screen to fritz out.

And I can't use that laptop without a monitor now because of one little tiny screw.

And if that screw had consciousness,

It might consider itself terribly small and unimportant,

Unaware of its larger role in the laptop system.

And I think many of us underestimate the role that we play.

In fact,

We may never actually have full perspective on the butterfly effect that we have on a daily basis,

On the environment,

On society,

On our relationships,

On the larger consciousness system.

So asking this question to Source,

To God,

Goddess,

Your own highest self,

What is my purpose?

Will absolutely bring an answer.

That is my experience.

It may not bring an answer by Tuesday,

But I absolutely came to this work from asking a similar question.

My drug addiction and alcoholism brought me to recovery,

But I had a lot of other deeper deficits and dysfunctions that stopped me from being able to fully function in the world,

At least in the regular nine to five work world that most people were in.

I've realized that that is not a good fit for me.

I hate office work.

I hate doing the same thing every day.

And fluorescent lights actually make me physically sick.

I was definitely a round peg trying to jam myself in a square hole.

And I returned again and again to more physical work.

And I cleaned houses for a long time,

As some of you may know,

But I knew it wasn't the full use of my gifts and talents,

Although I loved it.

I loved cleaning houses.

I did it for 12 years.

It's fabulous,

Honest,

Very healthy work.

But about five years into cleaning,

I started to ask this question,

What is my purpose?

In the 12 steps,

The 11th step is praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry that out.

So a different way to ask that question was show me your will and grant me the power to carry it out.

The simple version of that is show me my highest good.

And we are in conversation with the creative intelligent force that many call God.

And when we ask sincerely,

The answers absolutely will come.

And so slowly,

Incrementally,

As I continued to ask that simple question,

What is my purpose?

I have absolutely serendipitously been guided and shown.

And although there continue to be new aspects of purpose that reveal themselves,

I have a lot of clarity about my basic purpose here.

And I have tremendous gratitude for that clarity,

But it was not graced upon me.

I asked diligently,

Sincerely,

And for a long time and continue to.

And so I encourage you to incorporate this simple question.

What is my purpose?

In any present moment in your life,

For your day or week,

Month,

Or even year,

Clarify or consider your purpose and the different areas and dynamics in your life and bring this question into your spiritual practice.

And when we ask,

It shall be given.

Thank you so much for listening.

Blessings on your path.

Until we meet again,

This is Renee LaVallee McKenna for Spiritual Psychology.

Reviews

Boat loads of awesome truths . Helpful and practical stuff to do . Well put in a great testimonial style . It's good for me . Thank you for your "spark" ! 🙏🏻

Hi Renee, I am so glad and grateful I listen to this talk this morning. Very helpful ODAT