Are you clear about your unique gifts and talents? How satisfying are your days? Are you truly living your purpose? It is said that the hardest and easiest thing is to be fully yourself. Yet a profound, natural intelligence yearns for expression within each of us. No one can tap this potential but you.

My stand for my clients is the following: You came into this life with a unique purpose and expression that nobody else can fulfill. As Martha Graham once noted: “If you do not fulfill it, it is lost for all time.”

So what will you do with this one precious life? What gifts and talents can only you express? Is there anything holding you back? Through Purpose Discovery we work together to illuminate what is already deep inside you – your essence. You reveal our true nature when you step into authenticity. You blossom when you peel away layers of conditioning and release old, no longer productive ways of orienting in the world.

What do I mean by authenticity? I mean showing up fully to whatever life is presenting in the moment and noticing any impulses we may have to change, fix, escape, or even heal what’s happening. It means being aware of our habitual responses — and gradually releasing them. As the 19th century psychologist William James observed, “All our life … is but a mass of habits.”

What is the connection between authenticity and purpose? Our out-dated beliefs, loyalties and habits blind us to life, and shroud our purpose, making it harder to see.

Researchers suggest that up to 90 percent of our beliefs, emotions, loyalties, thoughts, behaviors and actions are unconscious. That is, the vast majority of our life is lived on automatic. We often don’t question the things we think, feel, say and do. We assume, “that’s just how it is!” Even when we are aware of our patterns, we may keep repeating them, falling again and again in the same hole. (“How did I do that again?!”) We may cruise through much of life living other people’s values, purposes and dreams — not our own.

The path of purpose begins with self-awareness. As we come to know ourselves, we can differentiate what’s ours and others’. We become familiar with our deep desires, and our way of orienting in the world. We may see parts of ourselves that we love and others that we prefer to ignore. We come to see and accept our conditioning, or strategies for dealing with the world. These patterns and strategies exist for good reason, else we wouldn’t have adopted them! It is in this journey that we learn why we are here.

It may sound odd — and our very conditioning, wounding and deep patterns can be a lantern that shows us the way to the treasure of our unique purpose and gifts. As the mythologist Joseph Campbell suggests, the journey of the hero and the heroine always begins with a wound, some injustice. There is a wounded warrior within each person.

As we truly accept all of facets of our being — our strengths, our habits and our flaws:

Our nervous systems relax, and we see things that we never saw before.
We become lighter.
We develop greater wisdom and compassion for others and their struggle.
We see synchronicities that our hard to see when we’re in a cloud of habitual reactions.
And these synchronicities point the way to our purpose.

When this happens, it’s as if the light of your true purpose, your unique essence, naturally switches on, illuminating the way. Your next step becomes crystal clear.

This path ignites a joy that comes from deep within — one of the beautiful mysteries of life.

As a Purpose Guide, my role is to act as a guide on this journey. I offer a map. And together we discover the territory, with great respect, boldness and gentleness, dignity and compassion.