WHAT’S MY PURPOSE, WHAT’S MY WHY?

"The purpose of our lives is to give birth to the best that is within us." - Marianne Williamson

Every time I reach a milestone, I do enjoy it; but very soon my mind gets fogged with this question: “What’s my purpose, what’s my WHY? Why am I doing whatever I am doing? How does all of it make sense? When on my deathbed, will I be proud of myself? Will I be content for what I have created? Is this worth-remembering and how will all this serve humanity in a broader way? Have I lived my life purposefully?”

DON'T SPEAK THE TRUTH, JUST CONFORM

From a young age, I knew that I am not someone who loves to conform. I grew up having lot of structures in place. Even if I disliked it, I kind of accepted it because I believed that I have only two options: either to conform or rebel. Conformity seemed right at that point because being a rebel meant that I would have to face lot of oppositions; more so I will miss out on the love of the people.

So, inside a rebel, I chose to sow the seed of a conformist.

This stance was my quick fix to what was present before me. I did try being a rebel, but I was shut off. I couldn’t harness the courage to be a rebel because that came at the cost of something: being disliked, lacking greater approval and less acceptance. How I took this was, don’t speak the truth; just conform. People dislike listening to the truth, they like to be validated. They want to hear what they believe is to be true. As a child I learnt this survival mechanism & went on. But there was anger brewing inside of me, almost like the volcano. I suppressed it and bottled up my anger. Found ways to numb it. Mostly became indifferent to my own emotions & feelings. I covered it up with being happy, smiling and being just a good girl who is well accepted by everyone around; kind of easy to manage & deal with. Why am I even sharing all of these? One crux from all of these is, I was living an inauthentic life. I wasn’t true to myself and lived for others and what others expected of me. I conformed. This stance sucks. But it also gave me love of people, approval and that’s what got me here where I am today. It did play a big role in my life. And I am thankful to that side of me too.

I WANT TO OWN MY TRUTH

Being in the transformative journey for the past couple of years & having comparatively raised self-awareness, this hypocritic stance is intolerable because the rebel in me wants to find an outlet to speak its truth. For years that rebel which had been shut off by me, now wants to come out & scream loudly. It is seeking for a release of this energy that is bottling inside of me and making it difficult for me to experience the nectar of life i.e. experience my essence, my authentic self. Conformity isn’t who I am; I want to own my truth. Now my heart desires for something more, something that I haven’t experienced before and that is deeper connection & intimacy with self & others. And this definitely doesn’t come from being good but being true.

For most parts I believed that rebellion is the only way. And the opposite of that is conformity. You just have two options. Hardly did I know that there was another option too and that is: speaking the truth and influence reforms & may be not. How does that even matter? Being true does. What was uncomfortable for me was whenever I spoke the truth, it wasn’t received well. I had to bear the consequences of being disliked or even face disagreements. And my challenge was to sit in that discomfort of being attacked. That’s how I felt. That meant I had to be willing to be alone. But my need for approval and validation was too strong. I felt every disagreement to be some sort of an attack to my relationship with the person concerned. I feared that this discord would now affect the relationship. It will never remain the same and I didn’t know how to regain the trust, love and positive dynamics of a relationship even after a disagreement. The best I saw and learnt was to avoid that discomfort or least, the one dominating the relationship, winning the game and having the power over other to control & manipulate. Least did I know that a good relationship is built on an unconditional foundation; there is no condition attached to it. Just like the true love between the child and the parent which is based just on love and no other condition attached to it. But to even get into that space, one must love oneself unconditionally. If you are constantly made to realize that you lack this, that you are not good in this/that, that you look certain way which isn’t right, that you must achieve something to prove your worth etc; then you start to attach conditions to that self-love. If I say myself that I will love myself only when I look this way or have an IQ of this or achieve this and that; it is conditional & when the condition is attained, another condition replaces it and this vicious spiral goes on taking you nowhere. Love can never be experienced in a stance like this.

Coming back to my question of what’s my purpose? Until many years ago, my sole purpose was to be that girl/daughter/woman/wife/mother/employee/individual who is loved by the world. This meant that I wasn’t living my truth but being someone that the world wanted me to be. I did everything I could to win them over or rather fool them. Saying what they wanted to hear, doing what they wanted me to, living a life that I should be living as per the norms of the society/the cultural background that I hail from. But as I am approaching my 40th birthday; in October this year I will turn 40. I am asking myself this question again: what’s my purpose? Is it to live life this way or to live my purpose truly? And the answer is very clear to me and that is:

My purpose this lifetime is to speak my truth, live an authentic life and influence reforms; transform people’s lives so that they can live an authentic life themselves.

Everybody operates in their time zone. It took me these many years to drop the guard, the mask and come home to myself. I need nothing from anyone, all that I was looking for outside is inside me. Now all I want is to give myself this gift of freedom to be who I am. And in this journey of mine, if I can inspire others like me to walk this authentic path towards liberation from this disempowered conditioning to be someone that they aren’t, then my purpose in life is fulfilled. That day on my deathbed, I would truly smile with no regrets. In fact, as I write this, I smile now with such a relief. Thank you, life! You always amaze me with your unique ways.

So, what’s your purpose this lifetime?

Loving you,

Priyanka

#purposefulliving #leadership #spiritualgrowth #innerwisdom #life #transformation #coaching #insights 

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