Many of us struggle with the concept of what is our individual purpose for living. Some of us find our path, while others continue to struggle with a lack of purpose or meaning. What is the relationship between Personal Life Coaching, which seems to belong to these times, and the search for meaning?
Many of the fundamental changes we experience in these times can manifest as unexpected and often difficult changes in one’s personal life. Although possibly painful and problematic, these changes also offer an opportunity for you to discover and commit to your Life Purpose and highest potential. For that to happen though, the changes need to be understood, accepted, and used as a leverage to help you move forward. In this, Personal Life Coaching is a very effective approach to bring renewal in your life when you need it most.
WOULD LIFE COACHING ONLY BENEFIT ME, AS AN INDIVIDUAL?
For some it may seem extravagant or even selfish to devote time and money on self-discovery and self-development. After all, are we not painfully surrounded by some really dire needs and hardships that make spending resources on ourselves seem rather egotistical?
And yet, can you give what you do not have? Could it be that if it is your wish to treat others with compassion and honour, you may have to start with yourself? Could it be that if you wish others to be healthy and fulfilled in their lives, you yourself need to know what that means?
The care you give yourself reflects your belief in what you deserve. But do you really ever do something only for yourself? Is it not so that, in the end, many will benefit from what you allow yourself to receive and experience? Learn and develop and honour yourself and in so doing, you will in a new, more meaningful way, affect others.
WHY LOOKING INWARD WHEN I WISH TO CHANGE MY EXTERNAL CIRCUMSTANCES?
Only an inner shift can generate its equivalent transference in your external world. This begins by changing your focus from your external environment and its many perceived shortcomings, to looking inwards and discovering your own magnificence. Your perception of your external environment is to a large degree the reflection of your inner condition, insofar as your Beliefs, your Values and your Needs are manifest on the outside. To focus on the external would be a symptomatic approach, whereas if you dare to work with unlimiting beliefs, live in alignment with your values and embrace your unique abilities, any inner transformation will in turn become manifest on the outside.
SO WHAT IS THE RELEVANCE OF ‘MEANING’ IN ALL THIS?
Materialistic science would have us believe that all life is a matter of mere chance. But if that is so, how can your life have any purpose? After all, purpose implies aim, whereas within the randomness of chance there is no aim. Yet meaninglessness is a condition intolerable for the soul, and this ‘existential vacuum’ as it is called, eventually leads to boredom, neurosis and depression; all of which are alarmingly present today.
Now, for us to get to know something really well, we sometimes need to intensely experience its extreme opposite, and so the question ‘why’ is often struggled with and the answer fashioned out of a deep individual crisis. Depression, illness, divorce and loss of a job, just to name a few examples, can plunge a person into such a crisis, which really is the gateway to awakening your life’s deeper meaning. There is no abstract meaning of life. You have your own individual purpose. Your purpose is as unique as your specific opportunity to implement it and in this you cannot be replaced, nor can your life be repeated.
HOW WOULD AN INNER SENSE OF PURPOSE AFFECT OUR PHYSICAL HEALTH?
Our physical health, our vitality, self-healing ability, strength of immunity and recovery are deeply connected with the strength and passion of meaning and purpose. Yet how many doctors ever ask a patient: ‘Tell me, why do you wish to get better? What is it that you want to be healthy for?’ A personal awareness of your life purpose is a major contributing factor to your physical health.
‘He who has a why to live, can bear with almost any how’ ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
HOW CAN THERE BE MEANING IN MY HARDSHIP?
Ultimately, the meaning of your life is the meaning you give to it. But that is a very delicate and long process, with many angles to explore. In the context of this limited space, for now I will say: when it comes to your life’s meaning, which can be presented to you behind a crisis causing you to encounter pain and disappointment which is unavoidable, please don’t ever underestimate your abilities. Your life may not be the life you had expected, not the life you would have chosen and certainly not the life you thought would ever be yours. But it is the life that belongs to you. Not because you do not deserve any better, but because you are the only one in the whole world who can make something of it and in so doing fulfil your specific life purpose. The shadow in your life is not there to create darkness, but to enable you to find your light behind it.
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