Losing Your Sense of Purpose, Finding Your Way Home and New Purpose

Based on the book, Noble Purpose, Igniting Passion for Life and Work

Know that there is only to return home and that which is most authentic and unique in you will emerge.

You are bombarded with messages from the larger culture, advertisers, self-help books, and often from your inner dialogue, that if ONLY you could change or be someone you are not, everything would be fine. Change. Change. Change. The simple truth - there is nothing to change; there is only the return to your deepest, essential self. Out of reuniting with your essence emerges the purest expression of your truth. As Mary Oliver, in her enchanted poem 'Wild Geese,' declares, you do not have to be good, you do not have to change, you do not have to do a thing. Love what you love. And, in case you have forgotten, try going home to remember.

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles
of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

- From New and Selected Poems

You have a signature form of purpose encoded deep within. It exists, and has existed since the miracle of your birth, at a cellular level, in your every utterance, impulse, and urge within you. It is your birthright. It seeks expression as a reflection of your deepest, essential self. However, even the most accomplished, successful people in the world do not always feel connected to their passion and this deeper stirring within them.

Thus the Mary Oliver admonishment to 'head home again.' Often Noble Purpose exists in its simplest and most elemental form in our recollections of home, allowing for a reconnecting to what is most essential within in us, revealing and having new access to purpose. Find a journal or note pad, take a few minutes, and return home again.

In this exercise, you will have a mini-experience of Noble Purpose (based on the book, Noble Purpose, Igniting Passion for Life and Work, QSU Publishing, 2004). You will return home to gain a glimpse of your purpose. Our earliest and fondest memories of home, as well as our current home - including favorite possessions in our home - give us clues about our Noble Purpose.

In your journal or on a notepad, reflect on a time of joy and harmony in your home as a youth. Allow images of favorite objects or possessions to come to your consciousness. Perhaps a toy or gift that gave you great pleasure. Reflect on and then select an object that you loved or that fostered excitement or pleasure for you. In your journal or on a note pad, write a brief, one sentence description of that object or possession.

Now consider your current home as an adult. Reflect on all of your most prized possessions. If you could take only one object or possession with you during the remainder of time, what would you select? In your journal or on a note pad, write a brief, one sentence description of that object or possession.

For the favorite childhood object, journal in greater detail about the characteristics, features, and appearance of that object [color, material, texture, etc.]. When complete, describe what that favorite object from your childhood invokes in you, including feelings, impulses, thoughts, etc.

Do the same for your current, favorite object. Describe in thorough detail, in your journal or notepad, the characteristics, features, and appearance of that object [color, material, texture, etc.]. When complete, describe feelings, impulses, and awarenesses that favorite object invokes in you.

When complete, reflect upon and then write in your journal or notepad any glimpses these objects give you about your passion and purpose. Finally, based upon these awarenesses, make a list of action items - things to do, persons to talk to, books to read, or support you might elicit to help you incorporate these implications, associated with these favorite possessions, into your current life and/or work routines.

Barry Heermann is an organization development consultant and the author of Noble Purpose, Igniting Extraordinary Passion for Life and Work. You may email Barry at Tspirit123@aol.com.