My Philosophy
Many people who come to this work feel a tension in their lives. Despite their achievements and attempts to live their own life, they remain restless for a deeper, more meaningful, more authentic life.
Most of us grow into lives we did not consciously choose.
We inherit ways of thinking, striving and succeeding long before we ever question them. However, they give us shape, direction and a sense of place in the world.
We could call this default purpose.
Default purpose is formed by family, school, culture and the strategies we developed in order to belong. It keeps us safe, it helps us function and it earns approval.
For a while, that is enough.
However, many of us recognise the cost of following a script that is no longer ours.
Some people respond by constructing a new purpose, which we could call created purpose. They redesign their life and choose new goals, new identities, more authentic ambitions. This is an important step. But it still emerges from the same personality structure that shaped the default one.
It can only take us so far.
Soul purpose is different.
It is not something we invent. It is something we uncover. It asks us to become more fully ourselves - not more impressive, not more secure, but more aligned with our deepest longings and gifts.
It is sometimes called the pathless path, because we do not know where it will lead. But we can be sure it will be a larger life than our ego can imagine.
Seen this way, purpose tends to show up in three ways:
Default purpose – the life we inherit. It often arrives as a must.
Created purpose – the life we design. It often arrives as a wanting.
Soul purpose – the life that reveals itself through us. It arrives as a longing.
Most of us move between all three throughout our lives. Sometimes even within the same day.
“If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s”
If you are ignoring the deeper call of your soul, you are not suffering alone. We live in a culture that rewards fitting in over becoming ourselves. Approval is valued over authenticity. Productivity over presence. Having over being.
It is no surprise that so many of us reach mid life unsure who we really are.
And when we live disconnected from our own soul, we inevitably live disconnected from the Earth, in denial of our own mortality. We relate to life as something to extract from, rather than something to belong to.
The ecological crisis is not separate from the crisis of meaning. It reflects it.
If we are to reverse the destruction we are part of, we must shift from being egocentric to being soulcentric and from soulcentric to ecocentric. From having more to being more. From serving capital to serving Life.
The transformation begins, however, not with ideology, but with becoming ourselves.
And becoming ourselves, especially in this modern culture, requires courage.
In my experience courage rarely responds to force. It does not arrive because we summon it.
More often, it grows when we begin with care - care for our fears, our history, our values and the part of us that longs to live more fully.
When we meet ourselves with curiosity instead of judgement, with kindness instead of pressure, we feel more steady.
From that steadiness, courage emerges naturally and can be sustained.
Care before courage.
Depth before direction.
The Harbour and the Sea
To bring this to life, I often use a guiding metaphor.
Many people find themselves in the harbour. Some remain tied to the dock. Others travel the shipping lanes. From a distance it can look like they are out at sea, but the routes are already mapped and the destinations already known.
For a while this works and serves an important purpose.
But eventually something in us begins to feel confined there and we get tired of wearing masks.
At some stage, we decide to captain our own boat.
We start the motor and head out under our own power.
Now we are choosing. Steering. Determined to create our own path.
But the engine is loud and the fuel is costly. And the noise of trying can drown out the quieter voice of the sea.
Exhausted and empty, something else begins to call us.
The lighthouse of our own longing.
When we respond to that call we hoist the sail and allow ourselves to be guided by the winds and currents of our own soul and the grace of life itself.
The journey is not predictable. There are storms, waves and long stretches of uncertainty. But these are also the very experiences that reveal who we truly are and what we are here to give.
Over time we return to the harbour, no longer wondering about the meaning of our life, but as someone carrying gifts and wisdom to share.
And then, when the moment comes again, we set sail once more.
A Deeper Exploration: If you would like a deeper exploration of this metaphor, you can read more here: The Harbour, the Masks and the Call of the Sea.
Land and People as Medicine
This work rests on a simple understanding.
Human beings do not encounter their purpose in isolation. The harbour is often maintained by isolation.
We think we need more resources, when often what we need are closer relationships.
Relationship with land, with good people, with the deeper currents of life moving through us and with the wisdom that arises from the immediacy and rawness of our felt experience.
Solitude in nature is fertile territory for soul encounter, and shared witnessing is too. We don’t need complex frameworks. We need real and embodied contact with life.
Land and people are medicine for each other.
What is the medicine that you are here to give?
“After soul encounter, you aren’t necessarily happier, less stressed or busy, wealthier, more famous or fertile, or less prone to illness or injury, the most common standards of success in egocentric cultures. Rather you no longer wonder about the meaning of your life. You no longer ask what the point of life is, yours or more generally. Even if you don’t yet know the specifics.”
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