Let the beauty of what you love, be what you do.” – Rumi
I was standing in line waiting to board a plane and a man next to me started chatting with me. As we shared why we were each flying to New York, he looked wistfully at me and there was sadness in his eyes. “I can see you love what you do, and I do what I do for the money.” He looked like he was ready to cry. We spoke a bit more about discovering one’s passionate purpose and then started to board. As I was about to board the plane, he said, “Dr. Paul, you’ve inspired me. I’ve been selling myself out for money and it’s not making me happy. I’m going to start to explore what else I want to do.” I was happy to hear that.
Do you know “the beauty of what you love”?
If you had been brought up with parents who were devoted to encouraging you to be totally yourself, and who deeply valued your unique gifts and talents, what kind of work would you be doing today? Would it be different than what you are doing?
If you had parents who mirrored to you your magnificent core essence, and you grew up knowing who you are, what would you love to be doing for your work today?
Do you even know “the beauty of what you love”? Without knowing the beauty of what you love, you cannot be guided in what you do by what you love.
“The beauty of what you love” is in your core soul self, waiting for you to discover it. But if your core self – your feeling self – is hidden beneath your ego wounded self, who learned to protect you from pain by ignoring your feelings, or by judging your feelings, or by numbing your feelings with addictions, then you may not yet have discovered what you love. We can’t avoid our painful feelings without also burying the joyful feelings that tell us what we love.
If you feel lost regarding your calling in life, don’t despair. You DO have a calling and you CAN find it!
Inner Bonding to the Rescue!
In order to find it, you need to be practicing Inner Bonding in a deep and committed way, devoted to taking full responsibility for learning how you are creating your painful wounded feelings – your anxiety, depression, guilt, shame, anger, aloneness and emptiness – and devoted to fully nurturing your painful core feelings – your loneliness, heartbreak, grief and helplessness over others – with great kindness and compassion. You need to be fully devoted to being so loving to yourself and others that you are willing to feel the painful feelings of life, rather than protect against them with addictive and controlling behavior. It is your protections that are covering the feelings of your core self, which contain the knowledge of what you love.
Some of us are lucky and have always known our calling. But I have many clients who wander around trying one thing after another, never feeling like they are where they belong. Others have a sense of what they want and what they love but are afraid that if they go for it, they will fail. Others put it on the back burner because they are afraid that they will not make enough money. They suffer in jobs they hate because, like the man I chatted with at the airport, they have made making money more important than the beauty of what they love, and, like him, they generally feel empty and unfulfilled.
Your Essence Has The Blueprint of your Calling
Your beautiful essence is a unique expression of Spirit and contains your unique gifts, talents, and what you love – what has true value to you. When you discover what has true value to you to express, and you offer this to the world, you are letting “the beauty of what you love, be what you do.”
If you have children, hopefully, you are seeing and mirroring their essence. One of the greatest gifts you can give to your children is to support them in following their passions. However, if you are supporting them in following their passion, but you are not following your own, what message are you giving to them? So the other great gift you can give to your children is to role model following your own passion. But in order to do this, you need to know what your passion is!
Once again, here is where Inner Bonding comes into the picture. The more you practice Inner Bonding, the more you will get to know your essence, which opens the door to discovering the blueprint for your true calling.
